Selecting and explaining his choice of "100 of the most important fiction films of Ireland's people, places and Diaspora" made during the past century, Michael Gray approaches his task with diligence and enthusiasm. Himself a member of that Diaspora, Gray is the film critic for The Irish Echo in New York.
Reflecting the one-step-forward, two-steps-backwards history of film-making in Ireland over most of the century, the book understandably places a heavy emphasis on the past two decades, when film production finally came to life here; a full quarter of the 100 selected movies are drawn from the 1990s, with a further 16 from the 1980s.
Inevitably, one of the problems with drawing up any finite list, even when those limits are self-imposed, is that even a cursory glance over such a list draws attention to those titles which are notable by their exclusion. Starting at the very end, the only 1999 production listed is Nichola Bruce's I Could Read the Sky, which was shown at Galway Film Fleadh last summer. It is well worth including, but so is Syd Macartney's strong sectarianism drama, A Love Divided, which already had been a successful cinema release in Ireland before the Galway event took place, but is excluded from Gray's book.
The many other obvious omissions which, for better or worse, ought to have been selected, range from Dancing at Lughnasa, The Boxer, Nothing Personal, The Playboys and Circle of Friends to such curiosities as Waking Ned, Far and Away, A Prayer Before Dying, Francis Ford Coppola's high-camp Finian's Rainbow and the risible 1937 Parnell, which uncomfortably starred Clark Gable. In their place are such dubious inclusions as The Secret of Roan Inish, The Mackintosh Man and Captain Blood.
The Irish-American gangster movie is represented in the book by the 1931 Public Enemy, but Miller's Crossing and State of Grace are inexplicably left out. Edna O'Brien's autobiographical Girl With Green Eyes, directed by Desmond Davis, is in, but Davis's superior O'Brien film, I Was Happy Here, is out.
Most glaringly, Gray's book astonishingly erases from Irish cinema history the entire work of Kieran Hickey, one of the most perceptive and accomplished Irish film-makers who persevered during the dauntingly difficult days of the 1970s.
Stills, Reels and Rushes lists its selected films in chronological order, is amply illustrated and gives key credits along with a synopsis of each film, some background information and a critical commentary. Michael Gray tips the balance firmly in favour of synopsis and background over commentary, which is unfortunate given that there already exists a definitive tome in Kevin Rockett's meticulously researched The Irish Filmography: Fiction Films 1896- 1996, which gives full credits and synopses, along with interesting footnotes, for every film of Irish interest from the period it covers.
Given that many of Michael Gray's pithy comments are apt, well-observed and commendably unpretentious, it is a pity that he did not opt for more expansive criticism at the expense of a good deal of the ephemeral information contained in his book.
For lazy readers he gives each film a star rating from one to five. Only five films receive the highest rating: Rex Ingram's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, John Huston's The Dead, Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot and two by Neil Jordan, The Crying Game and The Butcher Boy. However, there are inconsistencies with this rating system, too - given Gray's favourable comments on them, it does not tally that Poitin, Lamb and The Miracle, for example, are reduced to the two-star rating which each of them carries in this book.
Michael Dwyer is Film Correspondent of The Irish Times