Ken Loach

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Kenneth Loach (born June 17, 1936), known as Ken Loach, is a English television and film director, known for his social realist style and socialist themes.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Film style 3 Filmography 3.1 Television 3.2 Cinema 4 Trivia 5 External links

[edit] Biography

Born in Nuneaton, England, Loach studied law at St Peter's College, Oxford. He started out as an actor in repertory theatre, but in the early 1960s moved into television direction and was credited in this role on early episodes of Z-Cars in 1962. Loach, though, made his greatest impact in the medium through docu-dramas, notably the socially influential Cathy Come Home (1966). In the late 1960s he started directing films, and made Kes, the story of a troubled boy and his kestrel, based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines. It remains perhaps his best known film in Britain

The 1970s and 80s were less successful, with his films suffering from poor distribution, lack of interest and political censorship. His film The Save the Children Fund Film (1971) was commissioned by the charity, who disliked it so much they attempted to have the negative destroyed. It has yet to be shown in public. He was also commissioned by Channel 4 to make A Question of Leadership, a documentary on the UK miners' strike. However, the programme was not broadcast by Channel 4, a decision Loach claimed was politically motivated.

However, the 1990s saw Loach return to form, with the production of a series of critically acclaimed and popular films. During this period he was also three times awarded prizes at the Cannes Film Festival.

He directed the Courtroom Drama reconstructions in the Docu-film McLibel, about the longest trial in English history.

In December 2003, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Birmingham. In May 2006, he was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship at the BAFTA TV Awards. In November 2004, he was elected to the national council of the Respect coalition.

On 28 May 2006, Loach won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his film The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a controversial view of the Irish War of Independence and the subsequent Irish Civil War during the 1920s. The film has been heavily criticised by sections of the British media.

Loach lives with his family in Bath, England where he is a supporter and shareholder in Bath City F.C. He is also on the National Council of the left wing Respect Coalition.

[edit] Film style

Loach's film work is characterised by a particular view of realism; he strives in every area of filmmaking to emphasise genuine interplay between actors, to the point where some scenes in his films appear unscripted. Rather than employing method actors, he prefers unknown talent who have had some of the actual life experience of the characters they portray - so much so that many professional actors aspiring to work with Loach will often pretend to be actual construction labourers or other working class types called for in his script. [1]. For Bread and Roses, he chose two leading actors who had experience of union organizing and life as an immigrant. The lead actress in the film, Pilar Padilla, actually had to learn English in order to play the part.

He tries to make sure that actors express as genuinely as possible the feelings of their characters by filming the story in order, and crucially, not giving the actors the script until a few minutes before the filming. Frequently in a scene, only some of the actors will know what is going to happen - the others will often be able to express genuine surprise shock or sadness because they really are hit with the events of the scene.

Two examples: in Kes the boy actor, discovering the dead bird at the end, believed that the director had actually killed the bird he had become quite close to during the filming (in fact he had used a dead bird found elsewhere). In Raining Stones one of the actresses visited at her house by a loan shark had no idea that he was going to force her to take off her wedding ring and give it him as part payment. There are many other examples.

Ken Loach is a strong opponent of censorship within films and he was outraged at the certificate given to Sweet Sixteen (it was given an 18). Loach himself said; I think it was a very silly decision, such a patronising attitude as well. People are rarely hurt by swear words, yet you see scenes of violence depicted in films often with a 12 certificate. Some of these films have violence for the sake of it, try and push the certification boundaries. I think in my films that the violence is necessary to portray realism, it’s important to the narrative. And yes, it does put a smokescreen on society because it uses violence as a source of entertainment rather than its actual meaning

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Television

• Z Cars (series, 1962)
• Diary of a Young Man (1964)
• 3 Clear Sundays (1965)
• Up the Junction (1965)
• The End of Arthur's Marriage (1965)
• Coming Out Party (1965)
• Cathy Come Home (1966) (as Kenneth Loach)
• In Two Minds (1967)
• The Golden Vision (1968)
• The Big Flame (1969)
• The Rank and the File (1971) - part of the Play for Today series.
• After a Lifetime (1971)
• A Misfortune (1973)
• Days of Hope (mini-series, 1975)
• The Price of Coal (1977)
• Auditions (1980)
• A Question of Leadership (1981)
• The Red and the Blue: Impressions of Two Political Conferences - Autumn 1982 (1983)
• Questions of Leadership (1983)
• The View From the Woodpile (1989)

[edit] Cinema

• Poor Cow (1967)
• Kes (1969) (as Kenneth Loach)
• The Save the Children Fund Film (1971)
• Family Life (1971)
• Black Jack (1979)
• The Gamekeeper (1980)
• Looks and Smiles (1981) (as Kenneth Loach)
• Which Side Are You On? (1984)
• Fatherland (1986)
• Hidden Agenda (1990). Cannes Special Jury Prize.
• Riff-Raff (1990).
• Raining Stones (1993). Cannes Special Jury Prize.
• Ladybird Ladybird (1994)
• Land and Freedom (1995). FIPRESCI International Critics Prize and the Cannes Ecumenical Jury Prize.
• A Contemporary Case for Common Ownership (1995)
• Carla's Song (1996)
• The Flickering Flame (1997)
• My Name Is Joe (1998)
• Bread and Roses (2000)
• The Navigators (2001)
• Sweet Sixteen (2002)
• Ae Fond Kiss... (2004)
• Tickets (2005), along with Ermanno Olmi and Abbas Kiarostami
• The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) Palme d'Or, Cannes
• These Times (2007) (Currently in pre-production)

[edit] Trivia

Riff-Raff was shown with subtitles in the USA, despite being entirely in English ^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] External links

• Ken Loach at the Internet Movie Database
• Ken Loach at SensesOfCinema.com
• Ken Loach Filmography
• Interview with Loach about My Name is Joe
• Interview with Loach from 1996 about Land and Freedom
• Interview with Loach from 1998
• A biography
• Biography from BFI's screenonline
• Posters and Stills Gallery from the BFI
• Interview: Ken Loach about Media, Culture and the Prospects for a New Liberatory Project, Democracy & Nature, Volume 5, 1999.

Ken Loach
1960s	Poor Cow | Kes
1970s	The Save the Children Fund Film | Family Life | Black Jack
1980s	The Gamekeeper | Looks and Smiles | Which Side Are You On?
1990s	Fatherland | Hidden Agenda | Riff-Raff | Raining Stones | Ladybird Ladybird | Land and Freedom | A Contemporary Case for Common Ownership | Carla's Song | The Flickening Flame | My Name Is Joe
2000s	Bread and Roses | The Navigators | Sweet Sixteen | Ae Fond Kiss... | Tickets | The Wind That Shakes the Barley