Analysis Of Martin Mcdonagh's Seven Psychopaths

The English/Irish playwright, screenwriter, and film director Martin McDonagh has been described as “one of the most important living Irish playwrights,” despite the fact that he was born in London and lived there his entire life (Zinoman). His early plays present the west of Ireland to us as a horrible place, populated by savage people disguised as ordinary. His plays and films are most notable for their casual use of violence and strong dialogue; it is hard for one not to notice the striking similarities to American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. However, the relationship between McDonagh and Tarantino, at least on McDonagh’s end, seems to be a rocky one.
In 1994, over the course of 10 months, McDonagh wrote his first seven plays while living in a house in an Irish neighborhood of London. For the next twenty years these works were produced in London and then New York. In 1994 Quentin …show more content…
In 2012, McDonagh released Seven Psychopaths, a black comedy film starring Colin Farrell and Christopher Walken. In Seven Psychopaths, a character’s head explodes, there’s a decapitation, a man’s hands are fastened to a table with knives and then he’s burned alive. Again, the mix of violence and humor along with strong use of dialogue evokes a Tarantino comparison. In an interview with the New York Times shortly after the film’s release McDonagh said he does not welcome the Tarantino comparisons. While he stated that Pulp Fiction was “probably” a masterpiece, he says he and Tarantino are “coming at violence from very different places.” He believes there is a “moral conundrum” to his films, while he does not see that so much in Tarantino. About Seven Psychopaths, he says in each scene he tries to “capture some kind of truth or help the actors capture a truth.” “You don’t play the joke,” McDonagh insists, “you play the truth of the situation…and allow the audience to make it funny”