Passages from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake 1965 16mm film 90minsThis was the first attempt to cinematize the works of Irish author James Joyce. Based more on a stage adaptation by Mary Manning than the Joyce novel itself, the film concentrates on Dublin pubkeeper Finnegan (Martin J. Kelly), who while in the throes of inebriation has a vision of his own death. As the bemused Finnegan lies in his coffin, his friends gather for his wake. The "corpse" tries to cut through the keening and platitudes by probing the innermost thoughts of those closest to him. The surprising aspect of this film is that so much of its difficult text works on screen--a tribute to the loving care of scripter/director/ editor Mary Ellen Bute, who, while preparing this film spent her waking hours picking the brains and burrowing through the resource materials of the James Joyce Society.Although director Mary Ellen Bute’s highly regarded Finnegans Wake (aka Passages from Finnegans Wake) is a unique film that is likely to baffle anyone unfamiliar with James Joyce, it cannot be dismissed merely as a literary exercise. The director was right in claiming that her film was “not a translation of the book but a reaction to it”. It is actually based on a stage play by Mary Manning, who was also responsible for the screenplay. Joyce’s elliptical rhetoric and intricate punning, which might be considered a formidable barrier to the filming of this most opaque of his works, proved to be an attraction to Bute, whose enthusiasm for the ‘visual’ and ‘kinetic’ quality of his language led her to the surprising but well-judged move of running subtitles from the original text to support the dialogue.Visual music pioneer Mary Ellen Bute's final film was also her first feature film. James Joyce's classic story of Irish tavern-keeper who dreams of attending his own wake is brought to the screen with a sparkling energy which highlights its maker's career-long exploration of kinetic abstract animation. Perhaps best described as a 'film poem,' Passages from Finnegans Wake was the first attempt to 'cinematize' the works of James Joyce, featuring the author's highly original language spoken by characters and presented as text on screen.

“Okada’s death completely fits into Sato’s version of Japan, alienated and constantly watched. Women, especially, are followed with camcorders, viewed by security cameras, denied privacy. They float, friendless and unattached, in and out of phone booths, sex clubs, medical research, subways, neon cities.”

时代背景是十九世纪末的土耳其，年轻的希腊男孩在康士坦丁堡为富商辛勤工作，但生活却充满了难堪与迫害。当他知道美国这块梦幻中的乐土之后，便千里迢迢移民美国追寻梦想。

当我们睡着的时候，怪事发生了。现在是半夜，但一切并不平静，所有的声音在黑暗中都被放大了：路过的火车的喇叭声、游泳池过滤器的潺潺声、秋叶划过柏油路的声音。考虑到现在已经很晚了，令人惊讶的是很多人还没睡，车里的夫妇，扶手椅上打电话的老太太，穿着旱冰鞋溜出家门前化妆的男孩......导演的镜头抚摸着这片郊区，凝结着超日常。但这不是一部恐怖片，它更像是一个共同的梦，做梦的人不是梦见电影，而是梦见电影每一个具体的人和物，每个人都被吸引到同一个地方，也恰好是我们在第一个画面中看到的：泥地里的的玉米头。