Looking Out From The Pier

By Gwen Orel

The Pier, a lovely, thoughtful film written, directed and produced by Gerard Hurley, who also starred in it, had its American debut at the New York Irish Center in Queens last month. The screening quickly sold out.

It is Hurley's second feature film; his first, The Pride, a film about domestic abuse in the "Irish gypsy" community in America, was screened at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2008.

Hurley, who is from West Cork has lived in America since 1987.

He first worked in construction and then in camera and art departments of independent film productions in New York.

The Pier premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (in the Czech Republic) in 2011.

I moderated a discussion following the screening at the New York Irish Center.

Audience members said they felt echoes of their own families when they saw the drama of an immigrant who returns from New York to see his dying father, only to discover his father isn't on his deathbed yet.

Together they pick the scabs off old wounds, and the wounds finally begin to heal properly - including the poisonous scar left by the death of the mother and wife by drowning when the immigrant, played by Hurley himself, was only a young man.

Hurley is of medium height with an expressive face that manages to be at once open and communicative and restrained. It's a great face for film.

"I am so glad it ended happy. I would have died if it didn't," said an audience member. "Your sense of humor is outstanding, but that's an Irish trait."

Hurley said he would like to dedicate the film to Dennis Ward. The crowd applauded.

MAKING THE FILM

"What I've been doing, the film has been invited to festivals all over the world," Hurley said. "It's been to over 30 festivals so far, and I've been invited to more.

"Where I'm at now, I'm planning to do a small release in America, in 10 cinemas around the country.

I started a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter about a month ago (www.kickstarter.com/projects/1610111536/the-pier is the site; it seems that the film has already made its goal) to pay for the release of the film, to hire booking agents and PR agents, and raise the awareness of the film.

"It's not an arthouse movie and not a flat out commercial movie. It hasn't really been embraced by the industry at all.

"I believe in it and what I'm trying to say in it. It's also about my world, not by some rep in Hollywood that doesn't (obscenity here) where I come from.

"A lot of portrayals of Hollywood I find disrespectful. This is my kind of scene. The Irish thing gets a bit out of their depths," he said.

Making the film, Hurley said, took six months, but the "guts of the movie were shot in about eight days. About 30 percent of the film was shot here in New York.

"The sets I built for June Driscoll's kitchen were built in upstate New York. The hospital stuff was in Rhinebeck, New York, and the rest was in Ireland."

CASTING THE FILM

"Did you know Paul Johnson, who played the father?" someone asked.

Hurley answered that a friend who had seen him in Belfast in a play recommended with him, and he offered him the role after talking to him.

"You know in your gut when you meet somebody whether it's person or not. He's not from West Cork but from Wales," Hurley said, to a general gasp of surprise.

An audience member said she knew someone going through this with her father, who "wakes up every few days and says, 'Did I go to Heaven yet, am I in Purgatory?' You portrayed it so beautifully. It definitely evoked that experience of family life."

"How did you get Lili Taylor?" asked an audience member, who also wanted to know what book the character Gerard was playing when he was reading in the car. Hurley answered that one first.

"A book on birds," he said. The character Taylor plays, Grace Ross, is a bird-watcher and an American tourist. She represents the possibility of hope and kindness to Jack.

"I have known Lili for a long time. We have a history; I have been writing scripts for a long time. When I gave her this she read it and said she'd do it. She's not doing it for the money; she just really liked the part. She's not really a mainstream type of person."

I asked him about keeping the many hats he wore on The Pier separate.

"My first love is writing," Hurley said. "I love the process of making a film, directing. I would prefer just to be writing and directing and that's it."

THE THEMES OF THE FILM

Hurley said, "My inspiration was to honor honor where I come from. I've been fascinated by primary relationships, with male relationships in particular.

"It's very easy for guys to be angry or to be humorous but anything that falls in between is very difficult. You couldn't have two more opposing characters, sort of.

"The father's always shot against the land, and the son's always shot against the water. Just kind of a representation of their characters.

"It's addressing a lot of stuff. I think we all try to hide from who we are in some way or other.

"The character of Larry, this man going through his life not able to express himself. He was totally in love with his wife, and could have gone to his grave without expressing that to his son at all.

It's particularly tragic because there's so many people like that."

I pointed out there was a laugh in the audience when Larry says "June Driscoll is a nice woman, a kind woman, and some day I'm going to tell her so myself."

Someone in the audience said, "The (dead) mother is a leading character in the film. Woman is a navigator of emotions. It's visiting the grave of the mother when they were able to speak to each other."

"I'm glad you picked up on that," Hurley replied.

Asked if the film draws on his life, Hurley said that he is an immigrant, like the main character. The pier in the film is in fact where his father lives, across from that house. Other than that, it's not autobiographical.

"I can relate to being a constipated emotional male, and shrug off my own inner demons," he said. "I can relate to that."

And what happens to the horse? I asked.

"That's in the sequel."

Gwen Orel runs the blog and podcast New York Irish Arts.