Letter: Twisted view of Collins film

Sir: It is a masterpiece of understatement to say, as Louise Jury does, that "Kenneth Griffith's perspective differs somewhat from the majority British view" ("Veteran of the struggle sees Collins come alive at last", 4 November).

What is most worrying is that such a supporter of extreme republicanism found the film Michael Collins so completely satisfactory, when Neil Jordan and Warner Bros have been at pains to point out that it is not pro-IRA.

Having previewed the film under the auspices of New Dialogue, the non- partisan British-Irish peace group, I can vouch that the first two thirds of the film are powerfully and unremittingly anti-British (there is not one sympathetic British character).

But the last third of the film depicts the civil war in southern Ireland and pins the blame squarely on De Valera and his extreme republicans who were the forerunners of today's IRA. If this point is lost on the sophisticated Mr Griffith, one fears what the effect will be on more gullible IRA/Sinn Fein supporters.

On the matter of truth: it is fact that more people were killed in the Irish civil war than in the Anglo-Irish war, and that many more were executed by the Irish Free State than by the British state.

The real danger of Neil Jordan's film is that it reduces such historical complexities to a Hollywood "gangster" movie's black and white. Powerful cinema it is. History it ain't.

SIMON PARTRIDGE

London N2