The Agency's Posts

BEAUTY; PRICES: OUT OF SIGHT: Does beauty have a price? A casual spin through a department store reveals that it does, and....
Read More>

Is There Danger Lurking in Your Lipstick?: A soft pink, a glowing red, even a cyanotic purple — millions of women and girls apply....
Read More>

Richard Dreyfuss: A lesson in civics, and civility: The actor expounds on the state of education, filmmaking and John Gielgud. Richard Dreyfuss....
Read More>

Will 'The World's End' be 'the most entertaining movie of the year'?: Labor Dayis almost here and we're deep enough into the calendar year that when a film critic....
Read More>

Acting Workshop: The Crazy Teacher: Shark Week 2013: Acting with Sharks - watch more funny videos
Read More>

Disney's 'Planes' allows John Cleese's inner Bulldog to soar: The Monty Python alum talks voice-overs, technique, his return to London and getting together....
Read More>

Oscars Outdoors goes back to the drive-in with 'American Graffiti': George Lucas' 1973 ode to youth and rock marks its 40th year with an Oscars Outdoors screening....
Read More>

Ben Stiller's 'Secret Life of Walter Mitty' to be NYFF centerpiece: At CinemaCon this April,20th Century Foxwas the rare studio that showed its award-season....
Read More>

'We're the Millers' Subverts Family to Construct It: NEW YORK — The cast of "We're the Millers" didn't exactly immerse themselves in....
Read More>

Matt Damon On 'Elysium,' Turning Down 'Avatar,' And The State Of Hollywood Today: It's startling that even Matt Damon -- who very few people would argue against being the....
Read More>
Capturing a Tradition, Blow by Blow
Posted on: 12/07/11
Share/Save/Bookmark
 

THE big, bald man at the end of the bar extended a huge hand and introduced himself as the filmmaker Ian Palmer and his slighter, gentler-looking companion as the bruising bare-knuckle boxer James Quinn McDonagh.

It was a traveler’s trick, of course. The bald joker was himself the Mighty Quinn, king of the gypsy bare-knucklers in the documentary “Knuckle,” a rib-cracking look at the brutal fistfights long used to settle feuds between clans of Irish travelers — nomadic families that go back centuries in Ireland.

“This is always how the families have sorted things out and stopped larger violence,” said Mr. Quinn McDonagh, 44, who heads a clan of about 200 people, mostly in the Dublin area. “Other people use guns and knives to settle things — we do it through our fists.”

He had cut loose the publicist who coordinated the interview and ordered up pints of beer, so that a proper discussion could be conducted here in this Irish bar in Hell’s Kitchen.

Next to him, Mr. Palmer, who made “Knuckle,” looked as if he knew the drill. After all, he had hung around with Mr. Quinn McDonagh for 12 years to make the film, which opens in select theaters in New York City and Los Angeles on Dec. 9 after an impressive run at festivals, including Sundance, Hot Docs in Toronto, and Irish Film New York (where it was named best film last month). HBO has even aquired the rights to make a series based on the film.

This is hardly the first star turn for traveler culture. The 2007 cable series “The Riches” featured Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver as the leaders of a con-artist traveler family in the United States. “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding,” a British reality series that began last year, chronicles over-the-top nuptials there. And who can forget Mickey O’Neil, the Irish traveler bare-knuckle boxer played by Brad Pitt in Guy Ritchie’s 2000 film “Snatch”?

“Knuckle” is fueled by the personality of this big man, who is undefeated in fighting for his family name against the Joyce and Nevin clans.

Never mind that the three clans themselves are interrelated with, as the film puts it, “brothers and cousins fighting brothers and cousins.” One family member in “Knuckle” points to the absurdity of the self-perpetuating feuds and fights: “At least wars are about something.”

The feud in the film was supposedly started by a torched tinker’s cart at a horse fair, and renewed in 1992 by a deadly fight outside a pub, for which Mr. Quinn McDonagh’s brother Patty served prison time for manslaughter.

In the film, Mr. Quinn McDonagh is derided as Baldy James by rival clan members who send taunting videotaped challenges, a modern wrinkle on this centuries-old tradition.

“The fights help settle a score, but then the next tape arrives and everyone gets stirred up again,” Mr. Quinn McDonagh said in the interview.

As a referee scolds two boxers in the film, “It’s what you say on the videos that keeps the fights going.”

As it happened, videotape helped open the door for Mr. Palmer. In 1997, he videotaped a Quinn McDonagh wedding and the family then invited him to shoot Mr. Quinn McDonagh fighting a Joyce. Mr. Palmer followed a triumphant Mr. Quinn McDonagh, 20,000 Irish pounds in his bloody hand from side wagers, rushing back to “a giant fan gathering” at a pub in Dundalk, Mr. Palmer recalled.

“It was like a medieval knight coming back from a tournament,” Mr. Palmer said. “An amazing, huge world had just opened up to me, the most amazing thing I’ve ever had the chance to film. I remember calling a friend and saying, ‘I really have to find a way to make a film about this.’ ”

He did find it, by hanging around the feuding families for the next decade. It started as a bit of a tradeoff, he said, with the Quinn McDonaghs giving him access to the fights and Mr. Palmer giving them some footage. The travelers had already been taping their own fights and either selling the footage in streets and pubs, or editing it into “threat tapes.” “In a way, they were already documenting themselves,” the director said.

Mr. Palmer grew up middle class and well educated in the Dublin suburbs and like many Irish “settled” people, he knew travelers from seeing them solicit work at the door, women asking for old clothes to mend and sell, and men offering their tinsmithing skills to fix garden tools and sharpen knives.
 

During his first few years on the project, Mr. Palmer, who had tried a screenwriting career in Los Angeles with little success, also shot two shorter, nonboxing documentaries for Irish national television, on the Quinn McDonaghs and traveler activity. But since the bare-knuckle fights were sporadic, it became clear that a fight film would take years to complete.

Each time the call would come, Mr. Palmer would pile in a crowded car and head to a remote country lane, the precise location a secret to prevent the authorities from showing up. Often there were a series of fights, lasting hours. There were no clocks, no rounds, and of course, no gloves — just shirtless men pummeling each other until one gives up.

“I was following something completely unpredictable,” said Mr. Palmer, who shot roughly 200 hours of footage and changed video formats six times to keep up with changing technology. He held a day job in the family business running trade shows, but always stored a camera in his desk.

“If the fights were more frequent, I could have finished more quickly, but I would not have captured them changing over time,” he said.

Through the years, Mr. Quinn McDonagh repeatedly declares he’s retiring, only to begin training again after the next taunting tape arrives. Then there is his brother Michael, who broods over a lost fight for a decade.

Will “Knuckle” affect the feuds? “I don’t expect the film to change what is hundreds of years of tradition,” Mr. Palmer said.

To Mr. Quinn McDonagh, the film had had a calming effect — for now. “These feuds change like the weather,” he said. “Anything can trigger anything.”

Anyway, calm never lasts in a traveler’s life, Mr. Quinn McDonagh said, finishing his pint. He recently moved his family to Wales after their home in Dublin was burned down by gangsters seeking one of his relatives. He said that his younger son, Huey, 19, is taken with bare-knuckle fighting, and that he has reluctantly agreed to train him.

“I don’t approve, but I can’t stop him,” Mr. Quinn McDonagh said. “It’s in the blood. It’s in the heart. I hope he doesn’t do it, but if he does, I want him to be prepared.”


COMMENTS
Be the first to post a comment!


Post A Comment:




  • It's 2020! Start booking roles in commercials, fashion, films, theater and more with The Agency Online!

  • NEW WORKSHOP with Barbara Barna & Sean De Simone!

    Hi Everyone and Happy Summer! Sean at Sean De Simone casting and Barbara Barna are teaming up for a super informative and fun Hosting for Home Shopping workshop. A great opportunity for established or experienced TV Hosts and Experts interested in learning how to get noticed and how to get in....
  • MASTERCLASS W. Robin Carus & David John Madore

    A Special Offer for the Agency Community, from one of our favorite NYC Casting Directors! EMAIL FacetheMusicWithUs@gmail.com Or Eventbrite To Sign Up! Class Size is Limited.
  • Don't Fall Into The Comparison Trap

    Hi Everyone! As the second installment in an ongoing series of features by the Agency's amazing community, here's some sage advice from our own Regina Rockensies; a humble (& awesome)veteran we've had the pleasure of working with for a long time. Have an excellent week! : ) - The Agency....
  • One Model's Agreement

    Hi Everyone! As the first piece in an ongoing series of original articles by the Agency community, here's a short reflection on some of the values of professional acting & modeling that we can all keep in mind for our next casting. Good luck on your castings &shoots this week! : ) -....




 
home       castings&news       privacy policy       terms and conditions      contact us      browser tips
Official PayPal Seal