Salut tt le monde!!
bon ben voilà, jsui très heureuse de pouvoir participer au forum, en espérant que le plus de monde possible suivra cette bonne idée( merci aux organisateurs d' avoir proposé et bossé dessus, c' est vraiment sympa)
ptite première intervention :c' est mon exposé qui a eu lieu en cours d' option anglais ms qui j' espère pourra aussi être utile pour le reste de la classe; bonne lecture!!
audrey
ps: dsl, le synopsis était ds un journal et g eu la flemme de le recopier, hésitez pas à demander si vs voulez un résumé oral! ms à mon avis, vs perdez rien à aller au ciné pr le voir!




THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY- Commentary on the article “The Crying of the wind”





For those who haven’t watched the film yet, I’ll read to you its synopsis:
…




As you may know, The Wind that shakes the barley is the Palme d’ Or‘s winner, and the audience was also very enthusiastic about this film.
Its first weekend’s box-office was indeed about 390 000£, which is quite a success for a film realised with no special effects and low- wattage star power.





I’d like to remind you of the Irish political and social background .
1800: Union Act: Ireland is attached to the British Crown, Dublin’s Parliament is replaced by a delegation of 100 Irish deputies in the House of Commons.
1905: Sinn Fein is created, composed of different nationalist organisations which yearn for more autonomy.
1916: Easter Rising originally planned to be nation-wide, the rising is confined to Dublin and meets ferocious British repression.
1919: 1st action claimed by the IRA (Irish Republican Army) created during the Easter Rising
1920: Government of Ireland Act: the island is divided; Catholics in the south, Protestants in the north, the British Parliament mostly rules over the two Irelands. The Sinn Fein disagrees and creates a new revolutionary assembly in the South.

 the film begins in 1920 and shows the desperate reaction of the Irish militias against the British troops called “the Black and Tans”
But the situation becomes worse when the Irish part themselves about the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The war for independence turns into civil war.
6 dec 1921: some Irish people agree with it and the fact that the south becomes a dominion whereas the north still belongs to the United Kingdom.

 It’s obvious that Ken Loach sides with the nationalists who refuses any improvement in their independent fight if it doesn’t concern the whole country. The British soldiers are indeed always showed as butchers.
Loach gives a simplified scheme of the situation with the goodies on one side and the baddies on the other side. British chiefs are always showed insensitive.
Reality is far more complex than that, and to me, what wrote Edward Lawrenson in his article is relevant, Quote:”by robbing the soldiers of any glint of humanity he misses an opportunity to probe the ethical dilemma Damien himself suffers”


 It’ s a film, ok, but Loach claims to give us a historic film, quote:”it’ s a story we’ ve been wanting to tell because it’ s a moment in history that people tend not to be very clear about: the war to get the British out of Ireland, the deal that was IMPOSED and the consequent civil war ” it’s about the fact that he uses the word ”imposed” is meaningful, it’s true that the British somehow threatened the Irish with a war if they had refused the treaty.
But, at that time, like Teddy, most of the population was fed up with violence and desired peace.
The nationalists “goodies” blamed the violence of the English army, but they were cruel as well.
War is war, and the audience must be critical and know that a film needs heroes and naughty people. As long as you’re making a film, you can’t be neutral, moreover it wasn’t his aim, you express your own views about it , even if it deals with historical events.


 About the critical sentence” the concern is less with the dynamics of collective struggle than the tragedy of individual martyrdom”, I quite disagree with it. Through this movie, doesn’t Loach tell us that active groups can exist when individuals who make personal sacrifices for the community’s sake(like Damien) gather?
I think that if Loach shows us individual characters rather than groups, it’ s because everyman and every woman had to chose their side in Ireland at that time; even if you were not involved in the IRA, you had to make political choices in your everyday life . The whole fighting Ireland suffered from individual martyrdom in a way.


 In my opinion, beauty of landscapes, actors: quite impressive, a remarkable work has been realised;
I just wanted to point out an interesting comment of Edward Lawson: “the linking of repeated instances of state-sanctioned terror to the same location may, on paper, suggest the tragic circularity of Irish history, but it comes across on screen as an implausible and heavy-handed bit of symbolism”
The Irish song recurring in the movie at precise moments is representative of the Irish culture and is also a good means to emphasise the tragic aspect .

 As for me, I really found Loach film worth watching. It’s directly addressed to us.
Through this dark Irish period of history, Loach expresses his opinion about groups fighting for independence.
Insome way, we have the same problem today : with some countries of Eastern Europe, Middle-East.
The current situation is much better today, as in summer 2005, the IRA committed itself to lay down arms.
I quote Loach: ”all those things are constantly with us, as in Iraq. All liberation groups are called terrorists”.

Let’s talk about this idea now.
What do you think about it?

tank you véry muche pour ça, ça va être utile (surtout que j'ai presque pas pris de notes sur ton exposé, jsuis désolée, mais ça allait trop vite pour moi, comme la plupart des cours d'ailleurs ... )

merci, c'est vraiment sympa, et si les optionnaires d'anglais Presse arrivent à mettre leurs exposer en ligne, ça fait vraiment à la fin un très bon entraînement, structure et vocabulaire, pour ceux qui passeront l'oral (et il seront nombreux, allez cette année on déchire tout !)





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