Irish Film Institute -FROM THE VAULTS: WORDS UPON THE WINDOW PANE

FROM THE VAULTS: WORDS UPON THE WINDOW PANE

Director: Mary McGuckian

100 minutes, Ireland, 1994, Colour, 35mm


Mary McGuckian’s atmospheric period piece is an adaptation of a one-act play by W.B. Yeats in which he explored the occult, a subject in which he had a life-long interest.

Set during a series of séances hosted by the Dublin Spiritualist Society in 1928, the spirits of Jonathan Swift (Jim Sheridan!) and the two women who loved him too passionately – Stella (Bríd Brennan) and Vanessa (Orla Brady) – act out the torment of their tragic triangle through the mediums of Miss Henderson (Geraldine James) and Mrs McKenna (Geraldine Chaplin).

The film’s fine cast also includes Ian Richardson, John Lynch and Donal Donnelly.

This month’s From the Vaults was chosen in light of this year’s One City One Book choice – If Ever You Go: A Map of Dublin in Poetry and Song, which inspired a richly varied programme of films about Dublin poets and poetry in this strand and in our free archive screenings, Archive at Lunchtime.

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