Alan Gilsenan’s Ulysses | Film was a personal response to, and cinematic ‘reading’ of, Joyce’s iconic novel. Fractured and poetic, reverent and irreverent, the film was a ragbag of sorts; a myriad of images and sounds emerging from the infinite wonders of Joyce’s imaginary world. Structured around the 18 episodes of the book, the film acts as a distillation of Ulysses.
Re-released episodically as eighteen short films, beginning on May 30th and leading right up to Bloomsday (June 16th), Alan Gilsenan’s Ulysses | Film told the complete story of Joyce’s book across seventy minutes, depicting Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus as they walked around Dublin on June 16th, 1904.
Told imagery capturing signature motifs of the novel, music, and readings of passages from the text (voiced by the late poet Paul Durcan), Ulysses | Film achieves much of the atmosphere and effect of Joyce’s masterpiece while being a unique piece of art in its own right.
Having been screened by the Irish Film Institute on February 2nd, 2020 (Joyce’s 138th birthday), this celebratory film was directed by Alan Gilsenan, who had previously adapted Samuel Beckett’s TV drama Eh Joe for film, amongst other works. He has since earned acclaim for his documentary The Days of Trees, which won the 2024 IFTA George Morrison Feature Documentary Award.
