Winter Movies: James Joyce's The Dead

The first snow came early this year in Western New York. Though I may say this every year, for the first time "ever" I was shoveling in the dark in mid-November. This early December morning when I woke up in the dark, it was as I suspected: a light snowfall extending the anticipation of the holiday season had fallen again. Though it was only what amounted to a half inch or so, it was just enough to set the pavement aglow under the street lights. The pre-Christmas snowfall of winter, or more to the point, the apparent magic of it, often brings me back to a short story by Irish writer James Joyce from his collection The Dubliners, and by extension to the 1987 film adaptation of the same story directed by John Huston, James Joyce's The Dead.

The year 1987 was my first as a college undergraduate, and, like many, home from my first semester in December, I felt a sense of invincibility and wonder. It was my first time away from home for an extended period of time, and my first taste of (arrested) adulthood, code for being able to make all the dumb mistakes that first year college students do. This was also a time of little meaningful reflection allowing for the quick dismissal of mistakes with little understanding of what things really meant.

While on break, my brother and I went to a local art house to see The Dead. I was armed with one World Literature course (and the powerful understanding of the literary term "epiphany"), so, of course, I was an expert in artsy-fartsy books and movies. So away we went. For all I really knew at the time, The Dead could very well have been a Victorian era zombie movie, but what I experienced that evening (and much more powerfully so in later viewings) was a moving meditation on insecurity, nostalgia and love.

IMDB describes the film thusly: "Gabriel Conroy and wife Greta attend a Christmas dinner with friends at the home of his spinster aunts, an evening which results in an epiphany for both of them," and despite the seemingly dry set-up its the actors and director Huston who turn the subject matter into compelling viewing. The lead actors, Angelica Huston (Greta Conroy) and Donal McCann (Gabriel Conroy) bring to life the two "literate" characters with performances that are both celebratory (the dinner party) and melancholy (Michael Furey's final romantic gesture).

Those ready for a moving holiday film experience will not be disappointed. For myself, rewatching the film over the years, its themes naturally grow more meaningful to me, just as the feelings at Christmas time become grow more complex. For whatever reason this movie is very difficult to find online, so a public library may be your best bet. Even better yet read the short story in The Dubliners before seeking it out.