Bloom

When you go to see a movie it helps if you know a little bit about the subject. For example if you see a James Bond film it helps if you know that he is British and against the Russians – or whatever. It's the same with this film – it helps if you know about James Joyce and helps even more if you know about Ulysses which the movie has been adapted from. The book has many themes and it's a book where the words are very important – not the plot; so the director has made the words important to this movie.

One of the most famous passages in Ulysses is Molly Bloom's Penelope soliloquy at the end of the book. It starts on page 659 and ends on page 704 – it is one long stream of consciousness sentence with no punctuation and only gaps for paragraphs; it takes in many images and history of the characters. In this film the director, Sean Walsh, starts with this soliloquy and during it he cuts to various memories of her loving 'Poldy' – Leopold Bloom - in good times and to her sexual exploits with the current beau Blazes Boylan. This works very well and the music, 'Love's Old Sweet Song,' matches underneath the soliloquy perfectly. Ulysses, apart from being written in many styles of other writers of the time, has parts which are dedicated to the human body, parts which are dedicated to colours and parts which are dedicated to music and one of the most memorable pieces of music, which goes with the stunning cinematography by Ciarán Tanham, is the aforementioned 'Love's Old Sweet Song'; this music sets the mood for the whole film.

The soliloquy is used throughout the film as a counter commentary to the innermost thoughts of her husband, Bloom. He knows what she is doing back at their house in Eccles Street with Blazes Boylan, who is supposed to be there to arrange a concert tour, so he stays out of the way and goes on his famous wander around Dublin with the text being spoken in voice over as he observes his day, on June 16th 1904, as it has been his day, Bloomsday, ever since.

Ulysses is what you might describe as an epic novel. Other adaptations of epic novels, such as East of Eden, concentrate on a certain section of the book. This film doesn't do that. There will be those who might think this film tries to do too much but I don't think so; I think it does enough. It gives you a smattering of what Ulysses is about and if you have never read it this film will give you a good start; a kind of Cliff's Notes on film.

I first heard Stephen Rea play Stephen Dedalus on BBC radio and here he is coming full circle and playing Bloom. A little less rotund than one has imagined Bloom to be but perfectly cast nonetheless and very intelligently played - as is Molly Bloom by the voluptuous Angeline Ball – hasn't she come on since her debut in 'The Commitments' and why don't we see more of her?

Usually it's very hard to get anything by James Joyce produced as the rights to his works are owned by his grandson Stephen. But I believe this film was started when James Joyce's works were in public domain before the law changed. We are very lucky that a director like Sean Walsh came along when he did and made such a beautiful film. I think he was governed by the budget in a good way as I dread to think what a Hollywood Studio would have done with a massive budget.

As I mentioned this took place on June 16th 1904 and on that day the winner of the gold cup was a horse called 'Throwaway' and when Bloom inadvertently tips the winner we can see that the jockey on the horse is a certain Mr Sean Walsh.

The reason why this story is set on June 16th 1904 is because that was the day James Joyce first walked out with his beloved Nora Barnacle. As Sean Walsh took a little licence over the end credits with Bloom wandering around modern Dublin might it have been more fitting as this was a film to have a glimpse of James Joyce and Nora walking together on that fateful day?

Some of Leo Bloom may as well be in Gaelic, I simply can't divine what he's saying. I'm looking at this on a DVD with only Spanish subtitles. Ulysses is difficult enough reading. Having to try and divine the all important voice-over without captions is crazy. But I notice many artsy fartsy British Isles stuff comes to the US without subtitles. The idea is there's such a small market in the states for such DVDs that spending money on subtitles just whittles the already small profit, smaller.

The film has inspired me to go back and tackle the book again. I haven't read a line of it in 40 years. At a minimum I won't leave the book until I've read the entire Molly Bloom soliloquy. Its what Ulysses journeyed home to hear.

Let me get this out of the way first and foremost, "Ulysses" is, in my opinion, THE greatest novel of all time; it is a book I've practically worshiped within the past year and I believe that almost everything about it is brilliant, if tedious and difficult at times. "Bloom" is a competent adaptation of the source material, but, there really is no way to TRULY adapt "Ulysses" unless one was willing to turn it into an avant garde miniseries. There are so many aspects of the novel worth exploring, and most of these aspects aren't even touched upon in the film. However, as a film, "Bloom" is quite enjoyable and some sections of the novel are brilliantly and beautifully presented, particularly that of Molly Bloom's (in)famous soliloquy which closes the novel and the film. Angeline Ball pulls off Molly's hypnotic inner voice perfectly, and her voice is paired with a powerful, swelling musical score that crafts a sequence so rich in beauty it nearly matches the masterful words of Joyce.

The performances are mostly quite fantastic across the board. Stephen Rea is very good as the title character (the immortal everyman, Mr. Leopold Bloom!), although I do feel as if his narration of Bloom's thoughts was a bit too dramatic at points. Much of Bloom's consciousness delves into comical, bawdy, and ridiculous territory, and even when Rea is reading aloud lines of such a nature his voice remains soft and serious. However, in the more fantastical and blatantly comic later scenes, his performance does get as goofy as is necessary.

On all fronts, this is a respectable and beautiful motion picture.

If they made1001 movie versions of _Ulysses_, none would be as beautifully and compellingly cinematic as the book itself. This is only the second version, as far as I know. But I enjoyed watching it. I suspect it was an effort to expose the book to the Good People of Ireland (Flann O' Brien) in preparation for the big centennial Bloomsday party--so they would know what they were celebrating, and so that the hapless tourists who wondered into Dublin on that day to experience the famous Irish hospitality, etc., might know what these people were celebrating as well. He used to be on the ten-pound note, Joyce, before the Irish switched to Euros.

I don't know if this movie would make any sense at all to people who haven't read the book itself. I have read the book itself, more than once, and some parts of it more even than that.

This version appears to have been written by Gerty MacDowell, after she grew up and got a job at the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, in 2003 (it takes some of us longer to grow up than others--and it seems to have taken her 99 years). I am looking forward to the next 999 versions. Joyce is reported to have said that he meant to keep academics busy for the next 300 years. God only knows how many years he wanted to keep film makers busy (it is a fact that he once tried to open a movie theater in Dublin Himself).

Stephen Rheas' Bloom is nicely Chaplinesque, as is just about everything else in the movie, including the music. All told, _Bloom_ is a nice exercise in nostalgia for a Joyce and a turn-of-the-twentieth-century Ireland that never existed--nostalgia is like that. Nice is nice, but this movie, it goes without saying, is nowhere near as great as _Ulysses_ is a book. Most of the characters and dialogue, as best as I can remember, comes from the book itself--but you can't capture much of that in two hours. But, then, there is ... Love's Old Sweet song.

1904, Dublin. Stephen Dedalus is an English poet in the service of the Catholic Church in Ireland; Leopold Bloom is a tragic figure who walks the streets of Dublin while his wife, Molly, commits adultery with barely the regard to try and conceal it. With the streets of Dublin as our colourful background, we take a journey into the lives and minds of these three characters.

Not being a cultured man I have never read Ulysses and the fact that it was 100 years since the day the story was set was not being to be enough reason for me to change that fact. However, being an uncultured man, I was very happy to watch a film version of that book and it was this that brought me to see this film on the 100th anniversary. Before the film all I knew of the main character (title character here) was that comedian Eddie Izzard had compared him to Scooby-Doo in that he was a tragic, cowardly character that we root for but I was happy to let the film show me the book (although I was aware that it was never going to be able to capture all of it). The story is very loose when considered on the level of a traditional narrative and at times it just seems to be so lost in itself that it is impossible to really care or follow. At best it is frustratingly difficult to get into and it never really feels like it has any structure apart from the start and the end. The start is a nice introduction but the ending only has structure in a rather pat attempt to give it a) some sort of ending that relates to at least one part of the film, and b) a happy ending to boot. It doesn't work and just seems to come out of nowhere even if the dialogue is great.

The film doesn't have an epic look but that is down to it's budget and, considering that, I thought they had done well with the shoot and managed to hide a lot of it's limitations with a solid shoot. In terms of dialogue the film has several occasional highs, which I can only assume come from the book either directly or with minor amendments. However the fact that it has a nice imagination and some good visual touches does not disguise the fact that it is very uninvolving as a film and lacks enough of its other qualities to really make it worth a watch.

The cast are mixed indeed. I thought O'Conor was pretty much absent without leave for most of his scenes and I never once got more than a vague understanding of his character and, judging by his performance, I would say that he had no better grasp than I did. Rea however is great – I had no preconception of Leopold so I felt that Rea did well to deliver a solid character in a film where almost nothing was solid. Ball may have little to do but she is also good value even if the film betrays her by making her the focal point of a happy ending having barely touched her throughout (unlike her men!). Some of the support cast are good but really the main reason I stayed with the film till the end was Rea's performance.

Overall this is not a great film, although I do not know how it compares to the book because I have not read it (but other comments on this site make it clear what they think!). It has occasional highs that include some poetic dialogue and an interesting visual imagination but mostly it is just frustratingly difficult to get into and offers no hope. It tries to structure a plot but it only seems to have annoyed fans by being simplistic and annoyed me by being a failed attempt at story. Maybe worth seeing for it's good points but not a very good film at all and certainly not one fans should come to.