Ryan's Daughter is a 1970 film directed by David Lean. The film, set in 1916, tells the story of a married Irish woman who has an affair with a British officer during WW I, despite opposition from her nationalist neighbours.
The film has been criticized for its perceived depiction of the Irish proletariat as uncivilized compared with the occupying British forces and the Catholic Church.
Trailer
I wrote an Amazon review crystalizing my disgust with this film which is a disturbing example of English propaganda created at the same time Irish people in Northern Ireland were being discriminated against and subject to bigotry and for many generations the Irish generally in the UK mainland has been treated in a racist way. This anti-Irish bigotry was also well established in the USA - thanks to the English influence there - so David Lean was obviously playing to that market as well as to his homeland.
ReplyDeleteA thoroughly disgusting example of lower middle class English bigotry, David Lean like for example John Osborne found a niche for themselves in publishing and creating a career out of objectionable and offensive views, highly class based, which today would be completely unacceptable.