September 27, 2000

Thirty-three years after the 1967 film adaptation of James Joyce’s epic novel Ulysses was released, Ireland finally decided to lift the ban on the film. Many consider Joyce’s great novel to be “unfilmable.” However, Joseph Strick, an idealistic American director, decided to take up the project. His adaptation, much like the book, drew much controversy. Many scenes were cut at its screening at the Cannes Film Festival. In Ireland, film censors unilaterally banned the film saying that it was “subversive to public morality.” Ulysses was the second film to have the ban lifted, following Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange in 1999.