In this exclusive clip from "Dance First," a young Samuel Beckett meets James Joyce in Paris for the first time.
In "Dance First," Irish actors Gabriel Byrne and Fionn O'Shea masterfully play Beckett, while Aidan Gillen plays his most formative creative influence, Joyce.
Aidan Gillen as James Joyce in "Dance First." (Magnolia Pictures)
O'Shea plays the young Samuel Beckett in a screen performance that's a compelling portrait of the artist as a young man.
Buttoned down, watchful, and yet given to moments of great feeling, O'Shea is superb in the role.
Fionn O'Shea in "Dance First." (Magnolia Pictures)
Beckett was the most elusive of Irish writers, but the facts of his life are not. We see him encounter Joyce, begin his ill-fated and disastrous relationship with Joyce's schizophrenic daughter Lucia, and later join the French resistance to take up arms against the Nazis.
Gabriel Byrne as Samuel Beckett in "Dance First." (Magnolia Pictures)
The official synopsis of "Dance First" says: "Literary genius Samuel Beckett lived a life of many parts: Parisian bon vivant, WWII Resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband, recluse.
"But despite all the adulation that came his, way he was a man acutely aware of his own failings.
"Titled after Beckett's famous ethos 'Dance first, think later,' the film is a sweeping account of the life of this 20th-century icon."
"Dance First" opens on Friday, August 9.
Here's an exclusive clip from "Dance First" that shows James Joyce (played by Aidan Gillen) meeting a young Samuel Beckett (played by Fionn O'Shea) in Paris for the first time:
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