By Brian McIlroy
Published in Irish Studies Review, January 2025.
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Abstract

Scholarly attention within the field of documentary cinema in the last twenty years or so has developed a new branch of studies often focused on what is termed the essay film. This mode of expression commonly associated with post-war filmmakers such as Alain Resnais and Chris Marker frequently seeks an appropriate mode of address to come to terms with a traumatic past. This essay endeavours to bring some of the insights of critics on the essay film, such as Nora Alter, Timothy Corrigan, Philip Lopate, and Laura Rascaroli to an Irish context. In particular, the essay films by Peter Lennon and Mark Cousins are discussed as best seen and understood within this new context. It is argued that these films seek to unburden the suffocating effects of Irish history and serve as a kind of medication for past and ongoing injuries. An effort is also made to build an admittedly imperfect genealogy of the Irish essay film by reaching back to the 1940s and referring briefly to the work of Liam O’Laoghaire and subsequently George Morrison in the early 1960s.