Short and sweet

McCarthy, the actor perhaps best known for his turn in “Pretty in Pink,” enjoyed immediate success when he first appeared in the Brat Pack movies of the 1980s.
O’Connor was a short story author born in Cork at the turn of the 20th Century. Known for his controversial work as well as his mastery of the realistic short story, he was also a scholar of the Irish language.
It was that depth of O’Connor’s storytelling was enough for McCarthy to want to turn O’Connor’s short story “News for the Church” into a film.
While he does not get the same recognition as Yeats and other giants of Irish literature, O’Connor caught McCarthy’s eye. He had read O’Connor’s collected work many times over, and found O’Connor’s tale of confession and liberation resonant.
“I first read the story about 15 years ago,” he said last week, “and I bought the rights to it then.
“But being 20-something years old, I did absolutely nothing with it,” he added laughing.
It was only a little over a year ago that McCarthy sat down and decided to try his hand at the project that had alluded him so many years earlier, this time, at the suggestion of his wife.
After writing a screenplay, he went through the process of reacquiring the rights and setting out to find a cast he would direct.
The cast of four is made up of Nora-Jane Noone, Jarlath Conroy, Frank O’Sullivan and James O’Reilly.
McCarthy had been enthralled with Noone’s performance in “The Magdelene Sisters” and felt she was made for the lead part in “News for the Church.”
Set in a small Irish village in the middle of last century, O’Connor’s theme of what McCarthy calls the perils of solitude and the price of self-empowerment ring clear in the 18-minute film.
“When I read this story, I knew it would make a good film. A lot of it is O’Connor’s,” he said of the finished product.
McCarthy shot the film over two days with a very “do-it-yourself” ethic. The first day, focusing on the confessional scene was done in Vancouver while McCarthy was acting another movie filming there.
“I had access to all the equipment,” he said.
The second day of filming, which was done in Ireland, proved trickier. Noone was in the midst of exams at her college in Galway when filming was to start.
“We had to work around her exam schedule,” McCarthy said. “There was literally a car waiting outside her school to take her from her exams and across the country for the sunset shot on the cliffs.”
“News for the Church” premiered at the Galway Film Festival and will make the rounds to the Cork Film Festival in October.
It will have its New York premiere at the fourth annual Film Fleadh Shorts Night on Thursday.
“Short films are sort of the stepchild of the art world,” McCarthy said. “In Europe they are more accepted . . . although I did consider taking three of O’Connor’s stories to make a hour and a half movie.”
O’Connor was born Michael O’Donovan in 1903. After a tumultuous childhood, he became immersed in learning with the help of a teacher, Daniel Corkery, who himself was an accomplished author and linguist.
O’Connor took up the Irish language with fervor and, with it, writing. After a short stint in the Irish Republican Army during the Civil War, he began to publish his work. He soon became known for his short stories that displayed prowess with realism in dealing with war, his childhood, and the culture of Catholicism in Ireland.
Eventually considered controversial, and after having some of his works banned in Ireland, he took to the U.S. and continued his craft, teaching at Harvard and continuing to write.
McCarthy was born in Westfield, N.J., and he was attending NYU when he got his first big break, as the lead in a movie called “Class.” As part of the Brat Pack of up-and-coming 20-somethings, McCarthy was making a movie a year throughout the 1980s and ’90s. Today, he is based in New York City and counts his blessings.
“I feel lucky that I don’t have to have a day job,” he said, laughing.
He also takes great pride in his Irish heritage.
“I used to travel there quite a bit,” he said of Ireland. “I went there every year for about 10 years. It’s changed a lot.”
Like his literary mentor, McCarthy boasts Cork roots, “or so they tell me,” he said.
McCarthy is looking forward to see how “News for the Church” is received in New York before embarking on another adaptation.
“I was thinking about asking for the rights to one more story,” he said. “His estate and his widow have been really great.”
“O’Connor is a wonderful storyteller,” McCarthy said. “He’s just shockingly underappreciated.”