February 26, 2010 12:00PM EST

Q&A: The Eclipse at Tribeca Cinemas

Geoff Gilmore, Conor McPherson, Ciarán Hinds

On the first night of NYC's second massive snowstorm of the season, a full house of hardy souls enjoyed a special Tribeca Cinemas screening of The Eclipse, which played at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. At the event, hosted by Bloomberg, writer/director Conor McPherson and star Ciarán Hinds were on hand to answer questions from the audience and from Tribeca's Chief Creative Officer Geoff Gilmore.

Hinds, who won best actor at TFF last year, plays Michael Farr, a grieving widower and father who thinks he might be seeing ghosts. When Lena Morelle (Iben Hjejle), a famous author of supernatural thrillers, arrives at the local literary festival, it seems that Michael has found a sympathetic ear–and perhaps more. On top of his problems at home, which include an unruly son, a grieving daughter, and things that go bump in the night, he also discovers himself in the middle of a love triangle between Lena and her bloviating ex-lover Nicholas Holden (Aidan Quinn).

The Eclipse, which won the best film, best script, and best supporting actor awards at this year's Irish Film & Television Awards, started out as a short story by Billy Roche that he and McPherson developed over the years. "It morphed into a sort of supernatural story," said McPherson, "so it's a kind of melding of both our interests, I suppose. And I'm happy to say he's still talking to me," he added drily, "after how far the journey went from his original story." (Roche puts in a small appearance as one of the organizers of the festival.) The supernatural element wasn't the only thing that changed from page to screen; originally, Michael Farr was married and obsessed with Lena.

"My wife read an early draft," McPherson said, "and she said, ‘You know, in a story when we're inside someone's head, it's okay for them to become obsessed with another woman. But if you make a film of this, and women in the audience are just watching this married guy sort of obsess... they just won't like him. If somehow you could remove his wife from the equation, he would be more sympathetic.' So I thought, 'Oh, yes. If she's dead, he could be haunted!'"

Hinds, who was working with McPherson on the Broadway play The Seafarer at the time, seemed like a perfect fit for the role of a warm-hearted but mostly internal man holding his grief just barely at bay. Because they were working together when McPherson presented him with the script, "we were just really getting to understand each other, who we were, [and] I knew there was acres and oceans of stuff that's in Conor's head that would arrive when we went to work on the piece... For a true artist creator like Conor, you just put your faith in them," the soon-to-be Harry Potter star said.

The Eclipse teeters between genres: there's drama, romance, scares that will make you jump, and even maybe a little bit of horror. This gem of a story definitely had me jumping several times, and I wasn't alone. The last person to stand up during the Q&A told the director and star that she was afraid to go home afterwards. "In the case of this film, it's important to really terrify the audience at certain points," said McPherson, while the audience laughed nervously in agreement. "For me, I think the supernatural element in this film just deepens our psychological sympathy with [Michael]. That's what you want in a story, to go on that journey with the character. So the supernatural, for me, is always a very useful tool to pitch a character against the unknown. We all face the unknown in our lives, and the supernatural is often a very effective way of dealing with the problems of our everyday life, really."

 

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The Eclipse opens on a limited basis on March 26, and is currently available on VOD. Read a Q&A about The Eclipse from last year's Festival. Visit the official website for more information, photos, and clips.