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“The idea of the American Dream is so central to our culture, and to the stories that grow out of it. But the road we travel to pursue that dream is a rough one, often separating us from the people who raised us and putting us in conflict with family traditions,” explains director Maureen Foley.
The Irish have long recognized this bittersweet reality with a tradition called an “American wake,” a lively all-night party held to celebrate an émigré’s last night in Ireland before setting out for a new life across the ocean. Since a sea voyage was so long and expensive, those who left were unlikely to come home again. The party was a joyous sendoff, and also a good-bye.
For the filmmaker--the New England grandchild of immigrants from Inis Meain, from the Aran Islands in Galway Bay, considered by the Irish to be the historical and spiritual center of the culture--the idea of the American wake is an image that perfectly captures the excitement and sadness of starting a whole new life.
The title is from a book of poems,“American Wake,” by award-winning Cork poet Greg Delanty, whose works are lyrical, image-filled expressions of longing. Foley uses excerpts of his poems like musical interludes to convey the emotional tug-of-war in her characters.
Likewise, the original score by Grammy-winner Seamus Egan (“I Will Remember You”) evokes a mix of melancholy, tenderness and joy -- as do the original songs he wrote for the film with vocalist Antje Duvekot. Assembly, a renowned young quartet from the Vermont music scene (and actor Sam Amidon’s real-life band), contributes a radical reworking of the folk tradition to frame Niall’s musical and spiritual liberation.
AMERICAN WAKE is Foley’s second feature. Praising her 1998 debut effort, HOME BEFORE DARK, Variety wrote that its “strong script with believable characters…packs a wallop” and noted that the story of a young girl coming of age in a troubled household “works through understatement and an accumulation of small but telling moments.” Critic Jay Carr added in the Boston Globe that the film “tells a primal story in a deceptively unassuming way.”
Foley brings this same approach to storytelling in AMERICAN WAKE. The tales she tells of Jack and Niall are fictional, but they are shaped by the actors she chose to portray the characters. Billy Smith (Jack) is a writer, aspiring filmmaker and up-and-coming actor on the New York stage, but with a resume that includes active duty as a Marine during the Gulf War, and stints in the Boston Police Department and with the UN peacekeeping forces in East Timor. He and Foley have been friends since he took her writing class at Harvard some years ago. Inspired by the experiences he’d had in his own life, she asked him to co-write the script.
During the time they were writing, the theme of survivor guilt was on Smith’s mind, as he knows firefighters and police officers in New York who suffered deeply in the aftermath of September 11th. Having also spent time in Thailand teaching English, he drew Noy as a composite portrait of several young women he had known, who longed to make new, less traditional lives for themselves in the States, but who felt that leaving their families was all but impossible.
In developing Niall’s story, Foley, who plays fiddle, was captivated by a performance by Sam Amidon (Niall) and his band, Assembly, at a Boston music event. In particular, she was struck by his utter nonchalance on stage, which belied his extraordinary talent and reputation as one of the finest young fiddlers in the Irish tradition emerging on the current stage.
Seeking him out, she learned that “his casual stage presence comes from growing up among musicians steeped in roots music, and in the folk traditions. It’s a world that is a beautiful, vibrant piece of American culture.” She explains, “Sam has been performing with his family since he was a child, and they have a big following. They live for and through music, and they play all the time -- in the evenings, after supper, at family gatherings. Music is a way of life.”
As a musician, Amidon is steeped in the folk tradition but is also making a name for himself with experiments in “radical folk,” jazz, and other genres. This resonated with themes Foley was interested in exploring. She asks, “What do you owe the people who have raised you? What do you owe your own culture? And when you have such a great gift, are you allowed to do whatever you want with it?”
Filmed in Cambridge, Boston, Quincy, Brookline and in other locations around Boston, and on the waters of the Charles River and the Atlantic Ocean, AMERICAN WAKE captures the tone of a city, which – like so many across America – is renewed and transformed by waves of newcomers who are seeking to make it home.
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