Ken Loach

[DB7]

Ken Loach - rattle of a singular man



by james christopher

Ken Loach continues to plough his lonely furrow of social realism. Except that it's back in vogue







THERE’S SOMETHING of the ghost about Ken Loach. He has long been a director who is easier to respect than enjoy. In terms of resident glamour, his is the last council house on Stella Street. His films seem stuck in another era, and picky locals frequently have a pop at him for never “moving on�. Yet Loach has never looked more pink and alive.

Terrific reviews of his last two films, My Name is Joe and the Cannes Festival toast Sweet Sixteen, have pumped Viagra into a flagging career.







Ae Fond Kiss, the title of a Rabbie Burns catch, is the third part of a trilogy exploring contemporary life on the west coast of Scotland, and again it is written by Loach’s long-standing collaborator, Paul Laverty. The film charts the relationship between a Catholic teacher, Roisin (Eva Birthistle), and a Muslim graduate, Casim (Atta Yaqub), and it’s born of the racial freeze that has descended on the ethnic communities of Glasgow since “the war on terrorism� was openly declared.



The result, says the shy and freckly writer, is “a story about the fetters in people’s minds�. I’m struck by this comment because Loach doesn’t seem entirely unfettered himself. I’m destined to meet the director in a makeshift canteen in Glasgow, where the crew for Ae Fond Kiss has pitched base camp. I’m more than slightly nervous. Loach works in mysterious ways. His film sets are closed shops. Journalists are rarely granted an audience. And the director is never less than elusive about the film turning in his head.



In the flesh, he is surprisingly kindly, and extremely polite. Furious too, when he discovers that I’ve got hold of a script through the press office. He nearly drops the lunch plate perched on his lap. “How stupid of them!� he groans, attacking his peas. “I’m appalled. Heads will roll. I wouldn’t send anyone a script. You never know how this film might turn out.�



It’s not the idle gripe of a control freak. Loach famously refuses to tell his actors where their characters are going, how the story develops or what happens in the end. He likes his actors to work blind, because he needs spontaneity to feed his visions. Pages of dialogue are used as sparingly as fish bait, and handed out on a need-to-know daily basis. He is terrified that I’m going to spill the plot to his ever-curious leads, and makes me swear not to reveal a word. Allaying the fears of the Muslim cast was hard enough.



“They had to be Glaswegian and Pakistani. If they were one or the other, you would lose half the point,� says Loach. “And being Glaswegian is not something the Muslim community embrace wholeheartedly.� There was also considerable anxiety in the Muslim community about the film’s motives.



“You understand the concern when you hear the insults and read about women having their headscarves pulled off in the street,� says Loach. “There would be an absolute outcry if it happened to a nun.�



In fact, Laverty’s script is commendably even-handed about ethnic mindsets. There are no easy rides for Catholics, Glaswegians or Muslims. “The interesting thing you find when you cut through the politics and external disparities is that the battles are the same within every family, whatever the costume or creed. I find that reassuring really,� says Loach.



After lunch, we are whisked to a neat Catholic day school in a quiet suburb to shoot a chase scene. Inside, there’s an air of ambling chaos.



One of the child extras has turned up with the wrong top, and a location manager is frantically trying to persuade his mother to extract the garment from a washing machine. “A firing-squad offence,� jokes Loach as he wanders off towards the school gymnasium.



The lead actress, Eva Birthistle, is upstairs in the music room practising piano scales. “I’ve never worked like this before,� says the lithe young Irish actress. “It’s strange not knowing what’s going to happen to your character from one day to the next. If it was any other director, I would have said ‘No way’. But because it’s Ken Loach you suspend those fears. The nice thing is that you don’t have too much time to panic, and you’re encouraged to improvise.�



It’s this fierce documentary commitment to performance that is the hallmark of Loach’s career. Mike Leigh has a similar belief in the supremacy of the actor, which is why these two Old Labour stalwarts are so frequently confused. Leigh is thanked by strangers for directing Kes, and Loach is hailed for making Abigail’s Party. Apparently they’ve both learned to enjoy this tooth-grinding faux pas, though I suspect it took years. The difference between the two directors, and the way they handle their actors, could not be more marked.



While Leigh workshops his actors to death to heighten his situation dramas, Loach stands back and asks them to make it look as if it’s really happening. On set, Loach cuts an almost paternal figure with his large square glasses, jeans and Barbour jacket. He shepherds his actors with the tireless enthusiasm of a Butlin’s Redcoat, and his instructions are precise and uncomplicated. No one seems fussed by the endless retakes.



Ray Beckett, an engineer, has worked with Loach since Raining Stones in 1993. “He won’t leave a scene until he gets as much out of it as he can,� says Beckett. “Sometimes he just lets the cameras roll on and on after a take without telling anyone. He gets some really interesting footage from that. His work is like an extension of documentary film-making rather than drama. With a Merchant Ivory drama (Beckett worked on three during the 1980s) you know at the beginning of the day more or less what methods you’re going to use to get through it. A Loach film requires flexibility of thinking on the part of everyone.�



Fergus Clegg, the art director, and another long-time collaborator (this is his eighth Loach film), is fresh from the set of Thunderbirds. “This is what film-making is all about,� he says, throwing an arm towards the grey school foyer. “It’s much more interesting, and a lot more honest than Hollywood. A Loach film is not a dream factory, it’s real life, which the medium, and media, seem less and less interested in. Many people prefer the McDonald’s attitude to film. Ken has a lot more integrity. He deals with issues which aren’t always popular, and because he’s one of the rare directors who shoots in sequence, you experience the story as it unfolds. There is spontaneity and surprise.�



Shock too. When Loach filmed Land and Freedom, about the Civil War in Spain, the dynamics of the film changed as members of a close-knit cast were dramatically killed off. “No one had the slightest inkling what would happen next,� says Clegg, “which created remarkable tensions and incredible set chemistry.�



It all seems a far cry from the chase scene Loach is trying to bend into shape in a school corridor in Glasgow. A bunch of swearing kids are being chased by a fat caretaker and an apoplectic schoolteacher.



There seems precious little to direct. Shots like this were two a penny during the glory days of Grange Hill. Two hours later, and Loach is still test-driving the fleeting point.



What ineluctable truth, I wonder, is the maestro trying to nail? The kids are surreally unflapped by the endless takes. They’re having fun with the insults, and they’re effortlessly fit. The adult actors are puffing in the foyer like a couple of dray horses who’ve entered all six races at Epsom under the insane delusion that they might actually get placed.



Stamina is clearly the secret of making an unforced, naturalistic Loach movie. I’m thinking of nipping outside for a quick dram when Loach slopes over. “More gritty social realism,� he says with a wry, blue twinkle. He simply can’t get enough of it.



Four decades of true grit



Poor Cow (1967) Loneliness and low lifes



Kes (1969) Boy meets bird in this spirited but tragic classic



Family Life (1971) Teenage meltdown, documentary-style



The Gamekeeper (1980) One man and his game � a year in the life of . . .





Hidden Agenda (1990) Love, murder and Frances McDormand in Belfast



Riff-Raff (1990) Falling apart in the building trade



Ladybird Ladybird (1994) An “unfit� mother’s struggle with social services



Land and Freedom (1995) A Liverpudlian’s bid to join the Spanish Civil War



Carla’s Song (1996) Robert Carlyle falls for a Nicaraguan exile



My Name Is Joe (1998) Thirtysomething love in the Glasgow slums



Bread and Roses (2000) Unions, the sisterhood and Adrien Brody



Sweet Sixteen (2002) Doomed teenage dreams

[deckard]

For me it has to be "Kes",a truly wonderful film,Loach takes us through every emotion, so subtly done,but cutting into Northern realism and exposing such desparate lows and spiralling highs,whilst keeping an almost documentary feeling of continuity coupled with sweeping moments of grandeur.Superbly cast and acted by all,particularly David Bradley as the boy besotted by the Kestrel,a performance to melt anybody's heart.All this and a superbly honest and flowing script creats a pure 60's gem.

[DB7]

Ken Loach: Up close and personal



Ken Loach's new film is about a cross-culture romance in Glasgow. But, he tells Diane Taylor, he hasn't left politics behind

06 August 2004





On the set of Ken Loach's latest film Ae Fond Kiss..., inside an elegant building in Glasgow, there's a minor commotion about the size of the kitchen table.



The crew is setting up a scene between the two stars, lovers Casim (Atta Yaqub) and Roisin (Eva Birthistle). Their relationship is passionate, intense and fraught with difficulties. Casim is an Asian Glaswegian and Roisin is an Irish Catholic who teaches music at his younger sister's school. Casim's family have arranged a marriage for him to a young woman from Pakistan, and Casim is torn between the connection he has with Roisin and a lifetime of tradition and respect for his parents' wishes.



The kitchen table is centre-stage as a disagreement between the two unfolds at Roisin's flat. Loach decides a bigger one is required to make the scene look right. A crew member who lives round the corner obligingly offers to pop home and get her own table. Not quite your standard Hollywood solution, but one which works perfectly. Ten minutes later the cameras roll.



Many of the crew members are regulars on Loach films. Although Birthistle and Yaqub make a very attractive couple, the most noticeable thing about the set is its lack of glamour. "For me," says Loach, "the process of filming has to be as simple as possible, then you can get to the heart of what people are doing and why. I think a lot of the artifice around film-making is just a barrier to that."



He stands in the corner of the room, a slight figure with thinning hair, smiling and nodding encouragement to cast and crew. He's self-effacing yet steely, and speaks softly, periodically pushing his glasses up his nose. The scene goes well and he keeps coaxing the actors. "Well done, that's good, keep it strong..."



Ae Fond Kiss... is the third part of Loach's Scottish trilogy, following My Name Is Joe and Sweet Sixteen. It's also his fifth collaboration with the screenwriter Paul Laverty. Laverty came up with the idea after September 11. He was in America on the day al- Qa'ida struck and observed the instant hostility that the attacks generated towards US Muslims. He spoke to Muslim friends in Glasgow and found that they, too, reported feeling under siege. "I wanted to examine what was going on with different cultures in the same city. I saw the crudeness of how everyone is tarred with the same brush. I wanted to look at how religion and culture affect our lives and to examine identity."



Loach says getting the right cast was challenging. "We had a very specific hoop to jump through. We had to find actors for the roles of Casim and his sisters who spoke pure Glaswegian, and for his parents individuals whose accents were a combination of Glaswegian and Punjabi. To get someone to come in and put on those accents would have undermined the integrity of the film.



"The Muslim community has no tradition of public singing, dancing and acting, so we couldn't do our usual thing of going round the clubs and the variety acts. We couldn't have chosen a more difficult group to pick a family from."



In the end, Loach found Yaqub through a modelling agency. Birthistle, meanwhile, is a professional actress who stars in the Irish film Timbuktu, due to be released in Ireland in September. She has also appeared in the BBC production Trust. Yaqub works for a charity that provides advice and support to drug users.



"This film was my first experience of acting since I played the lion in The Wizard of Oz at school," he says. "Thankfully I had no idea who Ken Loach was before I got involved, otherwise I would have been much more nervous. Ken made me feel so relaxed during filming. He wanted my natural reaction to certain situations. This film shows what goes on behind closed doors in different cultures all over the world. A lot of things happen in secret." Yaqub identified with Casim's dilemma - he, too, had a white girlfriend for a few years. "A lot of our relationship was hidden, and when it did come out it wasn't well received in the community," he says.



Yaqub was happy not to see a script before becoming involved with the project, but it was different for Birthistle. "If it had been with a director whose work I didn't know, I wouldn't have been prepared to commit to the film without seeing the script. But as it was Ken, who's so well respected, I was happy to do that.



"At first I felt slightly vulnerable, but once I got my head round the way things worked I just went along with it and gave it my all. Ken creates a very naturalistic environment and I trusted my instinct. It was different from anything else I'd ever worked on. I would be handed a scene the night before we were due to film it, with the bottom half of the page blank."



Has Loach's venture into what he admits is virgin territory worked? The film is certainly gentler and less cruel than Sweet Sixteen. The familiar components of white working-class poverty and deprivation are absent, withRoisin a professional and Casim coming from a comfortable middle-class home in suburban Glasgow. So what about the politics? Did he decide it was time to go easy on the themes of his other films, poverty and injustice, and life on the margins of society?



He says not, pointing out, "People have a very narrow definition of 'politics'. Politics is everything about how people live together and their economic and social relationships. This is about a community that has come here seeking opportunities, trying to contribute to society and maintain their own cultural identity."



Loach (married since 1962 with five children) is also keen to challenge the idea that marriage is necessarily for life. "We are who we are now, but God knows what we will be like in 30 years time. The film challenges the whole idea of monogamy, of permanent marriage that is either arranged or a love match."



He and the rest of the crew are very protective of the film's young protagonists. Ae Fond Kiss... is Loach's most sexually explicit film to date and, according to Birthistle, he was more nervous about filming the intimate scenes than she and Yaqub were.



"I probably was," says Loach, his lips twitching into a smile. "Those scenes are testing - there are so many clichés waiting for the unwary. The sex has to be true, but not exploitative. There's a great responsibility to make sure the actors don't emerge feeling ripped off, and that the people watching the film don't stop seeing the relationship as a relationship while the characters are having sex. What passes between their minds must continue."



Yaqub hopes that the film will be well received in the Asian community in Glasgow, but is anxious about how the subject matter in general, and the explicit sex scenes in particular, will go down in some quarters. "My mum hasn't seen it yet, and when she does I'll be sitting a few rows away," he says. "I have had advice from some people in my community that the film could reflect negatively on me, but I chose to do it and I have to deal with that. I hope something positive comes out of it, and if there is a backlash that it is against me, not against my mum."

[Freddy]

This was in todays Independent



PODIUM



A golden age before talent was stifled by formulas

Ken Loach . . From a talk by the film-maker on the 1960s, given at Tate Britain



IN THE early Sixties I got a job at the BBC. I'd applied to be an assistant floor manager and got turned down, but some weeks later got accepted to a directors' course. Then came an induction course. It was not so much a course on making anything, but on how the BBC works: about filling forms on time and the ethos of the BBC.



While at the BBC, I got caught up with a group of people who had huge freedom to create contemÂÂ*porary drama, namely the Wednesday Play and Play for Today. We were given licence to put on a contemporary piece of 75 minutes or more each week.



I would not pretend that everyÂÂ*thing was good, but there was a huge respect for writers. And the key people who made it work reÂÂ*ally made a massive contribution. That was a situation that one could not imagine occuring now. Hugh Greene, the Director General, asked-Sydney NewÂÂ*man, a Canadian who had done contemporary drama at ArmÂÂ*chair Theatre, to come and do that at the BBC. He was the new head of drama and he made the space in the schedules and orÂÂ*ganisationally for that to happen. He got a young producer, James McTaggart, and James brought in a a writer called Roger Smith. Roger then brought in two other script editors called Tony Garnett and Ken Trodd.

These men were the powerÂÂ*house, and together they found a really dazzling collection of writers. Without their interest in raw talent, it could not have hapÂÂ*pened. They wanted originality of form, originality of ideas, a connection to peoples' lives.



Nowadays there are so many people who sit on writers' shoulders. They have producÂÂ*ers by the throat in terms of forÂÂ*mat, in terms of who should be cast, how they should be cast, what the style of it should be. Happy programmes for happy people is the formula. Now there is a rigidity that invariably stifles creativity.

[louise1]

HI...

I was wondering what people thought of the following (to help me out with my dissertation!)

DO you think that Ken Loach's films of the 90s and 00s address social and political issues adequately, or do you think that a focus on personal problems, and consumerism rather than production has detracted from these issues?

[Wetherby Pond]

Originally posted by louise1@Mar 15 2005, 01:26 PM

HI...

I was wondering what people thought of the following (to help me out with my dissertation!)

DO you think that Ken Loach's films of the 90s and 00s address social and political issues adequately, or do you think that a focus on personal problems, and consumerism rather than production has detracted from these issues?

I don't understand the second part of your question - are you talking about a general focus on consumerism, or something peculiar to Loach? In which case, which Loach films are you thinking of?

[louise1]

Originally posted by Wetherby Pond@Mar 15 2005, 03:08 PM

I don't understand the second part of your question - are you talking about a general focus on consumerism, or something peculiar to Loach? In which case, which Loach films are you thinking of?

I'm talking about any Loach films of the nineties and 00s that you think may be relevant, focusing on Sweet 16, Raining Stones, Riff Raff. Basically, John Hill has asserted that an increased focus on the consumerism of the working classes rather than their production has detracted from the social and political impact impact. Do you agree that this is the case in Loach's films?

[Gibbie]

Originally posted by louise1@Mar 15 2005, 03:24 PM

I'm talking about any Loach films of the nineties and 00s that you think may be relevant, focusing on Sweet 16, Raining Stones, Riff Raff. Basically, John Hill has asserted that an increased focus on the consumerism of the working classes rather than their production has detracted from the social and political impact impact. Do you agree that this is the case in Loach's films?

Louise,



You will then want to research interviews with Loach about his views that is social commentary. As you know, he is a socialist of a particularly confrontative stripe. Because socialists are foundationally "materialists" that would make sense that he would be concerned about conumerism. Much of his earlier work took a shot at consumerism.



If I may make a few recommendations, perhaps you can contrast his politcal comments or social realism in these films, as compared to the policies of the Labour Party or the prime minister. Or, perhaps you may consider writing about why his films are more received on the continent and not as much in Britain. Or, you may want to do a study or comparison between his views and real working class people - (while school orthodoxy today demands statistics, today's numerology can be a tricky thing - I suggest interviews (try to get an interview with him and real people) along with well studied statistics.



One of Marx' biggest critiques of industrialisation is separation of workers from the work of their hands. That could have a relationship to Loach's consumerist approach; or, in this case, an inversion of that point. While I think the problem is something else (one of my many criticisms with the red tide is its objectification of the working class, who cannot be simplified into 19th century criticisms and mere political locations)...well, I would stick to the parameters of the question. Look for what Loach thinks - believes, his dogma, that is the key to his film statements.



And, if I were a professor, Louise, I would be very interested in reading your critique of Loach.



Gibbie

[louise1]

Thanks very much for taking the time to reply! your comments have certainly set me thinking! Louise.

[Gibbie]

Originally posted by louise1@Mar 16 2005, 04:30 PM

Thanks very much for taking the time to reply! your comments have certainly set me thinking! Louise.

It's a pleasure.



Best wishes on your dissertation.



Gibbie

[Jennie_Kermode]

Originally posted by louise1@Mar 15 2005, 03:24 PM

I'm talking about any Loach films of the nineties and 00s that you think may be relevant, focusing on Sweet 16, Raining Stones, Riff Raff. Basically, John Hill has asserted that an increased focus on the consumerism of the working classes rather than their production has detracted from the social and political impact impact. Do you agree that this is the case in Loach's films?

'Sweet Sixteen' might be interpreted as running directly counter to such a suggestion. What we're presented with therein is, indeed, a story of a youth tempted by material success; but crucially, that's not the reason for his downfall. Like all the great tragedies, this story fools us into focusing on a familiar set of socially controversial issues when its real dangers are elsewhere, in the boy's personal life and his unresolved feelings regarding family members.



'Ae Fond Kiss', in turn, offers us a slight but terribly PC story in response to which many viewers will feel outraged. Why do people have to be so obsessed with religion? Why can't these poor blighted lovers be left alone to enjoy their relationship? Again, the vital dynamic of the film is elsewhere - when they no longer have controversy to feed them, how long _will_ the relationship survive? How well can they actually connect as people?



Personally, I don't think 'Ae Fond Kiss' gets that balance quite right, and I found its portrayal of the Muslim family's consumerism uncomfortably twee; but 'Sweet Sixteen' is brilliantly judged.



Jennie

[dylan]

This link might help:



Scenes from the class war: Ken Loach and socialist cinema

[Steve Crook]

Ken Loach has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes for The Wind That Shakes The Barley

See BBC News and Politics Returns to Cannes



Steve

[theuofc]

(Steve Crook @ May 28 2006, 09:30 PM)

Ken Loach has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes for The Wind That Shakes The Barley

See BBC News and Politics Returns to Cannes



Steve

I'm looking forward to seeing this Loach film. Based on positive comments in here, I tracked down Loach's 1990 "Hidden Agenda" on the British army shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland, which he won a jury prize for. "The Wind..." also has Liam Cunningham, who can be quite effective in the right role.



Thanks,



Barbara

[Harbottle]

Oh good....

[Steve Crook]

(Harbottle @ May 29 2006, 12:33 AM)

Oh good....

Not a fan of Mr Loach?



Steve

[Hackett]

The Jury is still out for me on that one Steve. But then so are all the murdering IRA scum out now.

[JamesM]

And so are the murdering scum who were in Haditha, which this film is also about, metaphorically I believe.

[Marky B]

When are we going to get a film about the murders in Enniskillen,Warrington,Lord Mountbatten,Omagh,Airey Neave and all the other atrocities committed by the IRA. Or are these forbidden? The only films allowed are anti-British?

Mark

[Steve Crook]

(Marky B @ May 31 2006, 11:44 PM)

When are we going to get a film about the murders in Enniskillen,Warrington,Lord Mountbatten,Omagh,Airey Neave and all the other atrocities committed by the IRA. Or are these forbidden? The only films allowed are anti-British?

Mark

If Mel Gibson and similar people have any say in it, yes, the only films allowed are anti-British.

Does anyone know why he's so fervently anti-British? (Braveheart, The Patriot, Gallipoli etc.)



Steve