-- SPOILER --
Usually it is a single actor who steals the show in a movie. I would say that in RYAN'S DAUGHTER it is the crowd. They viciously torment Michael on several occasions. They are sadists when they snub, and then later punish Rosy.
Earlier in the movie, they act like foolish adolescents at the wedding of the characters played by Robert Mitchem and Sarah Miles.
Through their pettiness and outrageous behavior, I believe they steal the show.
Evin Crowley gave a truly repulsive performance as Maureen, one of the nastiest, most hateful characters I've seen in any film. I note that she got a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress - very well-deserved, I think.
I was also amused to see Arthur O'Sullivan and Marie Kean (Mr. and Mrs. McCardle) turn up in Barry Lyndon together as well, although they didn't share any scenes.
Mr. Rusk. You're not wearing your tie!
You're quite right about "Maureen" and her hatefulness. I guess the more staid and "solid citizens", Mr and Mrs. McCardle surprised me. While being leaders of the community, they seemed so petty. Mrs. McCardle helped spread the rumors about Rosie's affair. Mr. McCardle gave some weak excuse to the priest when the crowd punished Rosie. I forgot specifically what he said (something to the effect that he hadn't planned for Rosie to be punished in that way), but it was obvious that he rejoiced in Rosie being publicly stripped and her hair being shorn.
There were a couple young men who ogle Rosie as she is being shamed, and laugh at the spectacle. After the crowd lets her go, the young men follow her to her house and leer inside her window to see her in her exposed state.
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You seem to know about Irish culture in that era. I curious if it is was
also unrealistic for the crowd to "punish" Rosy the way they did?
Was the public stripping something that they did? I could see the shearing of the hair (which other cultures have done), but public stripping is something
with which I am unfamiliar.
Also, if they are a conservative people, would the stripping have been done in the presence of of the men? And would children be present? What I'm saying is that if they meant to punish her, would they have humiliated her in the way they did for all to see, including men and boys?
If the priest had not stopped the punishment of Rosy, what would the crowd have done to her? Would they have killed her? Would they have paraded her naked throughout the streets?
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This was 1916, 33 years before Ireland finally became an independent nation after centuries of British oppression. It was not that long after the Great Famine of the mid-1840s (everyone in the village must have had a family member who starved to death or emigrated because of it), and mere months after the Easter Uprising.
To cooperate with the hated British was the worst possible sin that an Irishman could commit. And for an Irish WOMAN to add adultery with a Brit to informing -- she was lucky the mob didn't string her up.
One of my college classmates was Irish. He was a sweet-natured man, but more than a century after the famine, that subject in particular, and British rule over Ireland in general, could really get his (dare I say) Irish up.
They were doing worse to girls who.went out with British soldiers in the early 70s. I despise them!
shareCrowd behavior was the weakest aspect of the film, and it is always the weakest element of any epic, incl, Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, Evita. They all advance together in unison, all facing the camera, shaking their fists in a way I've never seen individuals in a crowd ever behave. Directors should just avoid scripts that require the hordes to be filmed. It's always weak/risable.
shareThey are the moral majority. No wonder the film was hated. It's a masterpiece of the vanity of morals.
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