My First Time …’The Quiet Man’ Might Be The Most “Irish” Film Of All Time

St. Patrick’s Day is a Catholic feast day honoring the life and death of St. Patrick, a medieval man who was kidnapped by Irish slavers and who dedicated his life to forgiving his captors and converting the pagan Irish clans to Christianity. St. Patrick’s Day is also the day that people all over the world celebrate the kitschy trappings of Irish culture with parades, pub crawls, and shamrock-covered paraphernalia.

In the last century, Ireland has seen itself fractured and rebuilt by the stresses of civil war, sectarian violence, economic upheaval, and mass migration. Irish culture has always been defined by the concepts of pride, luck, and loyalty, but Irish culture is also defined by how its scattered children romanticize the abandoned homeland. It’s a magical place of leprechauns and their mythical pots of gold, lucky four leaf clovers, and wild Irish roses that endure despite the odds. Sounds nice, right? Unrealistic, but nice. And so, after watching John Ford’s sweepingly romantic The Quiet Man for the first time, I’m tempted to say it might be the most “Irish” film of all time.

The Quiet Man follows John Wayne, the most American man who’s ever lived, as he returns to reclaim his family’s cottage in the quaint town of Innisfree — no relation to the famous Irish bard W.B. Yeats’  “Lake Isle of Innisfree.” He’s come full of his dead immigrant mother’s wistful memories of the place and he falls in love at first sight with a spirited red-haired country girl played by Maureen O’Hara. His one problem? Her pugnacious brother won’t give her over without a fight, or with her dowry.

The film is utterly charming from start to finish. At times, it feels half like an Irish version of Taming of the Shrew and half like the best tourism film ever made for a foreign country. It’s Ireland at its most “Irish”: everything is emerald green, tweed, plaid, and good-humored. Innisfree is a magical place where old customs like matchmaking are still alive and Catholics and Protestants politely tolerate each other. Sure, there are references to the IRA, but that violent part of Irish history is played off like an inside joke.

Wayne’s character, Sean Thornton, doesn’t pick up on all these jokes, nor does he understand all of Innisfree’s antiquated customs. He is repeatedly called the “Yankee” and told that his choices to paint his door green or plant roses where they won’t grow is evidence of his Americanism. The Quiet Man is Ireland through the Irish-American’s eyes, and it’s proud of it.

The Quiet Man won two Oscars. One was for its director, John Ford, and the other was for its cinematographers. Even now, 63 years after its release, it’s stunningly beautiful to look at. But the thing that keeps people coming back to the story must be the tempestuous romance between Wayne’s Sean Thornton and O’Hara’s Mary Kate. I mean, just look at this first kiss:

Things might be hot and heavy between the two, but they aren’t easy. The high-minded American doesn’t understand why Mary Kate’s dowry means so much to her. He thinks she’s being materialistic, but she’s displaying pride. Her worth and independence is tied to her mother’s money and her family’s heirlooms. What Mary Kate doesn’t understand is that Sean is reluctant to fight for anything because he is escaping from his past as a professional boxer who accidentally beat a man to death in the ring. He falls in love with her spirit, beauty, and old-fashioned romanticism, much as she falls for his rugged American confidence. Their every kiss, every fight, and every wind-swept, rain-soaked embrace is a metaphor for the loving, but still imperfect, relationship that America and Ireland have with one another.

I realized within ten minutes of watching The Quiet Man that it takes place in an Ireland that’s never existed in real life. It’s the idealized version that ex-pats and their children romanticize with family lore, broken shanty songs, and kitschy paraphernalia. And yet, that’s what Ireland is for millions of her displaced children. Sean Thornton never had to contend with the starvation of the great famines, or partake in the violence of the Easter Uprising. He never had to choose between Eire and Ulster. He didn’t have to contend with months of poor weather and a farm built on rocky, untenable land. He only knows that his family was “happy” in Ireland. His grandfather and father were sent to Australia to toil and die in a penal colony. His mother died in America. When he murders a man in the ring, he sees Ireland not only as a place to escape to, but as an innocence to reclaim. This is why everything in The Quiet Man is so green, so pristine, and so pure. A dispute can be settled man-to-man with a brawl and a pint, and true love can happen in an instant on a sunlit day.

The Quiet Man may not be an accurate depiction of real Irish life, but it is perhaps the most honest portrayal on film of what Ireland means to its lost and scattered children. [Watch The Quiet Man]

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[Photos: Republic Cinema]