Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach (2016) - full transcript

If you say how the world is,

that should be enough.

Just the sense of simple
connection between people.

Just being.

If you make films about people's lives,

I think politics is essential.

It is the essence of drama,
the essence of conflict.

Ken wants to make films about
how the world is actually run.

There are two powerful
forces at work in society...

...and they are enemies.

Like all of us, he's a contradiction.



Ken appears to be so
respectable and well-mannered...

...he doesn't seem to be a
danger to anyone, does he?

He could be at home at a vicar's tea party.

But there he is, the most left-wing,

subversive director this
country has probably ever had...

Perfect gentleman.

Ken's acted brilliant.

Bastards.

You might be able to find
something here that would work for...

- ...the working flat.
- Oh, yes.

You know what I mean?

Because suddenly you're
in a whole different...

Yes, it may take a while...

We're almost at the mouth of the Tyne,



so the River Tyne is just down there,

then there's the Fish Quay area and...

Today is, what, the 10th of July?

And we'd like to start shooting
the film on the 5th of October.

That's three months.

That's tight.

It's all quite manageable, isn't it?

Scale-wise.

I had the phone call from Film Four,

who were saying that
they can't fund the film.

They just don't think it would be a
good enough investment for them.

But I'm also talking to the BBC.

My fear with the BBC is that, politically,

the film may just be too
tough for them to take on.

It's quite iffy, really. It's quite edgy.

God knows why I'm doing it, really.

I must be mad.

All things considered, it would
be nice to be on that side,

because then it'll be in shade.

There's something quite...

...well-kept about it.

'You do have to be on your game.

'That's the fear, isn't it,
that you just let people down

'and that you're just not sharp enough.'

You miss a trick,

and if you miss too many
tricks in the course of shooting,

then you don't do justice to the story.

That's the...

That's the danger

of employing an old director.

HE CHUCKLES

Hmm.

I think I should keep taking the...

Keep the ointment and the pills

and the elastic stockings and...

...all the support mechanisms in place...

...for the antique director.

As they're approaching the bell tower,

the noise is getting louder and louder...

The rope's fairly long, so
they can move about a bit.

I first met Ken when I acted for him.

He didn't direct the actors at all.

I mean, I rehearsed for a
week and we sort of barely met.

I remember he was quite stroppy,

and I did have second
thoughts about casting him,

cos he asked questions all the time.

He looked sort of like
a bank clerk, really.

He made no impression on me.

So that was my first impression of Ken -

he made no impression.

In the early '60s, the BBC was changing.

They were expanding to BBC Two,

so a number of
working-class ruffians like...

us got jobs,

which we would never
have got in the BBC before.

We had one morning entitled
What To Do With Your Cameras.

There wasn't a rude
reply, as you might imagine,

but we were given a tour of a TV studio,

but no kind of instruction at all.

All right, very quiet now. Ready.

BBC drama was photographed stage plays

with clumsy electronic cameras in a studio.

The working class were not represented...

I do hope that the price
for dropping this charge

is not only a high one...

18. Two next.

...and posh actors could
always play down, as they said.

"Oh, I'm going Northern."

It was a class-ridden English society,

and we came in wanting to change it.

We were asked to produce a
series of contemporary single dramas

about the world as it actually was.

So, that was our brief,

to stir up a bit of trouble.

It was a magical medium to work
with, and so that's compulsive.

Because you're not only
dealing with drama and actors

and performance and telling a story,

you're also dealing in images
and light and movement.

I mean, all those things.

I moved to Battersea
because I didn't like Chelsea.

I got a job in a sweet factory,
packing chocolate liqueurs...

...and bought a little cottage for £700.

There was always a big queue for the bath.

And also, a telephone -

there was always a big
queue for the telephone.

They had one queue for the
bath, the other for the telephone,

cos I think I was the
only bath in the street.

That's where I was,

and so I wrote about what was around me.

♪ I wanna be loved by you

♪ Alone, scoop-boop-be-doop. ♪

Where do think you're going, all
dressed up like the Queen of Sheba?

Ken found the book,

and he was just aching to do it.

They were just absolutely what I
was looking for, because they were

little events, little
moments, little relationships.

Get him worked up, give
him a love bite, that'll do it.

The lads taking the girls on
the motorbikes and going round

an empty house - it had an
energy and a kind of febrile...

...scent of danger.

They became a script very quickly
with just a little editing, really.

He told me what HE wanted.

He told me what he
wanted, and I tried to do it.

The problem was it had
to be shot on location.

And I put it through the works
at the BBC, as though it were a

studio show, so that there
wouldn't be any alarm bells going off.

Hey-hey!

Ken had the lovely Tony Imi stripped off,

with his camera held high above his head,

filming these girls leaping in the water.

Basically, we were saying that
the working class people had sex.

I mean, that's all right if
you're doing... the aristocracy.

I mean, they're allowed to.

But the working-class people
were having sex and enjoying it,

and they weren't even married.

I mean, this was... In
1965, this was horrifying.

Every week, there were
18 to 20 million viewers.

You knew that people were writing stuff

about the people you came from.

Quick, get the clobber!

You know, they weren't plays
with cucumber sandwiches

and French windows. You know, they weren't.

I would have cut my arm off to have...

...got that film made...

...because of the
backstreet-abortion scene of Ruby.

It was during the war, during the
bombing, my mother got pregnant.

They didn't want another child.

Abortion was illegal, so it had to be...

...an amateur.

And something went wrong with it.

And she died a few days later

of what they called galloping septicaemia.

I was five.

Sometimes a film's an accident, you know,

and sometimes it comes from a
moment or a character or an incident.

You know, Ken has been talking about

hanging up his football boots.

Excuse me while I laugh. Yes,
hanging up his football boots.

Now, the job centre...

Again, we want it... If we're doing
Newcastle, we want city centre...

And of course, after the
Tories coming back in again,

with these welfare cuts and the sanctions,

you could just see his anger rise again,

and so I didn't think it would be long

before he was on the
hunt for another story.

Cos, I mean, in this scene,

it's just the sense of people
waiting and wakening up,

so it would just be
the reception and the...

Paul wrote a character,
a very simple character -

a man in his late 50s, early 60s
who's trying to get back to work

after caring for his wife and
dropping out. He was a carpenter.

Just the hurdles he faces,
the difficulties he faces,

the world that he faces.

When the thing kicks off
with Rachel and the two kids...

Any film-maker who says,

"I can change your mind,"
with absolute confidence -

you just don't know.

If we as human beings are touched
by the story, and we do that well,

then you've maybe got a
chance of touching other people.

That's what gives you the motive
to actually do the damn thing,

because there's something
inside you that burns to do it.

We lived in Nuneaton, which
is in the middle of the Midlands.

My dad was one of ten children.

He did an apprenticeship
as an electrician in the mine,

and then he got this job
in a machine tool factory.

He worked seven days a week.

He would go into the factory
at six o'clock every morning,

and be back at six o'clock at night.

He did quite well, he became
in charge of the maintenance

and became a foreman.

I mean, he had a huge respect
for craftsmen, I mean, he...

Craftsmanship. When we
were doing Macbeth at school,

he got a dagger made
in the joinery workshop,

and it was just immaculate.

Just the delight in craftsmanship was...

Was one of his defining
characteristics, really.

In a way, he was a working-class Tory,

and the Daily Express came in to our house.

Only later did I realise
how right-wing it was.

We had one week's holiday,
and we would go to Blackpool.

My mother, when asked
where we were going, she'd say,

"Blackpool, but the
north side, the north end,"

because that was seen as slightly
more refined than the south end

where the Pleasure Beach
was, it was a bit too proletarian.

But the big treat was seeing
the shows and the great comics.

Very much the humour of
poverty, and the humour of...

...bodily functions.

The hysteria would be something to behold.

People would weep, WEEP with laughter.

And my old man, who was not
given to a lot of laughter, would...

He would be doubled,

he'd have to get his
handkerchief out to mop the tears

as they ran down his face.

Let me now ask our audience,

how many of you have seen the play
Cathy Come Home, or have heard about

Cathy Come Home, have read about
it in the newspapers or magazines,

or heard it discussed?

If you have, will you push your buttons?

Let's just see how many of you
know about Cathy Come Home.

Let's have a quick look.

Some 90% of our audience
know Cathy Come Home.

It was during that Wednesday Play season

that Ken and I gravitated
towards each other.

We both wanted to do the same thing.

We wanted to make films on real locations

about the lives of actual people.

Cathy Come Home had been
turned down by the BBC twice

as being too political.

We could take your children
into care and turn you out,

- just like that.
- Please don't do that.

But we're not going to. We're
going to give you one more chance.

But I must emphasise,
this is your last chance.

We knew there was a housing problem,

but I didn't know there were
homeless, and neither did Ken.

Come along then.

That's it then, Cath.

As you were doing it, you're thinking,

"How can I shoot this in
such a way that it is credible,

"so that I really believe it?"

If you were watching a
documentary, you would believe it.

So, that's our...

...standard.

We thought, "Let's shoot in sequence,"

because then an actor has
time to develop a character,

to have a past and an unknown future.

If you shoot the story
in the chronological order

it would have happened,
you don't need to work out,

"How would I feel if
I'd been through that?"

You know, and you just have that memory

in your stomach, really.

Somebody told me you've got
these places they call halfway houses.

Carol White was just a
natural choice to play Cathy.

Reg might come back to me.

She could just be.

He's drifting away from me.

And that's great acting
when you can get that.

And Ken had the knack of
encouraging that from an actor.

It was so different to anything
we'd ever seen before,

because it was shot in an observed
way and not in an immaculate way,

but actually told the story

more truthfully and more realistically

than I think I'd ever seen before.

Get back! Get back!

Ken, as a director, was
becoming much more confident -

determined to get what
he wanted for the film.

There is one scene where Carol White
has her children taken away from her

at the railway station by social workers.

It still stays with me.

It's one of the strongest
scenes I've ever seen in any film.

You're not having my kids.

You're not!

SHE SCREAMS

It had to be shocking.

It couldn't be other than shocking.

If we'd staged it with extras walking past,

it just wouldn't have had the impact.

We just put it in a real
place and let it happen.

The reception - it was extraordinary.

At the first showing, the Daily
Mail called Cathy Come Home,

"A dramatic battering ram."

The Guardian said it was,

"Undoubtedly one of the
most successful pieces

"of social reforming drama
we've had on television."

People didn't know.

I think there's been enormous
confusion in the public mind

as to whether this is,
in fact, fact or fiction.

I mean, what is there to prevent
you next time, when you want to

make your point a little more strongly,

to introduce fictional statistics as well?

Well, I thought it was a
brilliant piece of propaganda

of a highly charged and emotional kind.

The script was written,
there were 60-odd actors in it.

The fact that Ken Loach is such
a good director that the actors

often don't look like
actors is hardly my fault.

Part of the enormous kerfuffle...

...was an invitation to the Ministry.

So, Ken Loach and I went down Whitehall

to see the Minister.

And we sat down in this huge,
beautifully appointed office -

I mean, I've never lived
in anywhere as big as that -

and it was very English.

Tea was on quite nice china with biscuits,

but then he said, "But what can one do?"

And I looked at Ken and Jeremy,
and I said, "Well, build more houses."

And he looked at the senior civil servant

who looked back and then went...

Smiled at each other as though...

HE SIGHS

"If only it were that simple."

We were ushered out into
Whitehall and that was the end of it.

I did kick myself afterwards
that it wasn't more political.

We'd let everybody off the hook.

The starting point is, "What
is the core of the story?"

Are the people valid?

Are they true? Is it significant?

Is it worth telling?

Then you've got to find
people who can bring that to life.

Then there's the qualities of the
character, their age, their class,

where they're from, all
of which you can't hide,

and you look for someone who can listen.

He's trying to find some
essential quality in the actor

that he can use.

It's less about acting,
it's about, sort of...

you as a person, I think.

I think you want actors
who don't put up defences.

You want actors who let you into
their minds, into their thoughts,

into their weaknesses.

And many actors erect
defences. They have...

They'll develop a technique,

which is about giving the
impression of something,

and presenting something,

but you want to get beyond
that into who they really are.

So, vulnerability is a
really important quality.

But then you have a
responsibility not to exploit that,

you know, they have to feel safe.

They have to feel safe in order to
allow themselves to be vulnerable.

When Carol came for her audition,

she had a gift of intimacy
that's quite unusual.

He saw her...

I suppose, her talent,
to be completely there.

She was a nice girl, Carol.

I think her big mistake
was going to America.

She should have stayed here.

Carol White had a quality.

She was undefended,

and that worked when she was
with people who cared about her,

who loved her like Ken and I did.

But then she was seduced into Hollywood,

and they don't take prisoners there.

And she got into drugs
and emotional difficulties,

and she died really quite young.

Theatres have a magic about them.

We had a theatre company
used to visit every three weeks.

I used to go and hang
around like schoolboys do,

just for some connection to
these mysterious, magical people.

But Dad had a passion
that I should be educated,

and was fierce in his instruction

that I couldn't go out on weekdays.

Only 60 boys a year passed the
exam to go to the grammar school.

It was a ladder for bright,
working-class kids to get out.

We had an election in school, it
would have been the '50 election.

To my shame, I stood as
the Conservative candidate.

Ken and I escaped.

We were lucky.

Why not my friend down our street
who had to go to a secondary modern?

So when a novel called
A Kestrel For A Knave

arrived on my desk, we read it in one day.

And we said, "We're going
to make a film of this."

It went to something that Ken
and I were very, very affected by.

The fate of working-class adolescents.

The central idea was that
all kids are remarkable,

and we learn something about
one boy who is cast as a failure

by the school and the world.

But we know he isn't.

And so we thought, well, if this is true,

then we can go to any school
and we will find Billy Casper.

This is Billy Casper.

Billy Casper cheats.

Steals.

Lies.

Fights.

Because... Well, because he has to.

My dad was a coal miner,
my mum was a seamstress,

she'd worked as a cleaner.

Whatever it took to make ends meet.

I just knew I couldn't handle
working in a coal mine.

And then I received a
letter, delivered by hand,

and there in purple writing, it
said something along the lines of,

"Dear David, we would love for
you to play the part of Billy Casper

"in our film, A Kestrel For A Knave."

I can't possibly explain how excited I was.

I wasn't frightened, because I felt
this is where I belonged, in a way.

Come on.

Come on.

What determined a lot of the
things about Kes, and the way it looks,

begins with this central image
of the bird which flies free

and the boy who is trapped.

That is clearly what connects to people.

Ken and I, we quickly found
a way that was particular

and a good and simple way to work.

Basically, dealing with people
who hadn't acted before,

how do you remove the camera
crew from the experience?

Our whole style of
observational film-making

came through conversations with Chris.

We both saw the Czech films.

The camera has its own...

Its own sense of being a person observing.

You become a person there.

It seemed to bring out the humanity

of the people in front of the camera.

What I found amazing was
that he trusted me so much.

Ken would explain a scene
to me in very brief terms,

so that when we came to do
the actual speech that Billy does

in front of the class,

I had only been given less than 24
hours to actually learn that scene.

But I think Ken wanted that rough quality.

Then, when it got to know
me, I fed it on my glove.

And after a while I put it two
inches away from its claws.

Like that, like.

I didn't want him to
learn it too word-for-word,

because the point of the
scene is not to tell the audience

how to train a kestrel.

The point of the scene is for
a boy who can never string

two words together to become articulate.

I got about 70 yards from
there, in the middle of the field,

I called her.

"Kes. Kes. Come on, Kes. Come on then."

Nowt happened.

So I thought, "Well, I better
walk back and pick her up."

So, when I were walking back, I
saw her flying - she came like a bomb.

About a yard off the floor,
like lightning, head still,

and you couldn't hear the
wings - there weren't a sound

from the wings. And straight
on to the glove. Wham!

And she'll grab me for the meat.

Anyway, I were pleased with mysen...

With Ken as a director,

there is another side to his
loving relationship with the actors,

his capacity to allow.

And that other side is his...

...ruthlessness.

The children being beaten in Kes...

The fact that he would allow
those kids to be beaten is horrific.

I couldn't do that.

No. He had a point to make,

that the headmaster had only
one response to this situation,

and that was the response
at that time in our history -

beat the kids.

Same old faces.

Same old faces.

We were told we weren't going to
get hit, so we hold out our hands,

thinking that this is when Ken
Loach is going to say, "Cut."

But he didn't.

Ah!

A regular little cigarette
factory, aren't you?

Sir.

Put that rubbish away.

Now, I hope it's going
to be a lesson to you.

I don't suppose for one minute it will be.

I don't doubt, before the end of the week,

you'll be back in here again for
exactly the same crime - smoking.

I've noticed only sons with devoted
mothers to have characteristics

that other people may not have.

Their self-belief is absolute.

They seem to retain...

...the infantile omnipotence that
is appropriate in a five-year-old.

And if you become a film director,

that omnipotence, as it
were, can be preserved,

because a world is created for you,

in which you are omnipotent.

And you can be quite benign,

but it is your world to
manipulate how you wish.

She says it's not just her.

There's four other
women, four other families.

It's me and my boys
and four other families.

And this... She was in a hostel, was she?

My phone rang at about five
o'clock, and it was my agent,

and they said I'd got the
part, and it was a real sort of...

It was a bit ridiculous, really.

It was a real moment.

My mum was downstairs cooking dinner.

I shouted her name really loudly

and she dropped everything in the kitchen.

Ken give me a ring as well just to say,

"Glad you're onboard," and I
thanked him and that was it.

I think the girl that Paul's
written is quite complex.

You want the girl to be
sharp, to have ambition,

to see possibilities in the future.

But, when tough times happen,

I think I can imagine Hayley taking
a realistic view of where she is

and doing just what is
necessary to survive.

I suppose that's the battle at the
beginning, isn't it, between the...?

Getting out of that situation to
here... So anything's got to be good.

But at the same time,
there's some real shit...

Yes, yes, yes.

It's like being a spy. It's
like being a spy, it's like...

You go, "Is there any
sort of, like, script?"

And you go, "Yeah, well,
you get two pages in a toilet

"in the centre of Newcastle
behind the hot water pipes."

And you go, "OK."

It's really sort of quite...

It's exciting, but it's also a bit
sort of, "Oh, God, am I going to...

"Am I going to get the stuff I need?"

But, yeah, you know,
he's made plenty of films

so I'm sure the process works, you know.

- I don't like that shirt for him.
- No, no, no.

It was just to get you in a...

- Yeah, nice shirt.
- Yeah.

David is as close as I think we could find

to the Dan that Paul wrote.

He's the right age, he's a
working-class man from Newcastle.

He started work laying bricks

and has experience doing
comedy and some acting.

It means he's got a real sense
of how to deliver a performance.

He communicates very directly, eye to eye.

So, I think what he does is very truthful.

Hi.

We just wanted to show you this.

You got it.

It's the undertaker.

Oh, my God, that's a bit serious.

- Detective...
- I have reason to suspect...

I think this is probably too much, really.

- Too smart?
- Much too much.
- Yeah.
- Much too much.

I mean, he looks like a Labour
politician that you want to...

Who's betrayed his promises.

I was pretty surprised at the
intensity with which, later on,

all his work is imbued
with a political flavour,

very strong political flavour.

So, yes, it was very surprising,

because there wasn't any evidence of that

in the years we were together when young.

Oxford was an extraordinary experience.

It was only then that I became
really aware the ruling class

had a face, and it was the
faces of these gilded youths

who inherited the world,
and who expected to rule it.

And did.

I met Ken when we were
both auditioning, I think,

for a play in Oxford,

and you'll see in the photograph a
rather slenderer version of myself

in the foreground, but in the background,

giving a character performance,
shall we say, is young Loach,

heavily disguised by beard
and on one leg and a crutch.

All of which he made the
very most of, and I detect,

though I didn't detect it at the
time, being heavily upstaged by Ken.

He was much the same
shape and size as he is now -

slender, sylph-like indeed, maybe.

Self-effacing.

Apparently self-effacing.

Nimble and brisk.

That was a big event
for my mother and father,

to get to Oxford and to do law,

but it became plain I
wasn't going to be a lawyer,

much to my mum and dad's dismay.

My father said, "Well, you
can go off and be an actor,

"but you'll never have two
pennies to rub together."

When we came back from
Barnsley, and he shot Kes -

couldn't get it released.

The exhibitor thought,
"It won't take a penny,

"so why waste money on marketing?"

They'd open it in six
cinemas in Yorkshire, thinking,

"Oh, that'll be the end of that."

And it broke the house record in every one.

Then suddenly, we had a hit.

While we were making
it, I literally, sort of...

What's been happening?

And what had been happening
were the May events in Paris in '68...

...the Vietnam war was raging...

...and disillusion, even amongst
not very political people,

with Wilson and the Labour government.

I was interested in
politics since my teens.

I had known a lot of
Communist Party members.

Ken was not political...

...but he became more and
more interested in politics

as we did our work together.

And, of course, I
introduced him to Jim Allen,

which was another
political step to the left.

Jim Allen was a Manchester lad.

A lot of people say up North,
"He was as rough as a bear's arse."

He'd been a docker,

he'd worked on the barges,
he'd been a bus conductor,

and he obviously had this gift for writing.

He was the opposite to Ken.

They were chalk and cheese.

We're very different people.

He's a very private person.

I'm a bit of an extrovert.

I like to get drunk, I love pubs, etc.

I think one thing that
brings us together is that...

...we have the same kind
of political approach to life.

We would like things to be different.

I don't think Ken had been born
with a silver spoon in his mouth,

but I don't think he'd ever
had the knocks or the hardship

that Jim Allen had had.

He knew about being blacklisted,

he knew about being on the dole
and out of work and stuff like that,

and I think he was able to
put it on paper, in writing,

for Ken to understand.

What he got was that there were
two powerful forces at work in society.

There is capital and there is labour,

and they are enemies.

If you make a film about
a socialist movement,

it's a given what the class conflict is.

It's... How do you win the power?

And who is there to stop you?

CHEERING

Solidarity!

CROWD: ♪ Solidarity forever

♪ Solidarity forever. ♪

Jim had been through it.

What I want to know is,

what is Brother Hagen doing
about our long outstanding claim

for a two and sixpence an hour increase?

He knew about the betrayals
of trade union bureaucrats.

Now, listen, half a crown an
hour, you must be bloody...

He knew that the role of the Labour Party

was to deliver the
working class to betrayal.

I believe that those are the
men that can win the struggle,

could win it much quicker only if
we can get help from other workers.

Jim made the ideas flesh in his writing.

That drama of political
argument, driven by need...

...I think was the essence of
drama, it was the essence of conflict.

The problem with the BBC is that
I didn't know how far I could push.

If I didn't push far enough or hard enough,

I'd be missing an opportunity.

If I pushed too far, we'd be dead.

As usual, with The Big Flame, I
had not shown the BBC anything,

because they would have hit the roof.

I just said, "It's a love story,

"a sort of Romeo and Juliet between
the son and daughter of two dockers,

"one Catholic and one Protestant."

And that's what I told the
Mersey Docks and Harbour Board,

who owned our location.

Now, everyone in favour of
the resolution, please show.

But what we actually
did was get a strike going.

And then the dockers stayed on the dock...

...declaring a soviet.

The root cause of our problem
lies in the capitalist system of

private ownership and calls
for the nationalisation of the dock

and the shipping industry
under the workers' control.

I was in London and I got a
phone call to say the film was off,

because the Mersey Docks and
Harbour Board had seen the script.

And I laughed, and said,

"Do you honestly think the BBC would allow

"a film about dockers declaring
a soviet on the docks of...

"Do you think they'd allow
that to happen? Come on."

And they were reassured.

All day long, convoys of troops
have been arriving as this takeover

by 10,000 Merseyside
dockers enters its second day.

And eventually, of course,
the Army was brought in.

They were betrayed by their
so-called friends and leaders

and ended up in court
and were sent to jail.

This theory of social revolution
becomes as dangerous

as a loaded pistol in
the hands of a criminal.

Officer, arrest those two men.

I think Ken's politics gelled in
that early work with Jim and me,

and when he got it, he got it.

And...

you won't shift him now.

Obviously, we use the hallway,
we use this room, the kitchen,

the bathroom, the stairs.

'If you make films about
people's lives, politics is essential.'

When she collapses, we'll probably
take some stuff round here...

If you're making a film about a
family, what determines those lives?

And then at some point,

she'll make her way round the bed

and then we'll cut to him on that shot.

The starting point is, where do we live?

What work do you do?

How does that affect your relationship?

Do you go on holiday?
What did your parents do?

What was your upbringing?

They're all this result of
political struggle over generations.

So, in a way, you can't walk away from it.

The present situation is
not the fault of the miners.

We are the victims of an
industry that has been ruined

by private ownership,
and this private ownership

is also ruining the country.

We would've gone on working together,

but things were closing down.

The regime at the BBC made it
plain that we weren't welcome.

The British film industry...

There was certainly no place for
the kinds of films that we wanted to do.

There was a period when he
couldn't find the money for his films,

and neither could anyone else.

And what happened was that my generation,

we all went to the United States
and we were able to make films about

American life in a way that Ken
absolutely was not prepared to do.

Family Life - in England,
they said it didn't take enough

to pay the usherettes.

Black Jack - that opened in
a soft porn cinema in Leeds.

What it was doing up there, God knows.

With that track record,

there was no chance of
getting a feature film made.

It was as though a time was over,

a period of one's life was over.

Ken was also in a state of some...

...difficulty.

It was very...

personal.

It certainly changes you.

I mean, anyone who loses a
child will be changed with it forever.

Before that, you know
what a kind of happiness is,

and after that you never do.

And there's a stone in your
stomach that never goes away, really.

So...

We were driving along the M1 on a Sunday.

A car on an inside lane

had a defective...

Was defective in some way.

A wheel came off, the car drove
into us, it pushed us into a bridge,

the upright of a bridge.

My wife, Lesley, was...

Fought for her life for
six weeks and survived.

Her grandmother was killed.

Our eldest son,

who was seven, survived, and I survived.

Our second son, who was five, was killed.

And that's...

...how that happened, really.

And...

Well, it...

Well, it changes you.

- MARGARET THATCHER:
- We will not disguise our purpose,

nor betray our principles.

We will do what must be done.

We will tell the people the truth,

and the people will be our judge.

I was struggling.

And there was this sudden
desperate mood in the country.

Day after day, factories
were going to the wall.

Mass unemployment.

And this was raging.

I didn't know how to respond.

So, I tried documentaries,

but with disastrous consequences.

Three cheers for the destruction
of Maggie's government.

Hip-hip!

Central Television proposed
this series of films by Ken Loach,

wonderful film-maker, about
the British trade union movement.

Hooray. Commissioned immediately.

In the press, all you would
read about were union barons

encouraging their members to strike.

The reverse was the case.

People at the shop-floor level
were ready to fight Thatcher,

but the trade union
leaders were doing a deal.

That is the biggest load of
codswallop that I have ever heard.

Because we obtained, for...

The films arrived.
Unfortunately, each one said,

"The leaders of the trade union
movement had betrayed the workers.

"The leaders of the trade union
movement had betrayed the workers,"

and film number three said,

"The leaders of the trade union
movement had betrayed the workers."

How can those at the bottom...

how can the working class
actually control the leaders?

The chairman of Channel 4 thought,

"This is a left wing
rant, I'm not having it."

And they stopped them.

But the way they did
it is very interesting,

because they did it in a very British way.

They didn't say, you know... Like,
if it was in Poland or somewhere,

they'd say, "OK, you're
sent to... Go to the salt mine."

They didn't say that.

They said, "Let's think about this.

"Let's provide a little balance."

I don't mind dealing with the
questions. What I don't want to be

is tricked into saying something,
then you're going to marry it

to something somebody else says.

It was quite clear that the
trade union leaders knew

what was going on, they
knew what Ken was up to,

and they did everything they
possibly could to ban the films.

I think, as far as I'm concerned,
you've not been fair with me.

And if you want to put
this on the camera, you can.

At which point, the chair of the
channel announced that he had taken

unilateral action and he'd
sent the films back to Central

as untransmittable.

End of story.

The miners' strike was the pivotal
event of our post-war history,

and everybody knew what was at stake -

it was the success of the
Thatcher project, or its defeat.

I tried the usual channels to make
a film about it, without success.

Everybody said no.

Who am I to ask them why

this pit must live,

that pit must die?

Ken came and said, "Look, a lot
of good work's being done here,

"there's a lot of poetry and
songs coming out of the strike,

"and I'd like to do a film about that."

And I said, "What a great idea.

"Let's do it."

These treble lines of blue

that escort the scabs through the gates...

I think he thought he'd made an arts film.

There was a pause again when
we'd made it, and they said,

"I don't think we're going
to be able to show this."

ITV companies in those days, 15 of them,

every so often had to rebid
for the right to broadcast.

And the power of withholding the
franchise was being murmured about

and being invoked.

I said, "Well, that's what
they're writing about.

"If you listen, this is what
their poems are about,

"this is what their songs are about,

"about police brutality."

"Can't show that."

We are talking about people
who are losing their franchises,

ie, an entire company's future.

And they saw this looming, because
Ken had been banned over there,

as some of them thought, for good reasons.

I mean, it was like that at that stage...

I don't think that's good enough.

I mean, you either believe...

You either have integrity
as a broadcaster or you don't.

I think they had no
integrity by suppressing it.

We must have overheard that
the films were being cancelled,

and we just became completely
incensed that this was happening,

and thought we would write to Channel 4.

I think we might have written a
couple of letters, I think we might

have written, and then a couple
of weeks later, written again,

to say that Dad was really tired,

and had been going up
and down to London a lot,

and we thought that was outrageous.

It was a touching act of family solidarity,

which was very nice of them.

He was mortified that we...

...had all written.

I mean, it's excruciatingly embarrassing

and completely undermined his authority.

In the midst of this failure to
get anything broadcast at all,

Jim Allen had been
beavering away on a play.

I thought it fell within the spectrum

of work that we could support.

I knew that it would be...

...provocative, but I had
little idea how provocative

and what a storm it would raise.

I went to the Royal Court and I met Ken,

his polite, charming,
quiet, self-effacing self,

and I thought to myself,

"How did this guy direct that stuff?"

Because I had expected

a more Oliver Stone-type
presence, you know.

Two weeks into the rehearsal,

we began to hear the
rumblings of discontent.

Good evening. You won't
have seen Jim Allen's

controversial courtroom drama, Perdition.

The play is based on the events
which led to the extermination

of Hungarian Jews, and accuses
Zionist leaders of collaborating

with Nazi Adolf Eichmann in
sending them to the gas chambers.

Jim found this story that a deal
was done by certain Zionist leaders

in Budapest,

that they would keep secret from
the other Jews who were going to get on

the trains, they would keep secret
the destination of those trains,

provided Eichmann gave permission
for 1,000 or several thousand Jews

to escape to Palestine.

And it was a shocking, shocking bargain.

People who hadn't read the play were
beginning to give judgment about it.

They were saying that the play
was anti-Semitic and that it was

selective in what it showed.

What would you say was
Eichmann's biggest problem, Dr Yaron?

And, within a week, every
newspaper had a huge full-page article.

This was serious.

Outside, a storm was brewing.

One of the actors had a
swastika painted on his door.

There was a sense that
this was now a kind of...

Not just a controversial play,
but a potentially dangerous play.

My relationship with Ken
broke down completely.

He had an inflexible set of principles

that really couldn't be questioned.

I suppose I became more and
more uncomfortable with my position

of defending the play.

Jim Allen, you've seen, around this table,

the offence your play has
created and the distress it causes.

Do you still think it
would be right to put it on?

Yes. It causes distress to
these people who are here

as the representatives of Zionism.

It lets the skeletons out of the cupboard

and they will do anything
possible to prevent the public

seeing Perdition and
making up their own mind.

They bowed to pressure. Just
before we were due to open,

I said, "Max, you'll have to tell
the cast and it's your decision".

So they sat in the auditorium
and he sat on the stage,

and he said he was going to cancel it.

And they tore him to pieces.

Ken Loach stood on that stage,

and I really wish that I had
memorised what he said,

but it was articulate and it was...

...ruthless

and it was accusatory.

He left the stage like a broken
man, and well he should be.

I mean, I think that was despicable.

I mean, I think I made two mistakes.

One was on putting the play on,

and the second was on taking it off.

So I am not proud of my
own behaviour over that time.

But, at the same time,

we headed into an area that
I thought was far from clear.

Max is... It was not a
mistake, it was cowardice.

Cowardice isn't a mistake, it's
a choice, and it's a moral choice.

He chose cowardice.

What he reminds me of is of the old
knights who used to go at each other

with big long lances and try to
kill each other from their horses.

Ken is much more of the kind of
knight who dislodges the other rider

with his lance and then stands
gently and respectfully over them

as he pushes back a small
opening in their armour

and slits a vein

and watches them bleed to death.

And he did that in the
Royal Court that day,

and I watch him do it
when he's on television.

You see, the thing about it
is, what they call intractable,

what they call unchanging...

...it's what makes him be that powerful.

And it's a wonderful thing
to see such quiet power.

It's an amazing...

It's an amazing thing to watch.

And I would not like to cross him.

Every son or child, I think,
remembers that moment

when they realise their
dad is not all-powerful

and can't sort out every situation.

It was the first time I'd really seen him

with a sort of defeated look on his face.

We were forbidden to talk
about the commercials -

it's even now a kind
of elephant in the room.

I think it was either make
them or we move house.

After that experience, I was
pretty well unemployable, really.

It didn't sit very happily with...

With me at the time, having
expressed the views I'd expressed,

but I didn't see the alternative, really.

Come on, man. Flick it in, go on.

Useless! Absolutely useless!

How can you miss from the
six-yard box, tell me that?

Your mum could do better than that.

Useless!

(Caramac. The golden creamy bar.)

I did one for McDonald's, yeah,

which, erm, sits really
badly on my conscience.

- You like that?
- I do like it, but do you?

Well, let's have that,
then. I love it, really.

- Honestly, really.
- He's driving me mad.

Big Mac. I'll have a Big Mac, please.

100% beef, 100% big.

Sometimes only a Big Mac will do.

Here's me berating other people
for betrayal, and I've done that.

When we were growing up, there
was a complete firewall, I would say,

between our family
life and the film industry.

OK, here we go. And turning over...

And... OK, Dave.

We thought Ken Loach was somebody else.

You know, we thought he was another person.

Good, that worked quite nicely.

Yeah, we'll just try one more like that.

I remember, when I was very young,

kind of realising that he
was my dad, you know.

And up to that point I think we'd thought

he was someone else entirely.

Don't go in. Who's put that pillock in?

Jesus Christ.

He was always away a lot,

working away from home.

So, he wasn't around.

There were times when he
wasn't around very much.

We'll race back as soon as we can.

Can you bear one more?
Can you bear it, yeah?

There is a side of him that works,

and there is also a quiet side to my dad,

quiet and reflective and quite private.

Get the lad!

Ken Loach is fearless,
indestructible, fiercely loyal,

absolutely driven.

Fucking hell.

But my dad is very
distinct from that person.

As a failed actor, he loves musicals.

He loves dancing, and he loves...

Not that he dances, thank God.

But he does love musicals
and, sort of, the more camp

and the more glossy they are, the better.

♪ One singular sensation

♪ Every little step she takes. ♪

It's not contradictory to me.

I guess, in musicals, they have
quite a sort of simple morality,

which, I guess, you
know, is quite nice, isn't it?

And I suppose it's escapism.

You know... And he's a bit camp, isn't he?

So, he likes all that.

He likes men dressing up.

- KENNETH WILLIAMS:
- Hold hands. This is an upstick.

Up with your sticks, this is a hand-hold.

- I beg your pardon.
- I mean, this is a stick up.

The first professional job I got
was understudying in a revue called

One Over The Eight.

Oh, stop messing about.

Kenneth Williams and Sheila
Hancock were the leads.

There was this funny little man
who was understudying Kenneth.

I mean, it's an unlikely
place for him to have been.

I have an image of him in the wings.

I think he was a bit scared.

We had to go through the
dance routines with an actor

called Jill Gascoigne - she
had to gallop across the stage.

As she arrived, I had to grab her
round the waist and swivel her over

and put her upright.

And I was hopeless at this.

And she was a bonny lass, she was not...

sylph-like, at least, but, I mean, very...

Good dancer. But I would
seize her round the waist,

and she'd be saying, "Get
me over, get me over!"

And, invariably, she would
end up with her head on the floor

and her legs waving

and my anxious face
peering in between them.

Well, he just suddenly
turned up at the theatre.

He was a very strange-looking young
man with a rolled umbrella and a tie

and a suit and a briefcase.

I mean, it was funny.

He played Br'er Fox,
and that's how I met him.

To me, when he was on stage,

his brain always worked
marginally before his instincts,

so that he sort of thought
about it and then acted it.

It's a bit naughty to say this,

but he was the sort of actor
he wouldn't dream of employing,

if you know what I mean.

Curious journey people go on...

Ken didn't make a film for nearly 12 years.

Here was a first-class director
who had actually been virtually silent

in the cinema for a decade.

TRAILER: An American has been
murdered in Northern Ireland.

Police said the car failed to stop
at a roadblock outside Dungannon.

And a high-ranking British inspector
has been assigned to the case.

When he made Hidden
Agenda, nobody would put it on.

Nobody would even give it a press show.

I think you lose confidence, you know,

if you go for a few years and
you don't make a film, you think,

"I'm not going to be able to do it again.
I'm going to forget the words to say."

It went to Cannes.

The right-wing press went for us.

There was a Tory MP who
denounced it before he'd seen it,

a familiar tale, where he said
it was the IRA entry at Cannes.

Hidden Agenda.

Every government has one.

The film was a success at Cannes,

despite that,

and he was known again,

and suddenly he was able to make films.

When he made Riff-Raff,

the National Film Theatre took it up,

and the critics all said, "Wonderful film."

And the bathroom here, which I
think you'll find very impressive.

SPLASHING

THEY GASP

THEY SHOUT IN OWN LANGUAGE

What are you doing here?

Who are you?

Who are you?

I'm checking the plumbing.

Get out of there.

Everything seems to be working.

Once the political climate
had changed a little,

and once it became possible to
raise a bit of money from Channel 4,

or even cobble together a bit of
distribution money around Europe...

...he just...

...took off where he'd left off

with an opportunity.

He found a group of people
that shared his outlook

and wanted to make films with him.

I certainly remember him
carrying himself much freer,

just being happier.

He knows that he's found...

...what he's looking for when he finds it.

I got a phone call off him.

"Rick," he said, "I'm
doing this movie," he said,

"and it's about more
or less a battered wife.

"She's got to have had a
couple of kids to this fella,

"a couple of kids to that fella,
been knocked about and battered."

He said, "But I can't find what
I want, can you help me out?"

And I said, "How many do you want?"

And he went, "No, I'm
serious." I said, "So am I."

He picked a girl called Crissy Rock.

♪ Come along and share
the good times while we can

♪ I beg your pardon

♪ I never promised... ♪

I said, "Look, if I'm not what you want

"or I think you made a mistake,

"you can sack me and tell
me to go and I'll understand,

"cos I'm not really an actress."

Woooooo!

And he goes, "No, but I trust you.

"I know you can do this."

As a director, the most
precious thing you've got

is the actor's instinct.

If you've acted a bit yourself,
you know, however badly,

you know how open actors can
be and how vulnerable they can be,

and how easily they
can be blown off-course.

He's got that gift to go inside.

He talks to you and he says,

"If this is happening, how
would you handle that?"

I'm Kevin McNally from Social Services.

- This is my colleague...
- Sarah Thompson.

He actually makes you
believe that you're that person.

We came to a decision last week
where we will have to take the baby

- to a place of safety...
- What's safer than here?

The baby is safe, and you
have no right, and you have...

We can go with the baby
to the court if we want.

But you don't need to take, OK?

- It is something that...
- Just go to your office!

- Jorge, it's illegal...
- Just leave us!

The anguish of losing
your children when in fact

you are capable of looking after them...

I mean, that was the point of the story.

It's a kind of well of experience.

People have said, "Well, this isn't
acting, she's just being herself."

But, actually, the ability to
tap into your own emotions

and express them in a fictional
scene is absolutely acting.

You don't realise he's doing it.

So you're just raw, he just
picks a raw piece of silk up,

and he makes it into a beautiful purse.

Neil. Neil.

You OK?

Right.

Right, one word before we start.

We hear it, we hear it.

And if you do it really
realistically, it sounds right.

If you don't do it
realistically, it sounds wrong.

Hayley, Hayley.

Do you mind just being there?

I'm working from somewhere
I've never worked before,

which is not having seen a script.

It's kind of a dream, you
know, shooting chronologically,

not knowing what happens.

It's what you want, because it
means you're going to be able to do it

then and there, and it's just
about you and who you're with.

- Would you like to go and see Agnes?
- Agnes?

When I went to the food bank,
and we saw the extras outside,

I found it really overwhelming.

The reason it's so raw is because
you're stepping into people's lives,

and these people that are using this place,

they're in this position and
they're around you doing it with you.

It'll be from there round
to the fruit and veg.

It's the purest environment
you could ever have.

That's what all this very,

very precise preparation and
precise casting is all to achieve,

this truth, I guess.

It fundamentally changed
how I approach acting,

and it's never been the same since.

171, take 3...

You know, there's no marks,
there's no action, there's no cut.

You don't have the script as
your document, you're just...

You're reacting as it
happens, you know, on film.

So, it becomes all
emotion and not intellect.

It's all right, it's all right.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

It's OK, it's OK.

It was like going on this
adventure with all these people

who you became very, very close to.

We had gone on this journey,

which felt, to us, as close as
it could possibly be to reality.

Oh, Jesus Christ. I can't
take much more of this.

So by the end, certainly for me,
it didn't feel like I was performing,

I was just kind of swept up
in this world that we'd created,

that we were invested in, that
felt completely authentic and real

and truthful, and that was
because Ken set it up that way.

The reason to do films
like the Spanish Civil War

or the Irish Civil War -
they're high points in our story.

They're critical moments where
if things had gone differently,

we would have a different world now.

We try to gather people who,
if the situation were to recur,

might do that again.

It was a People's Army, to fight fascism.

So, it was a very... It was a very...

happy bunch of brothers and sisters.

- How's your arm?
- It's much better now,

I had the stitches taken out two days ago.

- What are you doing here?
- Bernard gave me seven days' leave.

And then it reached the point where Blanca,

the girl who has really
embodied the revolutionary spirit -

she's shot.

Of course, they didn't know this.

I said, "Can I have a word?" And
she said, "What's up?" and I said,

"Look, I'm really sorry,
but you get shot here."

And she said, "But I don't want to die."

And we both got quite upset, really.

Of course, no-one knew
about it, and they were just...

Couldn't believe it,
really, that she'd gone.

And the Palme d'Or goes to...

Ken Loach.

What people in England don't
realise is how much he is adored,

not just in France, but all over Europe.

Here is someone over 70 who still believes,

and they find that very moving.

We didn't expect the film to
win the Palme d'Or, but then,

what was remarkable was this, just,
outburst of fury by Tory politicians

and right-wingers.

One of the most bizarre was a guy

who wrote for the Telegraph, I believe,

and he said...

...that he hadn't seen the film
and he didn't want to see the film,

because he didn't need to read Mein Kampf

to know what a louse Hitler was.

We don't set out to provoke.

The purpose of it is to try and
understand how power operates,

who has control of a narrative.

The choices that a character makes...

...are totally affected by
the society in which they live.

Like Robbie in Angels' Share...

You know, he's a kid
who's just become a dad,

and he's totally caught by
his history, by his family,

but he's absolutely
determined to just build a future

for this baby in his arms.

Or this kid, trying to buy a caravan,

buying the drugs because there's
no other way to earn some money

so that he could rescue
his mother and be with her.

Even Looking For Eric, I mean,

right behind that comedy on the
surface is a disintegrating family.

You know, so there is kind
of tragedy in the laughter.

Je suis...

Eric Cantona.

Fucking hell, it is you!

What the fuck, man?!

Wait till the fucking lads hear about this!

You just hope that resonates
without being explicit, you know.

You see the delicate surface
of those characters' lives.

But the great political
questions are a way down there,

like the bottom of the iceberg.

How could Ken be a
political danger to anybody?

He loves cricket.

He would really be at
home in the 18th century,

cos he loves the
architecture and the furniture.

I got some e-mails from
him last night, and I thought,

"God, he's on e-mail." I
mean, "He's discovered e-mail."

What's happened?

He even disliked the phone.

He's a very conservative...

...quiet gentleman.

The point is that Ken...

...will not be deterred.

I'm not a shirker, a
scrounger, a beggar nor a thief.

I'm not a national insurance
number or blip on a screen.

I paid my dues, never a
penny short, and proud to do so.

I don't tug the forelock, but
look my neighbour in the eye

and help him if I can.

Here he is now, coming up
to 50 years of film-making...

...and the politics comes first,
not in a party superficial manner,

but you can only have the energy to do that

if there's something burning inside you.

It's like he's got this big V8
engine in this skinny little body,

and that just drives him on.

And I think, even if he
probably wanted to stop,

I'm not sure he could, really.

He is speaking for the
people who are not catered to,

what they call the voiceless.

People walk out of theatres
and say, "Yeah, I really...

"That was just like watching
the people down the road."

Ken wanted people to
recognise, from the inside,

their own lives reflected back to them,

and that was politics.

Given the tides of political conflict,

trying to make little films in
the middle of that is like a cork

bobbing on the waves
It doesn't stop the tide.

You are a small voice amongst many,

many much louder voices.

Is it worth doing? I don't know.

It's like Marlon Brando, you
know, in Rebel Without A Cause.

They say, you know, "What
are you rebelling against?"

He said, "What have you
got?" And whatever institution,

whatever government,
whoever's there, Ken would...

It wouldn't be good enough for Ken.

Bastards.