In our series of analogue large format screenings, we are showing David Lean’s undervalued epos RYAN’S DAUGHTER (GB 1970). Originally planned as an adaptation of Madame Bovary, the screenplay writer Robert Bolt transposed the melodramatic love story to Ireland during the Easter Rising of 1916. In a village on Ireland’s southwestern coast, Rosy Ryan (Sarah Miles) marries the schoolmaster Shaughnessy (Robert Mitchum), but there is no passion in the marriage. Rosy finds a lover in the new commander of the English army camp, thus going against the church, her father and her fellow citizens’ nationalism. Freddie Young, the cinematographer on Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965), photographed one of the most visually impressive films ever shot in Ireland, in 65 mm format. We will be screening an original print whose colors are somewhat paler and which has Swedish subtitles. (19.5.)
