Michael Creagh does a Titanic on the Irish Famine
I came across a link on Facebook’s Marketplace for a movie called “The Hunger” by Michael Creagh, curiosity made me click the link.
It seems this “advertising creative” (creative what though?) has spent 4 years working on a script for a movie loosely based around the Irish Famine, which apparently has always been known as “The Hunger”, which to me sounds more like the title of one of those woeful Sarah Michelle Geller attempts at a horror movie.
“Having committed to the famine and done my research, I was still missing a story. What kind of story could best communicate the tragedy of the Famine in film language? One day I came across an old passage in a book that described the relationship between Ireland and England as a love affair between a vulnerable passionate woman and a strong but neglectful man. It was then that I realized that the story of the Great Hunger must be told through the age old medium of the love story.” - Michael Creagh
Heartbreaking, isn’t it? I wonder if he can get Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet involved somehow. Or better yet! Ben Affleck.
Of course only someone that calls themselves a “advertising creative” could employ such a blatant Hollywood device on a topic so sensitive for many. Rather than take a historical event and producing a movie that encourages debate and learning they’d rather manipulate you with Notebook-esque characters. It’s almost as if the massive loss of life and suffering simply isn’t enough to draw the audiences in.
“The Irish Famine was one of the most formative catastrophes, not just in Irish history, but in World history. Yet, 160 years on, it still has not found it’s place on the silver screen. We believe a market exists for this movie among the huge diaspora in the USA, Europe and Australia who claim descent from Famine survivors.” - Michael Creagh
So his motivation to attempt, yes attempt, to make this movie is because “a market exists”. A market in emotional manipulation perhaps?
The famine is an extremely sensitive chapter in Irish history that I really do not think will benefit from a Hollywood make-over that would do nothing more than stir anti-English sentiments that have more recently been absent.
A thought provoking, intelligent movie that would aim to teach a lesson from history (rather than capitalise and exploit) would be much more appreciated by the “huge diaspora”.
Thankfully, this is only a script, for now. Let’s keep it that way.
