THE OUTCASTS
dir. Robert Wynne-Simmons, 1982
95 mins. Ireland.
In English.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5 – 5 PM followed by remote Q+A with Robert Wynne-Simmons moderated by filmmaker Dónal Foreman
(This event is $10.)
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29 – 10 PM
“The dead are our friends.”
This fall, Spectacle is thrilled to host the United States premiere of a new restoration of Irish filmmaker Robert Wynne-Simmons’ long-unavailable gothic masterpiece THE OUTCASTS.
Rich in earthy pastoral detail, THE OUTCASTS is a slow-burning feminist film disguised as a piece of folk horror. Set in 1810, the film depicts a remote farming community which is thrown into crisis by the arrival of a charismatic, wandering fiddler named Scarf Michael (Mick Lally). Most enamored by him is Maura (Mary Ryan), the daughter of an impoverished farmer, noted and often ridiculed among the townsfolk for her slowness and shyness. Maura gravitates to Scarf against the wishes of her family and neighbors, and is soon suspected of practicing witchcraft in her own right. As she suffers scapegoating from her community for being “mad”, Maura pushed further to the margins.
Before making his directorial debut with THE OUTCASTS, Wynne-Simmons was one of the screenwriters on Piers Haggard’s infamous THE BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW (1971), a similarly windswept cult film steeped in mythology (albeit on the British, not Irish, countryside.) Seamus Corcoran’s telephoto cinematography and the unfakeable locations of Ireland lend THE OUTCASTS the quality of a 95-minute dream (or nightmare) sequence in the vein of McCABE & MRS. MILLER or PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, like a fairy tale hazily remembered. Ultimately, THE OUTCASTS is an unsparing and mesmerizing parable of stigma, prejudice, faith and tradition, interrogating how and why people become monsters in the eyes of others.
“I began filmmaking at age 11 and from the beginning I was fascinated by the way in which films appeared real, but in fact were more akin to dreams. Within a film it is possible to step seamlessly from reality into fantasy. The Irish Famine caused such a huge change in the country that in the minds of later storytellers memories of a time before the famine mingled with the world of folk tales. THE OUTCASTS takes place in this liminal landscape between myth and reality.” – Robert Wynne-Simmons
“Robert Wynne-Simmons’ successful attempt to take Irish myth and embroider it with a modern psychological understanding of people’s fears, needs and desires should have been a beacon for the nascent Irish film industry. We certainly have enough lore to draw on, and centuries of struggle and misery to dramatize.” – Irish filmmaker and critic Paul Duane, RTE
At the time of its release, THE OUTCASTS was the first fully Irish-funded film in over half a century. Spectacle is honored to host the United States premiere of the new 2K digital restoration by the Irish Film Archive for IFI’s Digital Restoration Project, painstakingly scanned from original 35mm negatives (which were, themselves, printed from blown-up 16mm film.) The restoration was funded by Screen Ireland/Fís Éireann with further support from Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE) and EU Creative Europe MEDIA programme.
ROBERT WYNNE-SIMMONS is a novelist, poet, composer, librettist and film director, best known for his screenplay of BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW, now regarded as one of the originators of the Folk Horror genre.
DONAL FOREMAN is an Irish filmmaker based in New York City. For more information please visit his website.
Special thanks to Robert Wynne-Simmons, Eleanor Melinn and Sunniva O’Flynn (Irish Film Institute), and Dennis Bartok and Craig Rogers (Deaf Crocodile).
(poster by Stephanie Monohan)
