MAGAN'S WORLD: MANCHÁN MAGAN'Stales of a travel addict
THE ISOSCELES bend of two hind legs leapt past me in through a curtain of dense spruce. I had seen the deer come and go before my mind could process it – just a blurred dash over gorse and brambles on the hill above Powerscourt waterfall. I turned off the trail to follow it into the bristly sea of conifer, with the ground a trampoline of moss and rotting pine needles and the sudden half-light and lack of wind making it seem like some spectral realm.
The deer appeared again; a shimmer at its nostrils, quivering flanks and a curious petroleum-sheen eye staring straight at me. We both froze for a moment until the snapping of a twig somehow triggered the squawk of a crow and, instantly, curiosity turned to fear, and the deer swerved and fled, leaping off over dead wood.
I was left with a rush of exultation and an intrusive flashback to a scene of Robert de Niro in a wool hat and sleeveless jacket with a Remington rifle on his shoulder. The soaring Deer Huntersoundtrack rose in my mind and I cursed yet again the Hollywoodisation of our memories. I understand the brain's need for associative memory, but couldn't it at least bring up something from my own culture? Fionn and the Fianna hunting deer rather than the guy from Meet The Fockers.
Wicklow is particularly prone to Hollywood bleed-throughs because of the presence of Ardmore Studios. Everywhere you look is a scene from Braveheart, Into the West, Excaliburor The General.Thankfully, the rest of Ireland isn't quite so sullied, apart from a few blackspots such as the Dingle Peninsula where Ryan's Daughterand Far and Awaylinger around every corner.
The experience is even more pervasive abroad. I've had the chase scene from Casino Royaleplay out as I was trying to soak in St Mark's Square, Venice. Orson Welles followed me onto the Riesenrad in Vienna. In Petra, it was Harrison Ford, in Kenya Meryl Streep, while in Paris it was as if Améliewas trailing me through Montmartre. And, I defy anyone to visit Monument Valley, Arizona, without having classic John Ford westerns spool themselves before their eyes.
Resisting incidents of this mental virus that Hollywood has infected us with requires vigilance. One must train one’s mind to see beyond the imposed vision of an overpaid director to how it really is. Admittedly, I say this as an innocent who has never been to (sorry, this is hard for me to admit) to New York in my life. (I know!)
When I do eventually get there, whether I will have the strength to see beyond the lenses of Scorsese, Spike Lee or Woody Allen is another matter. At least, I am determined to try.
I certainly won't be stooping so low as to join a movie location tour: Out of Africain Africa, In Brugesin Bruges, etc. The visceral, seat-of-your pants nature of travel is the inverse opposite to the illusory charade of film. The two should never be confused.
Eating fried green tomatoes in the WhistleStop Café gives one neither a true sense of the movie or the locality. (I should know, I've tried and had the bellyache to prove it.) Loving Motorcycle Diariesor Gorillas in the Mistwon't bring you any closer to the reality of South America or Rwanda. The most they can do is spark you into buying a ticket, after that forget all about the film.
Although, again in this spirit of absolute honesty, I ought to admit that the only reason I ever got to savour the tropical coastline of Oaxaca, Mexico, was because of the movie, Y Tu Mamá También,and my first experience of Berlin was undoubtedly heightened by transcendent scenes of existential questioning from Wim Wenders ' Wings of Desire.