By Erin Free
When it comes to “actor’s challenges”, they don’t come much tougher than My Left Foot. In 1989 – with his only previous high profile roles being My Beautiful Laundrette, A Room With A View, and The Unbearable Lightness Of Being – the great Daniel Day-Lewis shocked the world with his extraordinary portrayal of legendary Irish artist and writer, Christy Brown, who, despite being stricken with debilitating cerebral palsy, learned to use the one controllable part of his twisted body – his left foot – to express himself creatively. In an instant star-making turn, the Irish-born Daniel Day-Lewis received a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar, and established himself as one of the actors of his generation.
Though we’re now used to watching in awe as Day-Lewis literally disappears into a role (as he has done so wholeheartedly in such wildly divergent films as Gangs Of New York, The Crucible, The Last Of The Mohicans, There Will Be Blood, and Lincoln, for which he won his second and third Best Actor Oscars, respectively), his immersion into Christy Brown – a stubborn, violent, and angry man who was the antithesis of the “saintly cripple” – was nothing short of stunning. Yes, it’s a true “bells and whistles” performance in every sense of the term, but the role and the film demand it. Day-Lewis even stayed in character in between takes. “Plenty of people will say that it’s facetious to stay in character,” Jim Sheridan has said of his leading man. “People will say that it’s pretentious. But Daniel spent weeks with kids who really had cerebral palsy to research the part. How difficult would it have been to act like them for the camera, and then jump back after each take, like a jack-in-the-box? His decision was to stay in character, and so he became the focus of all the worries and discontent on the set, which was all for the good of the movie. You’re dealing with genius, and there’s a level to it where Daniel is Daniel, and I don’t have to do that much, you know?”
Outside of Daniel Day-Lewis’ celebrated efforts, the film is a strong and cogent work in itself, with Irish debutante director, Jim Sheridan (who would later guide Day-Lewis to further brilliant performances in In The Name Of The Father and The Boxer, as well as telling equally essential Irish stories in The Field and In America), perfectly capturing the grit of his homeland streets and the fiery, passionate people who live on them. With superb performances from Brenda Fricker (as Christy’s tough but supportive mum) and Hugh O’Conor (a true revelation as the young Christy), combined with a heartwarming simplicity, My Left Foot is a bruising delight, and a key work in the history of Irish cinema.
