A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Colour, 35 mm
Ireland, 1976, 93 min
Section: Joseph Strick

Synopsis

James Joyce published his autobiographical novel Portrait of the Artist in 1916 (drawn from the earlier text Stephen Hero) and only then started working on his most famous work Ulysses (1922). Despite this fact director Joseph Strick made his Ulysses first: the story of the maturation of the writer’s alter ego, Stephen Dedalus, came to the silver screen ten years after Strick’s first Joycean adaptation (though Dedalus appears in Ulysses as well). The narrative preserves the basic features of any classical biography, following the hero from early childhood spent in the family circle (age three in 1885), through his harrowing stay at a religious school, and on to university. As artist and man, Stephen’s formation is complicated and gradual: he takes a stand against hypocrisy within the church and family, confronts prohibitions and taboos with reality, and does not remain indifferent to period political and popular currents regarding Irish independence and its subordination to Great Britain. This formally more conventionally executed film ties into the atmosphere and relaxed internal storytelling rhythm of Strick’s Ulysses, to which it creates an independent counterpart.

About the director

Joseph Strick

Filmography:
Muscle Beach, 1948
The Big Break, 1953
The Savage Eye, 1959
The Balcony, 1963
The Hecklers (TV), 1966
Ulysses, 1966
Ring of Bright Water, 1969
Tropic of Cancer, 1970
The Darwin Adventure, 1970
Interviews with My Lai Veterans, 1970
Janice, 1973
Road Movie, 1974
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1976
Never Cry Wolf, 1983
Criminals, 1996