Angela's Ashes

Angela's Ashes is a 1996 memoir by the Irish author Frank McCourt. The memoir consists of various anecdotes and stories of McCourt’s impoverished childhood and early adulthood in Brooklyn, New York, and in Limerick, Ireland. It also includes McCourt's struggles with poverty, his father's drinking, and his mother's attempts to keep the family alive. Angela's Ashes was published in 1996 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. A sequel to the book, 'Tis, was published in 1999 and was followed by Teacher Man in 2005.  

My Review of Angela's Ashes

           

5—The Perfect Sundae



Parker’s haunting imagery is both shown and told with profound nuance; even the relentless Limerick rain cannot wash away the ashes of the dead.
—Tanja


When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.
—Frank McCourt

Director: Alan Parker
Starring: Robert Carlyle, Emily Watson, Michael Legge, Joe Breen, and Ciaran Owens

Brief Synopsis of Angela’s Ashes

Angela’s Ashes unfolds as Frank and his family attempt to escape the poverty endemic in the slums of pre-war Limerick. The film opens with the family in Brooklyn, but following the death of Mary Margaret, the only daughter, their days are colored black. They return home to Ireland, only to find the situation there even worse. Prejudice against Frankie’s Northern Irish father makes his search for employment in the Republic difficult, despite his having fought for the IRA. And when his father does find money, he drinks it away.

Angela’s Ashes didn’t receive the stellar accolades that I felt it deserved. It could be that, due to the essential trimming of the book to fit into a screenplay, certain characters and events were lost; this might have been the major hindrance to the picture’s triumph. Devoted readers are notably protective about their favorite books, and often impossible to satisfy.

In this particular case, the film led me to read the book and, because I had no preconceived notions about Angela’s Ashes, the movie did not disappoint. Indeed, I favoured the film over the book.

There were so many great facets that Parker combined, telling Frank’s story with sweetly sad undercurrents. Parker’s eye for cinematography (You may remember his work in Evita and Mississippi Burning) transmits the dreary ambience of the slums of Ireland. The streaming voice-over from Frank’s perspective accompanied bleak shades of gray, dilapidated residences divided by narrow alleys, and puddles riddled with urine that pooled along the doorways. If Alan Parker’s intention was to lay the McCourts’ burdens on his audience, I would say that he succeeded. A child’s coffin is in itself a hard thing to see, but the soulful music of John Williams not only added to the richness of this picture, it almost carried it—like shadowy pallbearers. His compositions were ghostly and tragic, their presence narrating right along with McCourt.

Hear John Williams’ theme music to Angela’s Ashes

A little tidbit about John Towner Williams . . .

John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. His resume includes some of the most popular and recognizable film scores in cinematic history, including E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, Indiana Jones, Schindler’s List, Memoirs of the Geisha, and War Horse. It’s not surprising that John has a long-standing association with Steven Spielberg, but what is surprising is the fact that the only major film that John didn’t compose pieces for was The Color Purple, which just so happens to be included in my top-ten movie list.

This is why having the perfect soundtrack is crucial. For the gloom of Angela’s Ashes, Williams shifted the emphasis of power to the basses and cellos, creating a deeper sound that fit the nature of this heartrending memoir. This method evoked dark connotations in the character and depicted the key theme of the film. The lows in certain scenes, such as the child’s funeral procession, were perfect examples of the brilliance of both director and composer. This is where a deep command of the entire symphony orchestra and the massive string section created a spectacular intent. Because you heard the pain, you felt the pain.

Of course, the production designer, Geoffrey Kirkland, who only brought out the sun for those brief moments, showed Limerick in its true form. And when the sun did shine, the intensity was subdued by what lay rotting in the alleys, like the dead flowers of yesteryear. Kirkland’s gift is his ability to recreate a world that stays true to its former identity. I watched this film with my father, and certain scenes made him weep. My father was born during the Second World War. Constant rain was not what added to the suffering in Croatia (former Yugoslavia); the common thread that Kirkland weaved through his imagery was the hungry, dirt-covered faces and looming despair. This is the universal language of affliction.

Of course, the performers in this exquisite film brought all of these elements together. The three actors who play Frank at the three different stages of his life echoed each other to a rhythmical height. Not only were the actors similar in appearance, but they all exuded that same brokenness. Smiles were rare. And if the McCourt children did smile, it was over nut-covered chocolates and Cleaves Toffee and hopeful giggles when Senior McCourt gobbled up a sheep’s eye during Christmas dinner. The dim and low-angled camera shots had grown Frank following his father through the dark alley, and in return, his father shooed him away. It was as sad as it was final. Yet the mastery occurred when Frank sat with the blind woman next door, listening to Billy Holiday. There was a transforming simile taking place in this scene, and the message was strong. Billy Holiday gave Frank hope. Billy Holiday sang in the wet alleys of Limerick.

Yet the particular standout performance would have to go to Watson. Her facial expressions and mannerisms, and the way in which she held her cigarette and blew the smoke with such passiveness was hauntingly spot-on. This was a woman who had endured unrelenting disgrace and had nurtured bitterness towards her husband who thought that he was too grand to pick up coal from the streets in order to provide warm milk for the baby’s bottle. Her submissive aggression transmits beautifully, and we’ve all known women like Angela; their stories are grim and torturously heroic, where triumph is momentary and happiness seems unfeasible.

The tragedy of this story is that it’s true; even more tragic is the fact that it’s a story many have known and lived. Malachy McCourt’s wish was to buy pretty dresses and patent shoes with silver buckles for Mary Margaret, the family’s first daughter, who died while in America. Her death was the first gravestone, the first domino, that tipped the others.

In the end, Frank is a man with a clear dream, and that dream is to see the Statue of Liberty again. His early chapter about the Atlantic Ocean, where “great sheets of rain gathered to drift slowly up the River Shannon and settle forever in Limerick,” is metaphorical because the ocean is the only way in which Frank can achieve his goal of returning to America. The ocean is calling for him.

Again, this is where Parker pulls it all together: Frank turns around and lets go of his former selves and the wounded part of him that he leaves behind to rot in the shadows of wet Limerick, and the flowers of yesteryear.

You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.
― Frank McCourt