Legacy Versus Kindness: The Banshees of Inisherin

As I was sick this weekend, I settled down on my couch between coughing fits and preparing my favorite turmeric and spice tea and watched the Oscar-nominated film The Banshees of Inisherin, albeit about a year late. Martin McDonagh calls backs big-hitters Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson from the cast of In Bruges for a slow-paced, existential exploration into the lives of two Irish men living on the island of Inisherin during the early part of the twentieth century. Like In Bruges, The Banshees of Inisherin showcases McDonagh's unique writing style that harkens back to his days as a playwright. Melodic repetition and jaunty dialogue pepper this film's excellent script while never detracting from the immersion the film's hyper-period setting establishes. However, what I found most entertaining about this film was the battle between self and other, as portrayed in the two main characters' disagreement on the supremacy between kindness and legacy. 

The film follows Gleeson's Colm Doherty and Farrell's Pádraic Súilleabháin (try that pronunciation on for size): two friends who come to a messy parting when Colm decides that Pádraic's dull personality and ordinariness are distracting from his calling as a musician and his desire to leave a legacy of fiddle tunes before he dies. Farrell's portrayal of Pádraic's down-to-earth despair caused by Colm's betrayal is truly noteworthy, and climaxes in an argument the two have in the local public house. During this fight, Pádraic calls out Colm's entitlement and pride, positing that to be nice is far better than to be remembered. It's a truly touching scene that harkens to a very Christian relationship: the brotherhood between charity and humility.

The root of all evil is pride. It is the great sin that Satan committed, leading to his fall. It is the sin of Adam and Eve, leading them to believe they could be as great as God. It is the sin of every genocide, leading tyrannical rulers to judge themselves or their race/religion/nation better than another. Like a root, pride grows outward. It wraps around other things, both good and bad, and leaches from them, rotting out good like a stinking fungus or strengthening evil like a tree root holds up a river bank. It taints all it touches, even virtue. That is why its opposite, humility, is a prerequisite for all virtue. Charity is not charity if it is done to make the giver look better or build his reputation. Let's not be fooled by the celebrities and billionaires who plaster their donations all over the internet. The deductions and positive press alone are enough to call into question their motives. Rather, if we do good, let us do it so that our names are not connected to it. This is why Jesus tells us to pray in secret. St. Paul alludes to this while talking about his relationship with Jesus in John 3:30 by saying, "He must increase, but I must decrease." It seems there is a necessary separation between self and virtuous acts in Christianity. This is because there can be no vacuum in spiritual life. If humility is not present, pride will snake its tendrils into every virtue we find within ourselves. Modesty becomes haughty prudishness, charity becomes boastful ego-inflation, piety becomes religious superiority - pride can cause all virtues to become vehicles for greater vices, and this can be the problem with wanting to leave a legacy.

When motivated by pride, the desire to leave a legacy is merely the wish to extend one's reputation beyond death and continue to enjoy the accompanying social benefits. In C.S. Lewis' masterpiece book, The Great Divorce, a wayward soul is led through the outer boundaries of Heaven to witness various ghosts deciding whether to stay or return from where they came from. One such ghost, a painter in his former life, converses with an angel about legacy. To him, the joy of Heaven would be to see his art live on and for his reputation to be acknowledged in Heaven and on Earth. This assumption is shattered when the angel tells him that he has already been forgotten on Earth and that his reputation means nothing to anyone in Heaven. At once, the ghost breaks free from the angel and angrily flees to hell in an effort to save his legacy. The point is that the ghost, in his effort to cement his legacy, had forgotten about the art with which he had initially fallen in love. This is the difference between a proud legacy and a humble legacy. The virtuous person is one who desires for others to experience good and so puts it into the world in such a manner that people may continue to experience that good separate from him once he is gone. The proud person cares not for the good he leaves behind in the world unless it can be used as a means to cement his reputation in the memories of those around him. In The Banshees of Inisherin, Colm forgets that the purpose of his music, the very thing that he has used as an excuse to reject kindness and friendship, holds within it the beauty of life that is inextricably linked to the goodness of kindness and friendship. He ceases to make music because it is beautiful and good and begins making it so that he can be remembered. This ironic and backward path of thinking is later manifested in the film in such a perfectly self-destructive nature that to tell you about it here and rob you of the chance of seeing it yourself would be a disservice to you.

We are the means to the good. The good is not a means to our own ends. If we are to be remembered, let it be like such, "You know that amazing thing that we love, that has enriched our lives and enlivened our hearts? Isn't it wonderful? It was made by... well, so-and-so - but isn't it wonderful?" Do not be like a banshee, howling and screaming your own name against the deafening winds of time in a futile attempt to be known. Rather, be a friend, even if you are forgotten. It is better to live good than to die known. So be kind. As Pádraic says, be nice.