Richard T Kelly was talking about Clarke’s Films in Northern Ireland before the screening of ‘Elephant’.
‘Elephant’ is without question Alan Clarke’s bleakest film. Filmed on location in Belfast, it is essentially a compilation of eighteen murders on the streets of this ciyy, without explanatory narrative or charactersitaion and shot in a dispassionate documentary style.
Produced by Danny Boyle, ‘Elephant’ was one of only two of the more than fifty dramas that Clarke directed which he is also credited with writing. The title comes from a quote by Irish writer Bernard MacLaverty who described the Troubles as like having an elephant in your linving room, getting in the way of everything – but after a while you learn to live with it.