Ulysses at the Movies

Abstract

James Joyce loved movies, and was not averse to the idea that his 1922 novel Ulysses could be made into a film. Although the idea was explored in his lifetime, no films of the novel were made until many years after his death. We now have two films of Joyces Ulysses: the 1967 black-and-white Ulysses by American filmmaker Joseph Strick, and the 2003 color film called Bloom, by Irish filmmaker Sean Walsh. Both films are independent productions inspired by admiration for Joyces art, and they are consequently remarkably faithful to the novels language, characters, and plot. Their differences, however, are instructive. Although Joseph Strick moves the time of the film to 1960s Ireland, when the novels Irish politics may have lost much of their relevance, his film nonetheless has a sharper political edge than Walshs period film set in its own time in 1904. The two films also present visually divergent representations of Dublin, with Walshs cinematography offering a much more pastoral, beautiful, and sunny image of turn-of-the century Irish living than Stricks bleaker, more impoverished city. And in their handling of the narrative, the two films offer divergent interpretations of the novels outcome, with Strick pointing toward a happier resolution and Walsh to a less likely reconciliation for the Bloom marriage.