[Quinn's] new film, Song for a Raggy Boy, explores the evils of the religion his father so unquestioningly backed, exposing the savage sexual abuse and brutality in a Catholic orphanage in the 1930s. It's a subject he touched on in Evelyn (2002) too, and one of which he has personal experience.I looked high and low, needle-in-haystack-like - watched every movie I could lay hands on (even the bloody, gory, violent ones, fast-forwarding through the bad bits). Have collected a huge stack of photos, quotes, interviews. Watched every scrap of live footage of him I could find, hunting for something.
"One of my earliest memories is of refusing to say my prayers when I was four, and being caned by the brother,"
he says, in his gently slurring brogue. "And I went to a Christian Brothers' school in Dublin at 13. And you were immediately told, through harsh joking that was full of jeering, always to stay away from this one brother. And you knew, even then, that it was serious. Fifteen years ago, when Sinead O'Connor started talking about sexual abuse in the family and the Catholic church, everyone wanted to burn her at the stake. But everything she talked about turns out to be true."
At an early age, Quinn began to rebel against authority, starting at home. "I tried to have strong intellectual arguments with my father; I condemned him as a hypocrite," he says. "I saw the Father tear out an old man for being five minutes late at church, embarrassing him to younger people. How dare ye, you know? My father would say, 'If you're in my house you'll do as I say' - and so I left."
In Practical Magic, something in his eyes caught me - I now name it pleading, though at the time I saw it as the most heartfelt, penetrating look I've ever seen anyone give to another human being.
It wasn't love, but I couldn't name it.
It stopped me in my tracks, mesmerized me; I watched certain scenes over and over, looking for clues - what *is* it that has me so caught up with this guy?
Is it his acting? No, not particularly - I wouldn't even say that he 'acts', per se, so much of *him* comes through in every character. Which I don't mind, he's gorgeous, beautiful, stunning, to me.
But after watching films old and new, seeing him play angry scenes, boring scenes, ineffective scenes - I was watching Benny and Joon for the second time in two days, and simultaneously searching for interviews of AQ and/or Johnny Depp (who is *also* welcome in my 'house' any time :-) that might shed light - I came across this interview, and realized what it was.
I think a person can only portray a depth of suffering who has actually *suffered*.
And I couldn't reconcile that with the winsome grin, the quicksilver, flashing, lightning-like shifts in mood from storm cloud to sunshine, blindingly brilliant with those insanely gorgeous blue eyes, like something from another world.
I was about ready to write his 'earnestness' off as being sort of an 'impairment' resulting from being immersed too long in the brine of Catholic brainwashing he experienced as a child, when I realized: He's serious because he *hurts*. He may have had a lot of 'success' in this fickle, mercurial and capricious world of 'entertainment' and films, but where he really *shines*? Is in the small, off-the-beaten-path bit parts and supporting roles.
And it always leaves me hungry, wanting more. I want *more* of him.
There are a couple of films I'd really like to see, the library doesn't have them.
***
I think what threw me is that all the other interviews I'd read up to that point didn't mention Quinn's fights with his father, or that he'd eventually rebelled and left home - I had the image of a tight-knit, very close, somewhat bookish family with a storyteller mother and a - scholarly? - father.
Suddenly the pieces fell into place, and it makes sense to me.
***
My *own* father was verbally and emotionally cruel, but in a more passive way - not *quite* to point of *actually* tearing wings off flies - he wasn't *physically* destructive - but the PAIN of the verbal lashings -
I can't describe it. There were no beatings; no sexual abuse. No alcoholic tirades.
Just a slow, steady, painfully excruciating drip of sarcasm, an acid bath that ate away at me whenever I was near (forget what symbol I came up with), and that *still* eats me around the ยต unit, because she stood by and watched.
***
Sigh.
I don't even feel guilt - I *couldn't* have escaped - I was neither aggressive nor rebellious by nature, but rather a quiet, bookish child (another reason I relate to Aidan), and the 'covert' nature of my father's abuse (?) was so - insidious? per-something - pervasive? no.
It crept in, gradually crowding out everything else til there was nothing but this gigantic acid bath of SHAME washing around inside me, eating away at my guts.
I think I've been draining it out, a little at a time, trying, meantime, to find *replacement* images so that I could GROW instead of *only* removing the 'weeds' from this internal 'garden' of mine - need also to plant some FLOWERS there, as well.
So, I'm mustering every resource I have to nurturing this little grasshopper plant (! :-) and helping her find what she needs.
In that vein? I submit here a couple more Aidan Quinn images that have been helping me through the past few weeks:
Oh: And I'm *not* going to feel guilty for not 'standing up' - that's the other thing I was going to mention.
Girls (women?) get it coming and going - we get verbally stomped on and abused, and yet are not *allowed* to speak up for ourselves when we're 'squashed'.
So I don't blame myself. I've done the very best I could.
***
Quinn shows a sort of righteous (and rightful!) anger in Song for a Raggy Boy that is beautiful to behold.
I had to sort of 'sneak up' on some of the more violent scenes - fast-forwarding through them while peeking through my fingers, until I gradually realized I could stomach it because, from *my* viewpoint, his 'violence' was always, and *only* just as much as was *necessary* to stop the bully.
So in a way I got to see 'comeuppance' without ever having to personally bloody a knuckle or black an eye. Which is a *good* thing - I've felt the surge of physically violent anger inside me, but never *acted* on it. Just got really, really intimidating to whoever was pissing me off...
***
His violence, even in the one 'thriller' of his I've watched so far (The Assignment, with Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley [definitely had to fast forward through a lot of that! some bits I'll probably never watch...])
...seems somehow - justified? righteous? (again). As if it has some *meaning*, serves an actual *purpose*, as opposed to the usual gratuitous Hollywood bullshit. Maybe the parts I couldn't watch *were* the gratuitous parts - he *is* an actor, after all.
We'll see.
(When I watched Song for a Raggy Boy, about a week ago, I felt that was the first role I'd seen him in where he'd sort of 'come into his own' - he'd always felt - not quite 'focused', or maybe, 'in focus'? somehow, in the other things I'd seen him in to that point. As if he was looking for something, like me.
And when I saw him in Raggy Boy, I thought, "There he is, that's what I've been looking for - *there's* the Aidan I could see inside those eyes all along."
It's all there - the anger; the bewilderment; the focused fury when provoked by what he perceives to be unfairness.
And then the gentle smile, the kindness - 'tenderness', as one critic put it, about his role in the one film I haven't been able to lay hands on yet, namely, This is My Father.
I wonder how often these films are some sort of long, drawn-out, 'healing' journey for the people who make them? Maybe that's what *everything* in life boils down to, in the end?
Hm.
***
I found myself looking for more recent movies, to see what's become of him, where he's gone, what he's done.
He disappeared for a while - his 'heyday' as a romantic lead seemed to last til he was about 45 - then, suddenly, his 'comeback' (such as it has been) suddenly seemed to demote him to a father figure and sidekick action hero. (Not *both* in the same role, obviously - either/or!)
Until Songcatcher. Now, I *just* imdb'd that, and it says '2000'. So he was 40 when that film was made - wait, I just looked up Music of the Heart (with Meryl Streep), and that was 1999, and he was still the drop-dead gorgeous, beautiful hunk I think of him being during that decade (or so).
So what happened in 2000? Hm. Still sorting this puzzle out - I feel very protective of him (as I mentioned before), and I *need* him to be okay. It's painful when you finally, *finally* find a 'hero', and - well, something*bad* happens to him.
I guess that's it - he's had his share, just like anybody - his first daughter, who's nearly 20 now, is autistic, and the second one, who's - about 12, now? - has, in the photos I've seen, a pronounced harelip. She seems to be otherwise normal, full of life and devoted to her daddy (as *he* seems devoted to *all* of them, his whole family, I mean).
But there's still something missing.
Why would I *care* whether an *actor* gets something he needs????
Well, maybe if I can figure out what *he* needs, I can figure out what *I* need. Because it seems like it's the same thing, somehow.
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