Instead of celebrating his success as his short film Detainment is shortlisted for the Oscars writer/director, Vincent Lambe has found his film subject to a campaign to boycott it and remove it from the Oscars list.
The film is about the horrific 1993 murder of two-year-old James Bulger.
This case shocked the world but in this case, the shock was compounded by the fact that the murderers were just ten years old themselves.
I am from Liverpool and remember the case well. I found the details so upsetting that I had to stop reading about it.
I had this choice. James Bulger’s parents, Denise Fergus and Ralph Bulger had no such choice – they had to live with unimaginable horror and pain and continue to do so to this day.
They are rarely allowed to forget either as the case is still frequently written about and discussed in the media.
The reason this case is still discussed is not just because of the brutality of the murder itself but also because of the age of the murderers and the fact that as ten-year-olds the two boys were tried as adults. Vincent Lambe is not alone in his interest in this case.
I used to write and direct short films and like Lambe, I am a film school graduate.
In film school being entirely focused on making ‘your film’ was encouraged and an attitude of ‘I’ll do anything for the film’ taken to be a sign of commitment and talent.
So it didn’t totally surprise me when I heard Lambe discussing how he used publicly available transcripts to justify his making of the film and defending his project on RTE radio.
However what did surprise me was Lambe’s shock at the public reaction to the film. What seemed to bother him most was that people were judging his film to be of poor taste without seeing it.
In the radio interview, I heard Lambe describing a meeting with a Sunday Times journalist who according to him was supportive of the film but whose article was pulled because of the public negativity towards his project – he felt that was unfair.
Lambe admitted that he had not contacted Denise or Ralph Bulger but for some reason doesn’t see this as unfair. He justified this by saying it was because his film making choices might have been influenced.
Herein lies the problem for me.
Lambe admits that he didn’t contact the family but seems to believe that his artistic license overrode everything else – even the feelings of the parents of a murdered child.
In other words, he just doesn’t get it.
I have not seen the film so won’t judge its merits as a film but what Lambe needs to understand is that the anger is not about his skill as a film-maker – the anger is about his putting his artistic license above the feelings of a distressed family.
The preproduction period of any film, even a short one is lengthy and there was plenty of time and opportunity to consider the effects of this film on the family yet he didn’t even grant them the courtesy of making contact.
Whether or not it was his intention I did wonder if he understood just quite how disrespectful, insensitive and arrogant this comes across?
He has now apologised but this apology comes too late – Denise and Ralph have already been deeply hurt.
The only way I can see for Vincent Lambe to repair some of the harm he has done is to withdraw the film now.
Withdrawing the film coupled with a genuine apology – one with no if/buts/artistic license/justifications may just go some small way to demonstrate his commitment to fairness.
This will no doubt be painful for Vincent Lambe but maybe he could take comfort in the thought that however painful it is for him to close his project it is in no way comparable with the ocean of pain suffered by Denise Fletcher and Ralph Bulger.
There will be more projects for Vincent Lambe but for Denise and Ralph, there will never be another James – they surely deserved a lot more respect.
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