Friday, February 14, 2025

Why Liam Neeson and Alan Rickman’s ’90s Political Thriller, Michael Collins, Still Speaks Volumes in Today’s Climate

It’s been nine years since the great Alan Rickman died, and Hollywood continues to miss him dearly. The actor, known for his languid voice, first made a name for himself when he played the Vicomte de Valmont in the RSC stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The role earned him a Tony nomination, and from there, he never looked back. Rickman found greater glory after portraying the German terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard. For the next three decades, the calls kept coming, asking him whether he’d be interested in this and that.

Liam Neeson is another actor who has achieved as much success as Alan Rickman. Over the years, the actor has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards. You wouldn’t imagine it given how wooden his acting has been lately, but this is the same person who wowed the world in Schindler’s List. Alan Rickman and Liam Neeson once starred in a movie together, and if random people were asked to guess what genre it was, they’d probably guess action. Neeson vowing to find and kill a villain played by Rickman? Sounds good, but their work together is a tense biopic about the Irish politician, Michael Collins.

Exploring both societal marginality and the culture of territorial bullying, Michael Collins remains a daring, compelling work by director Neil Jordan, the creator of the TV shows The Borgias and Riviera. The biographical film takes us through the life and political journey of Michael Collins, a politician and revolutionary who played a key part in the Irish struggle for independence from British rule in the early 20th century. The film begins at the end of the Easter Rising of 1916, an armed insurrection during Easter week. We see a few Irish republicans surrendering themselves to the British Army after being overpowered. They pray for mercy but are instead executed by firing squad. Because he was born in America, Éamon de Valera, played by Alan Rickman, is spared and imprisoned together with Michael Collins, portrayed by Liam Neeson.

Later, Collins walks free, gets appointed as the Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and orchestrates major guerrilla warfare against British forces. Meanwhile, De Valera heads to America to try and secure President Roosevelt’s support for an independent Ireland but fails to do so. Cracks soon form in Collins and De Valera’s friendship when Collins agrees to a peace treaty with the British in which partial independence is granted. Their relationship becomes strained and combative, with De Valera insisting on a continued fight for full independence, but his pleas are ignored by Collins, whose blind ego and swaggering authority trigger unendurable tensions. Predictably, things don’t end well.

Michael Collins was a joint production between the United States, the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom. At the time of its release, it was one of the costliest films ever made in Ireland. Thankfully, there was no loss. The film made about $8 million more than its budget and won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, with Liam Neeson scooping Best Actor. At the Oscars, it was nominated for Best Original Score and Best Cinematography. Michael Collins resonates because it is an eloquent, authentic, and sobering testimony about the basic quest for autonomy that defines us all.

It tells a story that is more than a century old, yet in it, we see political strategies that still play out today. Better yet, their implications are clearly shown. In the film, Collins heavily relies on guerilla warfare to force the British to act. It works. He is then called to London to discuss Irish interests as part of the larger Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. Its details cause friction within the rebels, but progress is made. In the modern age, political leaders still employ aggressive measures to either get their enemies to the negotiating table or force them to bow to their will. Internal fallouts are likely to happen during times like these since some harbor such deep hatred for the enemy that they see negotiation as a sign of weakness.

Silver screen icon Robert Redford delivered a brilliant performance in the satirical 1972 political dramedy The Candidate, a film rooted in reality. Beyond that, the biopic helps us understand the personal price that politicians have to pay by pushing their agendas. Collins’ revolutionary work puts a strain on his relationship with his fiancée, Kitty Kiernan, played by Julia Roberts. The same Kitty of formal dreams of the idealistic, family-pleasing nuptials, so Collins finds himself hounded by the draining, never-ending process of planning a wedding. Additionally, his political moves earn him new and dangerous foes that he would rather do without. In the end, he pays dearly for his actions, despite wanting to do the right thing all along. On top of that, the territorial conflicts we see in the movie are still common today. Putin and Ukraine, Trump and Greenland, China challenging Taiwan’s sovereignty—history keeps repeating itself.

Most importantly, we are reminded of how America has a say in just about every major political event in the world. De Valera seeks President Wilson’s support, but POTUS understands the implications, so he stays neutral. Great movies need strong heroes and strong villains. In the case of Michael Collins, there was a clear strong hero, but who was the real villain of the story? Questions have been asked for a long time, but rather than pick someone from the British side or even create a fictional character, director Neil Jordan picked De Valera. Perhaps he had always dreamed of using Alan Rickman as a villain.

The movie suggests that De Valera played a part in Michael Collins’ downfall, yet there is no historical proof of that. It’s well known that the two men feuded, but whether De Valera became a schemer isn’t known. Instead, he is remembered as a statesman. De Valera served two full terms as President of Ireland from 1959 to 1973 and was also the world’s oldest leader at one point. The film Dave is a classic political satire about a man impersonating the president. Its humor was aided by appearances from multiple real-life politicians.

Speaking to RTÉ, Neil Jordan insisted that the Oscar-nominated biopic is accurate in terms of the broader political set of decisions De Valera made at the time, but acknowledged that he might have portrayed the character unfairly. Alan Rickman also had something to say. During a chat with the Irish Times, he stated, “If I were sitting here with the de Valera family, I’d say: ‘Believe me, I spent a lot of time and energy fighting his corner, in terms of not judging him. But I can’t answer for what the director or the studio do.’ In the script, there was a very important moment—which was cut—which made it clear that he didn’t harm Collins. But other forces wanted the film to end on a romantic notion rather than a political one.”

The film has a few other flaws in history, but the director defends it, arguing that he had to find the perfect balance between telling an accurate story and appealing to wider audiences. We don’t fault him. There are tons of historically inaccurate movies out there that are still fun to watch. This is Hollywood, after all.

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