Calvary

Calvary (2014)

Timing: 1:42 (102 min)

7.097/10
910

All about film

Video 1

Photo 18

Actors and characters

Release date

2014-04-11

Country

Ireland, United Kingdom

Production

Lipsync Productions, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, Octagon Films, Reprisal Films

Genre

Drama

Budget

$0

Revenue

$3 593 460

Website

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/calvary/

Director

John Michael McDonagh

Actors

Brendan Gleeson, Chris O'Dowd, Kelly Reilly, Aidan Gillen, Dylan Moran, Isaach De Bankolé, M. Emmet Walsh, Marie-Josée Croze, Domhnall Gleeson, David Wilmot
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

John Michael McDonagh

Producer

Flora Fernández-Marengo, Chris Clark, James Flynn, Peter Hampden, Ronan Flynn, Robert Walak

Operator

Larry Smith

Composer

Patrick Cassidy

Artist

Audition

Jina Jay

Editing

Chris Gill
All team (105)

• The role of Freddie Joyce was played by Donal Gleeson – the son of Brendan Gleeson, who played the lead role. Father and son appear on screen together in only one episode.
• The film features 12 supporting actors – the same number as Jesus had disciples.
• The image of Father James was created by actor Brendan Gleeson and director John Michael McDonagh towards the end of work on the black comedy "The Guard" (2011). The role was written specifically for Gleeson.
• In one episode of the film, the priest sleeps leaning against a stone, while his daughter reads a book. He wakes up, asks how long he slept, and hears in reply: "Centuries... whole epochs." The book his daughter is holding is by Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937). He was an American writer, poet, and journalist who used the word "epoch" so often in his works that it practically became his calling card.
• Father James says the phrase, "The Lord is great, and there is no limit to His mercy." This is a quote from the book by Austrian writer and essayist Jean Améry (1912-1978) called "Suicide" (1976).
• The little boy who helps Father James, played by Brendan Gleeson, is the same one who came to the aid of Gleeson's character in the film "The Guard" (John Michael McDonagh, 2011).
• The screenwriter and director of the film, John Michael McDonagh, drew inspiration from the work of French director and screenwriter Robert Bresson, Ingmar Bergman’s "Through a Glass Darkly" (1962), and Robert De Niro's performance in Ulu Grosbard’s crime drama "True Confessions" (1981).
• Some episodes of the film were shot in the village of Rush in Ireland, at a railway station, in a portside pub, and in a pub.
• While talking to his daughter in one of the scenes, Father James mentions a guy he refers to with the word Cicsathoin. From Irish, Cic sa thoin translates as "to give a thrashing" or "to beat up".
• Owen Sharpe's character says the phrase "Whadda hear, whadda say." This phrase was spoken by James Cagney's character (1899-1986) in the famous gangster drama "Angels with Dirty Faces" (Michael Curtiz, 1938).
• This is never mentioned in the film, but the elderly American writer is named Ryan in the plot.
• The film takes place in the village of Easkey in County Sligo in northwest Ireland. The filming also took place there.
• The second part of the so-called «Suicide Trilogy».
• Dylan Moran's character urinates on a copy of the painting «The Ambassadors» (1533) by the German painter Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). This work is exhibited at the National Gallery in London. A skull is depicted in the lower center of the painting, which can only be recognized when viewed not directly, but from the side.
• At the end of the film, a priest (not Father James) reads the book by atheist and science popularizer Richard Dawkins, «The God Delusion» (2006).
• In the finale of the film, Brendan Gleeson's character regrets never finishing «Moby Dick». This refers to the 1851 novel written by Herman Melville (1819-1891). In Ron Howard's adventure drama «In the Heart of the Sea» (2015), Gleeson played Thomas Nickerson, who once survived the sinking of the whaling ship «Essex». It was the sinking of the «Essex» on November 20, 1820, in the Pacific Ocean that inspired Melville to write the novel.
• In the opening scenes of the film, the future murderer of Father James is not played by Chris O'Dowd, but by a stunt double whose name was not even listed in the credits, but whose voice sounded like O'Dowd's.