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If you say how the world is,
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that should be enough.
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Just the sense of simple connection between people.
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Just being.
5
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If you make films about people's lives,
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I think politics is essential.
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It is the essence of drama, the essence of conflict.
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Ken wants to make films about how the world is actually run.
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There are two powerful forces at work in society...
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..and they are enemies.
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Like all of us, he's a contradiction.
12
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Ken appears to be so respectable and well-mannered...
13
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..he doesn't seem to be a danger to anyone, does he?
14
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He could be at home at a vicar's tea party.
15
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But there he is, the most left-wing,
16
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subversive director this country has probably ever had...
17
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Perfect gentleman.
18
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Ken's acted brilliant.
19
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Bastards.
20
00:04:06,750 --> 00:04:09,708
You might be able to find something here that would work for...
21
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- ..the working flat.
- Oh, yes.
22
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You know what I mean?
23
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Because suddenly you're in a whole different...
24
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Yes, it may take a while...
25
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We're almost at the mouth of the Tyne,
26
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so the River Tyne is just down there,
27
00:04:23,292 --> 00:04:25,500
then there's the Fish Quay area and...
28
00:04:25,500 --> 00:04:28,792
Today is, what, the 10th of July?
29
00:04:28,792 --> 00:04:32,458
And we'd like to start shooting the film on the 5th of October.
30
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That's three months.
31
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That's tight.
32
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It's all quite manageable, isn't it?
33
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Scale-wise.
34
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I had the phone call from Film Four,
35
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who were saying that they can't fund the film.
36
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They just don't think it would be a good enough investment for them.
37
00:04:51,833 --> 00:04:54,083
But I'm also talking to the BBC.
38
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My fear with the BBC is that, politically,
39
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the film may just be too tough for them to take on.
40
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It's quite iffy, really. It's quite edgy.
41
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God knows why I'm doing it, really.
42
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I must be mad.
43
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All things considered, it would be nice to be on that side,
44
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because then it'll be in shade.
45
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There's something quite...
46
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..well-kept about it.
47
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'You do have to be on your game.
48
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'That's the fear, isn't it, that you just let people down
49
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'and that you're just not sharp enough.'
50
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You miss a trick,
51
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and if you miss too many tricks in the course of shooting,
52
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then you don't do justice to the story.
53
00:05:38,542 --> 00:05:40,000
That's the...
54
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That's the danger
55
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of employing an old director.
56
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HE CHUCKLES
57
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Hmm.
58
00:05:46,583 --> 00:05:49,958
I think I should keep taking the...
59
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Keep the ointment and the pills
60
00:05:53,125 --> 00:05:55,417
and the elastic stockings and...
61
00:05:57,375 --> 00:06:01,000
..all the support mechanisms in place...
62
00:06:03,292 --> 00:06:05,042
..for the antique director.
63
00:06:48,875 --> 00:06:50,917
As they're approaching the bell tower,
64
00:06:50,917 --> 00:06:53,042
the noise is getting louder and louder...
65
00:06:53,042 --> 00:06:55,792
The rope's fairly long, so they can move about a bit.
66
00:06:55,792 --> 00:06:59,208
I first met Ken when I acted for him.
67
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He didn't direct the actors at all.
68
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I mean, I rehearsed for a week and we sort of barely met.
69
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I remember he was quite stroppy,
70
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and I did have second thoughts about casting him,
71
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cos he asked questions all the time.
72
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He looked sort of like a bank clerk, really.
73
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He made no impression on me.
74
00:07:22,542 --> 00:07:24,583
So that was my first impression of Ken -
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he made no impression.
76
00:07:32,125 --> 00:07:36,875
In the early '60s, the BBC was changing.
77
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They were expanding to BBC Two,
78
00:07:39,417 --> 00:07:43,625
so a number of working-class ruffians like...
79
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us got jobs,
80
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which we would never have got in the BBC before.
81
00:07:52,042 --> 00:07:55,167
We had one morning entitled What To Do With Your Cameras.
82
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There wasn't a rude reply, as you might imagine,
83
00:07:58,875 --> 00:08:01,333
but we were given a tour of a TV studio,
84
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but no kind of instruction at all.
85
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All right, very quiet now. Ready.
86
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BBC drama was photographed stage plays
87
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with clumsy electronic cameras in a studio.
88
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The working class were not represented...
89
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I do hope that the price for dropping this charge
90
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is not only a high one...
91
00:08:25,667 --> 00:08:27,458
18. Two next.
92
00:08:27,458 --> 00:08:32,625
..and posh actors could always play down, as they said.
93
00:08:32,625 --> 00:08:34,583
"Oh, I'm going Northern."
94
00:08:34,583 --> 00:08:39,500
It was a class-ridden English society,
95
00:08:39,500 --> 00:08:42,042
and we came in wanting to change it.
96
00:08:54,792 --> 00:09:00,667
We were asked to produce a series of contemporary single dramas
97
00:09:00,667 --> 00:09:02,792
about the world as it actually was.
98
00:09:05,583 --> 00:09:07,292
So, that was our brief,
99
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to stir up a bit of trouble.
100
00:09:14,833 --> 00:09:20,500
It was a magical medium to work with, and so that's compulsive.
101
00:09:23,167 --> 00:09:28,208
Because you're not only dealing with drama and actors
102
00:09:28,208 --> 00:09:31,000
and performance and telling a story,
103
00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:36,542
you're also dealing in images and light and movement.
104
00:09:36,542 --> 00:09:37,875
I mean, all those things.
105
00:10:07,042 --> 00:10:10,333
I moved to Battersea because I didn't like Chelsea.
106
00:10:12,167 --> 00:10:15,500
I got a job in a sweet factory, packing chocolate liqueurs...
107
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..and bought a little cottage for £700.
108
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There was always a big queue for the bath.
109
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And also, a telephone -
110
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there was always a big queue for the telephone.
111
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They had one queue for the bath, the other for the telephone,
112
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cos I think I was the only bath in the street.
113
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That's where I was,
114
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and so I wrote about what was around me.
115
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# I wanna be loved by you
116
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# Alone, scoop-boop-be-doop. #
117
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Where do think you're going, all dressed up like the Queen of Sheba?
118
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Ken found the book,
119
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and he was just aching to do it.
120
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They were just absolutely what I was looking for, because they were
121
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little events, little moments, little relationships.
122
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Get him worked up, give him a love bite, that'll do it.
123
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The lads taking the girls on the motorbikes and going round
124
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an empty house - it had an energy and a kind of febrile...
125
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..scent of danger.
126
00:11:38,333 --> 00:11:41,750
They became a script very quickly with just a little editing, really.
127
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He told me what HE wanted.
128
00:11:44,750 --> 00:11:48,417
He told me what he wanted, and I tried to do it.
129
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The problem was it had to be shot on location.
130
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And I put it through the works at the BBC, as though it were a
131
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studio show, so that there wouldn't be any alarm bells going off.
132
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Hey-hey!
133
00:12:09,083 --> 00:12:12,625
Ken had the lovely Tony Imi stripped off,
134
00:12:12,625 --> 00:12:15,250
with his camera held high above his head,
135
00:12:15,250 --> 00:12:18,125
filming these girls leaping in the water.
136
00:12:20,458 --> 00:12:24,917
Basically, we were saying that the working class people had sex.
137
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I mean, that's all right if you're doing...the aristocracy.
138
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I mean, they're allowed to.
139
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But the working-class people were having sex and enjoying it,
140
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and they weren't even married.
141
00:12:36,208 --> 00:12:40,292
I mean, this was... In 1965, this was horrifying.
142
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Every week, there were 18 to 20 million viewers.
143
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You knew that people were writing stuff
144
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about the people you came from.
145
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Quick, get the clobber!
146
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You know, they weren't plays with cucumber sandwiches
147
00:12:57,542 --> 00:13:00,208
and French windows. You know, they weren't.
148
00:13:06,042 --> 00:13:08,917
I would have cut my arm off to have...
149
00:13:10,083 --> 00:13:11,500
..got that film made...
150
00:13:12,833 --> 00:13:16,208
..because of the backstreet-abortion scene of Ruby.
151
00:13:21,875 --> 00:13:27,458
It was during the war, during the bombing, my mother got pregnant.
152
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They didn't want another child.
153
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Abortion was illegal, so it had to be...
154
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..an amateur.
155
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And something went wrong with it.
156
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And she died a few days later
157
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of what they called galloping septicaemia.
158
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I was five.
159
00:14:08,542 --> 00:14:10,833
Sometimes a film's an accident, you know,
160
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and sometimes it comes from a moment or a character or an incident.
161
00:14:19,500 --> 00:14:22,250
You know, Ken has been talking about
162
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hanging up his football boots.
163
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Excuse me while I laugh. Yes, hanging up his football boots.
164
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Now, the job centre...
165
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Again, we want it... If we're doing Newcastle, we want city centre...
166
00:14:31,708 --> 00:14:34,875
And of course, after the Tories coming back in again,
167
00:14:34,875 --> 00:14:38,125
with these welfare cuts and the sanctions,
168
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you could just see his anger rise again,
169
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and so I didn't think it would be long
170
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before he was on the hunt for another story.
171
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Cos, I mean, in this scene,
172
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it's just the sense of people waiting and wakening up,
173
00:14:50,833 --> 00:14:53,167
so it would just be the reception and the...
174
00:14:53,167 --> 00:14:56,833
Paul wrote a character, a very simple character -
175
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a man in his late 50s, early 60s who's trying to get back to work
176
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after caring for his wife and dropping out. He was a carpenter.
177
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Just the hurdles he faces, the difficulties he faces,
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the world that he faces.
179
00:15:10,375 --> 00:15:15,083
When the thing kicks off with Rachel and the two kids...
180
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Any film-maker who says,
181
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"I can change your mind," with absolute confidence -
182
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you just don't know.
183
00:15:21,333 --> 00:15:25,875
If we as human beings are touched by the story, and we do that well,
184
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then you've maybe got a chance of touching other people.
185
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That's what gives you the motive to actually do the damn thing,
186
00:15:32,208 --> 00:15:35,458
because there's something inside you that burns to do it.
187
00:15:51,083 --> 00:15:55,417
We lived in Nuneaton, which is in the middle of the Midlands.
188
00:15:55,417 --> 00:15:57,542
My dad was one of ten children.
189
00:15:58,917 --> 00:16:01,375
He did an apprenticeship as an electrician in the mine,
190
00:16:01,375 --> 00:16:04,625
and then he got this job in a machine tool factory.
191
00:16:21,875 --> 00:16:23,333
He worked seven days a week.
192
00:16:24,458 --> 00:16:27,500
He would go into the factory at six o'clock every morning,
193
00:16:27,500 --> 00:16:29,583
and be back at six o'clock at night.
194
00:16:33,417 --> 00:16:36,208
He did quite well, he became in charge of the maintenance
195
00:16:36,208 --> 00:16:37,875
and became a foreman.
196
00:16:44,750 --> 00:16:47,875
I mean, he had a huge respect for craftsmen, I mean, he...
197
00:16:47,875 --> 00:16:52,125
Craftsmanship. When we were doing Macbeth at school,
198
00:16:52,125 --> 00:16:56,583
he got a dagger made in the joinery workshop,
199
00:16:56,583 --> 00:16:58,458
and it was just immaculate.
200
00:16:58,458 --> 00:17:02,167
Just the delight in craftsmanship was...
201
00:17:03,542 --> 00:17:05,833
Was one of his defining characteristics, really.
202
00:17:11,292 --> 00:17:14,000
In a way, he was a working-class Tory,
203
00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:16,833
and the Daily Express came in to our house.
204
00:17:16,833 --> 00:17:19,583
Only later did I realise how right-wing it was.
205
00:17:26,792 --> 00:17:30,750
We had one week's holiday, and we would go to Blackpool.
206
00:17:33,375 --> 00:17:36,417
My mother, when asked where we were going, she'd say,
207
00:17:36,417 --> 00:17:39,792
"Blackpool, but the north side, the north end,"
208
00:17:39,792 --> 00:17:42,958
because that was seen as slightly more refined than the south end
209
00:17:42,958 --> 00:17:47,292
where the Pleasure Beach was, it was a bit too proletarian.
210
00:17:47,292 --> 00:17:50,875
But the big treat was seeing the shows and the great comics.
211
00:17:50,875 --> 00:17:54,042
Very much the humour of poverty, and the humour of...
212
00:17:55,125 --> 00:17:56,500
..bodily functions.
213
00:17:56,500 --> 00:18:00,375
The hysteria would be something to behold.
214
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People would weep, WEEP with laughter.
215
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And my old man, who was not given to a lot of laughter, would...
216
00:18:06,375 --> 00:18:08,208
He would be doubled,
217
00:18:08,208 --> 00:18:10,542
he'd have to get his handkerchief out to mop the tears
218
00:18:10,542 --> 00:18:12,000
as they ran down his face.
219
00:18:20,417 --> 00:18:22,625
Let me now ask our audience,
220
00:18:22,625 --> 00:18:27,292
how many of you have seen the play Cathy Come Home, or have heard about
221
00:18:27,292 --> 00:18:30,958
Cathy Come Home, have read about it in the newspapers or magazines,
222
00:18:30,958 --> 00:18:32,333
or heard it discussed?
223
00:18:32,333 --> 00:18:34,250
If you have, will you push your buttons?
224
00:18:34,250 --> 00:18:37,042
Let's just see how many of you know about Cathy Come Home.
225
00:18:37,042 --> 00:18:38,125
Let's have a quick look.
226
00:18:39,375 --> 00:18:44,125
Some 90% of our audience know Cathy Come Home.
227
00:18:45,375 --> 00:18:47,292
It was during that Wednesday Play season
228
00:18:47,292 --> 00:18:51,042
that Ken and I gravitated towards each other.
229
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We both wanted to do the same thing.
230
00:18:58,417 --> 00:19:01,750
We wanted to make films on real locations
231
00:19:01,750 --> 00:19:05,583
about the lives of actual people.
232
00:19:07,292 --> 00:19:12,167
Cathy Come Home had been turned down by the BBC twice
233
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as being too political.
234
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We could take your children into care and turn you out,
235
00:19:16,583 --> 00:19:18,750
- just like that.
- Please don't do that.
236
00:19:18,750 --> 00:19:22,042
But we're not going to. We're going to give you one more chance.
237
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But I must emphasise, this is your last chance.
238
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We knew there was a housing problem,
239
00:19:29,958 --> 00:19:34,250
but I didn't know there were homeless, and neither did Ken.
240
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Come along then.
241
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That's it then, Cath.
242
00:19:45,417 --> 00:19:47,292
As you were doing it, you're thinking,
243
00:19:47,292 --> 00:19:51,208
"How can I shoot this in such a way that it is credible,
244
00:19:51,208 --> 00:19:54,458
"so that I really believe it?"
245
00:19:54,458 --> 00:19:57,000
If you were watching a documentary, you would believe it.
246
00:19:57,000 --> 00:19:58,042
So, that's our...
247
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..standard.
248
00:20:02,917 --> 00:20:06,125
We thought, "Let's shoot in sequence,"
249
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because then an actor has time to develop a character,
250
00:20:11,250 --> 00:20:13,917
to have a past and an unknown future.
251
00:20:16,958 --> 00:20:19,833
If you shoot the story in the chronological order
252
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it would have happened, you don't need to work out,
253
00:20:22,958 --> 00:20:25,583
"How would I feel if I'd been through that?"
254
00:20:25,583 --> 00:20:28,667
You know, and you just have that memory
255
00:20:28,667 --> 00:20:30,375
in your stomach, really.
256
00:20:30,375 --> 00:20:33,958
Somebody told me you've got these places they call halfway houses.
257
00:20:33,958 --> 00:20:37,875
Carol White was just a natural choice to play Cathy.
258
00:20:37,875 --> 00:20:39,292
Reg might come back to me.
259
00:20:39,292 --> 00:20:41,292
She could just be.
260
00:20:41,292 --> 00:20:43,083
He's drifting away from me.
261
00:20:43,083 --> 00:20:46,625
And that's great acting when you can get that.
262
00:20:46,625 --> 00:20:51,208
And Ken had the knack of encouraging that from an actor.
263
00:20:57,667 --> 00:21:00,250
It was so different to anything we'd ever seen before,
264
00:21:00,250 --> 00:21:03,333
because it was shot in an observed way and not in an immaculate way,
265
00:21:03,333 --> 00:21:06,583
but actually told the story
266
00:21:06,583 --> 00:21:08,625
more truthfully and more realistically
267
00:21:08,625 --> 00:21:10,875
than I think I'd ever seen before.
268
00:21:10,875 --> 00:21:12,375
Get back! Get back!
269
00:21:18,583 --> 00:21:23,167
Ken, as a director, was becoming much more confident -
270
00:21:23,167 --> 00:21:27,167
determined to get what he wanted for the film.
271
00:21:37,375 --> 00:21:40,708
There is one scene where Carol White has her children taken away from her
272
00:21:40,708 --> 00:21:43,625
at the railway station by social workers.
273
00:21:43,625 --> 00:21:44,875
It still stays with me.
274
00:21:44,875 --> 00:21:47,792
It's one of the strongest scenes I've ever seen in any film.
275
00:21:56,708 --> 00:21:58,792
You're not having my kids.
276
00:21:58,792 --> 00:22:01,542
You're not!
277
00:22:04,083 --> 00:22:05,875
SHE SCREAMS
278
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:18,042
It had to be shocking.
279
00:22:18,042 --> 00:22:19,875
It couldn't be other than shocking.
280
00:22:19,875 --> 00:22:22,250
If we'd staged it with extras walking past,
281
00:22:22,250 --> 00:22:24,417
it just wouldn't have had the impact.
282
00:22:24,417 --> 00:22:26,958
We just put it in a real place and let it happen.
283
00:22:38,167 --> 00:22:41,250
The reception - it was extraordinary.
284
00:22:42,875 --> 00:22:46,000
At the first showing, the Daily Mail called Cathy Come Home,
285
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:47,708
"A dramatic battering ram."
286
00:22:47,708 --> 00:22:49,417
The Guardian said it was,
287
00:22:49,417 --> 00:22:51,833
"Undoubtedly one of the most successful pieces
288
00:22:51,833 --> 00:22:55,792
"of social reforming drama we've had on television."
289
00:22:55,792 --> 00:22:57,417
People didn't know.
290
00:22:57,417 --> 00:23:01,083
I think there's been enormous confusion in the public mind
291
00:23:01,083 --> 00:23:04,000
as to whether this is, in fact, fact or fiction.
292
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:06,833
I mean, what is there to prevent you next time, when you want to
293
00:23:06,833 --> 00:23:08,625
make your point a little more strongly,
294
00:23:08,625 --> 00:23:10,667
to introduce fictional statistics as well?
295
00:23:10,667 --> 00:23:13,833
Well, I thought it was a brilliant piece of propaganda
296
00:23:13,833 --> 00:23:16,042
of a highly charged and emotional kind.
297
00:23:16,042 --> 00:23:19,375
The script was written, there were 60-odd actors in it.
298
00:23:19,375 --> 00:23:22,792
The fact that Ken Loach is such a good director that the actors
299
00:23:22,792 --> 00:23:25,167
often don't look like actors is hardly my fault.
300
00:23:32,792 --> 00:23:35,833
Part of the enormous kerfuffle...
301
00:23:37,333 --> 00:23:39,833
..was an invitation to the Ministry.
302
00:23:41,417 --> 00:23:46,333
So, Ken Loach and I went down Whitehall
303
00:23:46,333 --> 00:23:47,708
to see the Minister.
304
00:23:55,000 --> 00:24:00,917
And we sat down in this huge, beautifully appointed office -
305
00:24:00,917 --> 00:24:04,708
I mean, I've never lived in anywhere as big as that -
306
00:24:04,708 --> 00:24:07,042
and it was very English.
307
00:24:07,042 --> 00:24:12,250
Tea was on quite nice china with biscuits,
308
00:24:12,250 --> 00:24:15,500
but then he said, "But what can one do?"
309
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:24,167
And I looked at Ken and Jeremy, and I said, "Well, build more houses."
310
00:24:26,583 --> 00:24:28,375
And he looked at the senior civil servant
311
00:24:28,375 --> 00:24:31,333
who looked back and then went...
312
00:24:31,333 --> 00:24:33,208
Smiled at each other as though...
313
00:24:33,208 --> 00:24:34,667
HE SIGHS
314
00:24:34,667 --> 00:24:36,458
"If only it were that simple."
315
00:24:39,125 --> 00:24:43,667
We were ushered out into Whitehall and that was the end of it.
316
00:24:45,667 --> 00:24:50,958
I did kick myself afterwards that it wasn't more political.
317
00:24:52,792 --> 00:24:55,000
We'd let everybody off the hook.
318
00:25:16,417 --> 00:25:19,875
The starting point is, "What is the core of the story?"
319
00:25:22,583 --> 00:25:24,000
Are the people valid?
320
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,333
Are they true? Is it significant?
321
00:25:26,333 --> 00:25:27,542
Is it worth telling?
322
00:25:28,833 --> 00:25:31,333
Then you've got to find people who can bring that to life.
323
00:25:34,625 --> 00:25:39,500
Then there's the qualities of the character, their age, their class,
324
00:25:39,500 --> 00:25:43,167
where they're from, all of which you can't hide,
325
00:25:43,167 --> 00:25:45,000
and you look for someone who can listen.
326
00:25:47,500 --> 00:25:51,667
He's trying to find some essential quality in the actor
327
00:25:51,667 --> 00:25:52,958
that he can use.
328
00:25:57,208 --> 00:26:00,542
It's less about acting, it's about, sort of...
329
00:26:00,542 --> 00:26:01,875
you as a person, I think.
330
00:26:08,375 --> 00:26:11,458
I think you want actors who don't put up defences.
331
00:26:11,458 --> 00:26:15,833
You want actors who let you into their minds, into their thoughts,
332
00:26:15,833 --> 00:26:17,875
into their weaknesses.
333
00:26:19,917 --> 00:26:22,458
And many actors erect defences. They have...
334
00:26:22,458 --> 00:26:24,250
They'll develop a technique,
335
00:26:24,250 --> 00:26:28,208
which is about giving the impression of something,
336
00:26:28,208 --> 00:26:29,917
and presenting something,
337
00:26:29,917 --> 00:26:34,083
but you want to get beyond that into who they really are.
338
00:26:34,083 --> 00:26:39,167
So, vulnerability is a really important quality.
339
00:26:39,167 --> 00:26:42,083
But then you have a responsibility not to exploit that,
340
00:26:42,083 --> 00:26:44,333
you know, they have to feel safe.
341
00:26:44,333 --> 00:26:49,000
They have to feel safe in order to allow themselves to be vulnerable.
342
00:27:00,875 --> 00:27:03,125
When Carol came for her audition,
343
00:27:03,125 --> 00:27:06,542
she had a gift of intimacy that's quite unusual.
344
00:27:08,583 --> 00:27:09,708
He saw her...
345
00:27:11,167 --> 00:27:15,417
I suppose, her talent, to be completely there.
346
00:27:15,417 --> 00:27:16,750
She was a nice girl, Carol.
347
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:22,208
I think her big mistake was going to America.
348
00:27:24,542 --> 00:27:26,167
She should have stayed here.
349
00:27:29,792 --> 00:27:31,167
Carol White had a quality.
350
00:27:32,875 --> 00:27:35,458
She was undefended,
351
00:27:35,458 --> 00:27:38,875
and that worked when she was with people who cared about her,
352
00:27:38,875 --> 00:27:41,625
who loved her like Ken and I did.
353
00:27:41,625 --> 00:27:44,167
But then she was seduced into Hollywood,
354
00:27:44,167 --> 00:27:47,750
and they don't take prisoners there.
355
00:27:49,417 --> 00:27:53,125
And she got into drugs and emotional difficulties,
356
00:27:53,125 --> 00:27:55,000
and she died really quite young.
357
00:28:21,208 --> 00:28:23,083
Theatres have a magic about them.
358
00:28:26,750 --> 00:28:30,333
We had a theatre company used to visit every three weeks.
359
00:28:31,917 --> 00:28:35,292
I used to go and hang around like schoolboys do,
360
00:28:35,292 --> 00:28:38,917
just for some connection to these mysterious, magical people.
361
00:28:40,125 --> 00:28:44,292
But Dad had a passion that I should be educated,
362
00:28:44,292 --> 00:28:47,292
and was fierce in his instruction
363
00:28:47,292 --> 00:28:49,458
that I couldn't go out on weekdays.
364
00:29:02,042 --> 00:29:05,667
Only 60 boys a year passed the exam to go to the grammar school.
365
00:29:08,917 --> 00:29:11,958
It was a ladder for bright, working-class kids to get out.
366
00:29:17,750 --> 00:29:21,250
We had an election in school, it would have been the '50 election.
367
00:29:22,583 --> 00:29:24,833
To my shame, I stood as the Conservative candidate.
368
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:44,500
Ken and I escaped.
369
00:29:44,500 --> 00:29:46,375
We were lucky.
370
00:29:46,375 --> 00:29:49,958
Why not my friend down our street who had to go to a secondary modern?
371
00:29:51,583 --> 00:29:54,500
So when a novel called A Kestrel For A Knave
372
00:29:54,500 --> 00:29:57,750
arrived on my desk, we read it in one day.
373
00:29:57,750 --> 00:30:00,333
And we said, "We're going to make a film of this."
374
00:30:02,917 --> 00:30:07,375
It went to something that Ken and I were very, very affected by.
375
00:30:09,792 --> 00:30:12,792
The fate of working-class adolescents.
376
00:30:16,250 --> 00:30:19,542
The central idea was that all kids are remarkable,
377
00:30:19,542 --> 00:30:24,542
and we learn something about one boy who is cast as a failure
378
00:30:24,542 --> 00:30:27,167
by the school and the world.
379
00:30:27,167 --> 00:30:28,375
But we know he isn't.
380
00:30:29,500 --> 00:30:32,083
And so we thought, well, if this is true,
381
00:30:32,083 --> 00:30:35,625
then we can go to any school and we will find Billy Casper.
382
00:30:38,042 --> 00:30:40,083
This is Billy Casper.
383
00:30:40,083 --> 00:30:41,292
Billy Casper cheats.
384
00:30:42,292 --> 00:30:43,958
Steals.
385
00:30:43,958 --> 00:30:45,417
Lies.
386
00:30:45,417 --> 00:30:46,917
Fights.
387
00:30:46,917 --> 00:30:49,000
Because... Well, because he has to.
388
00:30:52,750 --> 00:30:57,375
My dad was a coal miner, my mum was a seamstress,
389
00:30:57,375 --> 00:30:59,417
she'd worked as a cleaner.
390
00:30:59,417 --> 00:31:01,042
Whatever it took to make ends meet.
391
00:31:03,958 --> 00:31:07,083
I just knew I couldn't handle working in a coal mine.
392
00:31:10,375 --> 00:31:13,500
And then I received a letter, delivered by hand,
393
00:31:13,500 --> 00:31:18,167
and there in purple writing, it said something along the lines of,
394
00:31:18,167 --> 00:31:23,667
"Dear David, we would love for you to play the part of Billy Casper
395
00:31:23,667 --> 00:31:26,625
"in our film, A Kestrel For A Knave."
396
00:31:29,042 --> 00:31:33,417
I can't possibly explain how excited I was.
397
00:31:33,417 --> 00:31:38,333
I wasn't frightened, because I felt this is where I belonged, in a way.
398
00:32:10,417 --> 00:32:11,500
Come on.
399
00:32:12,875 --> 00:32:14,208
Come on.
400
00:32:33,750 --> 00:32:37,167
What determined a lot of the things about Kes, and the way it looks,
401
00:32:37,167 --> 00:32:42,750
begins with this central image of the bird which flies free
402
00:32:42,750 --> 00:32:45,250
and the boy who is trapped.
403
00:32:45,250 --> 00:32:48,333
That is clearly what connects to people.
404
00:33:06,500 --> 00:33:10,000
Ken and I, we quickly found a way that was particular
405
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:12,125
and a good and simple way to work.
406
00:33:14,708 --> 00:33:18,208
Basically, dealing with people who hadn't acted before,
407
00:33:18,208 --> 00:33:22,417
how do you remove the camera crew from the experience?
408
00:33:25,958 --> 00:33:29,000
Our whole style of observational film-making
409
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,708
came through conversations with Chris.
410
00:33:38,542 --> 00:33:40,625
We both saw the Czech films.
411
00:33:50,792 --> 00:33:52,542
The camera has its own...
412
00:33:54,458 --> 00:33:57,000
Its own sense of being a person observing.
413
00:33:59,042 --> 00:34:01,375
You become a person there.
414
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,708
It seemed to bring out the humanity
415
00:34:05,708 --> 00:34:07,833
of the people in front of the camera.
416
00:34:25,208 --> 00:34:28,375
What I found amazing was that he trusted me so much.
417
00:34:29,583 --> 00:34:34,417
Ken would explain a scene to me in very brief terms,
418
00:34:34,417 --> 00:34:38,833
so that when we came to do the actual speech that Billy does
419
00:34:38,833 --> 00:34:40,375
in front of the class,
420
00:34:40,375 --> 00:34:45,583
I had only been given less than 24 hours to actually learn that scene.
421
00:34:45,583 --> 00:34:49,458
But I think Ken wanted that rough quality.
422
00:34:49,458 --> 00:34:52,583
Then, when it got to know me, I fed it on my glove.
423
00:34:52,583 --> 00:34:57,542
And after a while I put it two inches away from its claws.
424
00:34:57,542 --> 00:34:59,833
Like that, like.
425
00:34:59,833 --> 00:35:02,750
I didn't want him to learn it too word-for-word,
426
00:35:02,750 --> 00:35:06,958
because the point of the scene is not to tell the audience
427
00:35:06,958 --> 00:35:09,000
how to train a kestrel.
428
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:13,042
The point of the scene is for a boy who can never string
429
00:35:13,042 --> 00:35:16,250
two words together to become articulate.
430
00:35:16,250 --> 00:35:19,917
I got about 70 yards from there, in the middle of the field,
431
00:35:19,917 --> 00:35:22,458
I called her.
432
00:35:22,458 --> 00:35:26,083
"Kes. Kes. Come on, Kes. Come on then."
433
00:35:26,083 --> 00:35:27,208
Nowt happened.
434
00:35:27,208 --> 00:35:29,792
So I thought, "Well, I better walk back and pick her up."
435
00:35:29,792 --> 00:35:33,375
So, when I were walking back, I saw her flying - she came like a bomb.
436
00:35:34,833 --> 00:35:38,042
About a yard off the floor, like lightning, head still,
437
00:35:38,042 --> 00:35:40,458
and you couldn't hear the wings - there weren't a sound
438
00:35:40,458 --> 00:35:42,708
from the wings. And straight on to the glove. Wham!
439
00:35:42,708 --> 00:35:46,167
And she'll grab me for the meat.
440
00:35:46,167 --> 00:35:49,708
Anyway, I were pleased with mysen...
441
00:35:57,708 --> 00:35:59,042
With Ken as a director,
442
00:35:59,042 --> 00:36:05,208
there is another side to his loving relationship with the actors,
443
00:36:05,208 --> 00:36:07,125
his capacity to allow.
444
00:36:08,708 --> 00:36:11,000
And that other side is his...
445
00:36:12,833 --> 00:36:13,875
..ruthlessness.
446
00:36:18,875 --> 00:36:20,958
The children being beaten in Kes...
447
00:36:22,333 --> 00:36:25,958
The fact that he would allow those kids to be beaten is horrific.
448
00:36:25,958 --> 00:36:27,083
I couldn't do that.
449
00:36:29,750 --> 00:36:32,125
No. He had a point to make,
450
00:36:32,125 --> 00:36:36,583
that the headmaster had only one response to this situation,
451
00:36:36,583 --> 00:36:39,917
and that was the response at that time in our history -
452
00:36:39,917 --> 00:36:41,208
beat the kids.
453
00:36:44,125 --> 00:36:46,667
Same old faces.
454
00:36:46,667 --> 00:36:49,500
Same old faces.
455
00:36:49,500 --> 00:36:53,458
We were told we weren't going to get hit, so we hold out our hands,
456
00:36:53,458 --> 00:36:56,833
thinking that this is when Ken Loach is going to say, "Cut."
457
00:36:57,833 --> 00:36:59,250
But he didn't.
458
00:36:59,250 --> 00:37:00,333
Ah!
459
00:37:02,833 --> 00:37:06,167
A regular little cigarette factory, aren't you?
460
00:37:06,167 --> 00:37:08,375
Sir.
461
00:37:12,542 --> 00:37:13,625
Put that rubbish away.
462
00:37:37,458 --> 00:37:40,583
Now, I hope it's going to be a lesson to you.
463
00:37:40,583 --> 00:37:43,583
I don't suppose for one minute it will be.
464
00:37:43,583 --> 00:37:46,625
I don't doubt, before the end of the week,
465
00:37:46,625 --> 00:37:50,417
you'll be back in here again for exactly the same crime - smoking.
466
00:37:55,833 --> 00:38:04,000
I've noticed only sons with devoted mothers to have characteristics
467
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:05,875
that other people may not have.
468
00:38:08,208 --> 00:38:10,042
Their self-belief is absolute.
469
00:38:11,625 --> 00:38:13,208
They seem to retain...
470
00:38:14,500 --> 00:38:19,583
..the infantile omnipotence that is appropriate in a five-year-old.
471
00:38:21,958 --> 00:38:23,708
And if you become a film director,
472
00:38:26,292 --> 00:38:29,583
that omnipotence, as it were, can be preserved,
473
00:38:29,583 --> 00:38:33,833
because a world is created for you,
474
00:38:33,833 --> 00:38:35,708
in which you are omnipotent.
475
00:38:36,750 --> 00:38:40,458
And you can be quite benign,
476
00:38:40,458 --> 00:38:44,500
but it is your world to manipulate how you wish.
477
00:39:14,250 --> 00:39:15,875
She says it's not just her.
478
00:39:15,875 --> 00:39:19,125
There's four other women, four other families.
479
00:39:19,125 --> 00:39:21,792
It's me and my boys and four other families.
480
00:39:21,792 --> 00:39:25,625
And this... She was in a hostel, was she?
481
00:39:25,625 --> 00:39:29,083
My phone rang at about five o'clock, and it was my agent,
482
00:39:29,083 --> 00:39:33,583
and they said I'd got the part, and it was a real sort of...
483
00:39:33,583 --> 00:39:35,667
It was a bit ridiculous, really.
484
00:39:35,667 --> 00:39:37,667
It was a real moment.
485
00:39:37,667 --> 00:39:39,750
My mum was downstairs cooking dinner.
486
00:39:39,750 --> 00:39:41,333
I shouted her name really loudly
487
00:39:41,333 --> 00:39:43,250
and she dropped everything in the kitchen.
488
00:39:43,250 --> 00:39:45,250
Ken give me a ring as well just to say,
489
00:39:45,250 --> 00:39:50,208
"Glad you're onboard," and I thanked him and that was it.
490
00:39:50,208 --> 00:39:54,250
I think the girl that Paul's written is quite complex.
491
00:39:54,250 --> 00:39:57,292
You want the girl to be sharp, to have ambition,
492
00:39:57,292 --> 00:39:59,583
to see possibilities in the future.
493
00:39:59,583 --> 00:40:01,542
But, when tough times happen,
494
00:40:01,542 --> 00:40:07,000
I think I can imagine Hayley taking a realistic view of where she is
495
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:10,125
and doing just what is necessary to survive.
496
00:40:10,125 --> 00:40:13,500
I suppose that's the battle at the beginning, isn't it, between the...?
497
00:40:13,500 --> 00:40:16,792
Getting out of that situation to here... So anything's got to be good.
498
00:40:16,792 --> 00:40:19,792
- But at the same time, there's some real shit...
- Yes, yes, yes.
499
00:40:23,583 --> 00:40:26,375
It's like being a spy. It's like being a spy, it's like...
500
00:40:26,375 --> 00:40:28,500
You go, "Is there any sort of, like, script?"
501
00:40:28,500 --> 00:40:32,917
And you go, "Yeah, well, you get two pages in a toilet
502
00:40:32,917 --> 00:40:37,667
"in the centre of Newcastle behind the hot water pipes."
503
00:40:37,667 --> 00:40:38,958
And you go, "OK."
504
00:40:38,958 --> 00:40:40,333
It's really sort of quite...
505
00:40:42,792 --> 00:40:47,583
It's exciting, but it's also a bit sort of, "Oh, God, am I going to...
506
00:40:47,583 --> 00:40:49,375
"Am I going to get the stuff I need?"
507
00:40:49,375 --> 00:40:51,708
But, yeah, you know, he's made plenty of films
508
00:40:51,708 --> 00:40:53,792
so I'm sure the process works, you know.
509
00:40:56,125 --> 00:40:58,208
- I don't like that shirt for him.
- No, no, no.
510
00:40:58,208 --> 00:40:59,458
It was just to get you in a...
511
00:40:59,458 --> 00:41:01,333
- Yeah, nice shirt.
- Yeah.
512
00:41:01,333 --> 00:41:03,542
David is as close as I think we could find
513
00:41:03,542 --> 00:41:05,083
to the Dan that Paul wrote.
514
00:41:05,083 --> 00:41:08,292
He's the right age, he's a working-class man from Newcastle.
515
00:41:08,292 --> 00:41:10,750
He started work laying bricks
516
00:41:10,750 --> 00:41:14,792
and has experience doing comedy and some acting.
517
00:41:14,792 --> 00:41:19,208
It means he's got a real sense of how to deliver a performance.
518
00:41:20,375 --> 00:41:23,125
He communicates very directly, eye to eye.
519
00:41:23,125 --> 00:41:26,167
So, I think what he does is very truthful.
520
00:41:26,167 --> 00:41:27,708
Hi.
521
00:41:27,708 --> 00:41:29,292
We just wanted to show you this.
522
00:41:29,292 --> 00:41:30,958
You got it.
523
00:41:30,958 --> 00:41:32,583
It's the undertaker.
524
00:41:32,583 --> 00:41:35,292
Oh, my God, that's a bit serious.
525
00:41:35,292 --> 00:41:38,667
- Detective...
- I have reason to suspect...
526
00:41:40,708 --> 00:41:42,875
I think this is probably too much, really.
527
00:41:42,875 --> 00:41:45,208
- Too smart?
- Much too much.
- Yeah.
- Much too much.
528
00:41:45,208 --> 00:41:48,750
I mean, he looks like a Labour politician that you want to...
529
00:41:48,750 --> 00:41:50,250
Who's betrayed his promises.
530
00:41:54,458 --> 00:42:00,458
I was pretty surprised at the intensity with which, later on,
531
00:42:00,458 --> 00:42:07,125
all his work is imbued with a political flavour,
532
00:42:07,125 --> 00:42:08,792
very strong political flavour.
533
00:42:10,208 --> 00:42:11,792
So, yes, it was very surprising,
534
00:42:11,792 --> 00:42:14,125
because there wasn't any evidence of that
535
00:42:14,125 --> 00:42:16,500
in the years we were together when young.
536
00:42:27,083 --> 00:42:29,833
Oxford was an extraordinary experience.
537
00:42:33,542 --> 00:42:37,208
It was only then that I became really aware the ruling class
538
00:42:37,208 --> 00:42:41,000
had a face, and it was the faces of these gilded youths
539
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,875
who inherited the world, and who expected to rule it.
540
00:42:44,875 --> 00:42:46,542
And did.
541
00:42:48,917 --> 00:42:52,542
I met Ken when we were both auditioning, I think,
542
00:42:52,542 --> 00:42:54,833
for a play in Oxford,
543
00:42:54,833 --> 00:42:59,833
and you'll see in the photograph a rather slenderer version of myself
544
00:42:59,833 --> 00:43:03,333
in the foreground, but in the background,
545
00:43:03,333 --> 00:43:07,792
giving a character performance, shall we say, is young Loach,
546
00:43:07,792 --> 00:43:11,833
heavily disguised by beard and on one leg and a crutch.
547
00:43:11,833 --> 00:43:16,458
All of which he made the very most of, and I detect,
548
00:43:16,458 --> 00:43:20,750
though I didn't detect it at the time, being heavily upstaged by Ken.
549
00:43:25,083 --> 00:43:28,083
He was much the same shape and size as he is now -
550
00:43:28,083 --> 00:43:31,042
slender, sylph-like indeed, maybe.
551
00:43:32,458 --> 00:43:34,500
Self-effacing.
552
00:43:34,500 --> 00:43:36,500
Apparently self-effacing.
553
00:43:37,833 --> 00:43:40,042
Nimble and brisk.
554
00:43:49,708 --> 00:43:52,333
That was a big event for my mother and father,
555
00:43:52,333 --> 00:43:55,500
to get to Oxford and to do law,
556
00:43:55,500 --> 00:43:58,750
but it became plain I wasn't going to be a lawyer,
557
00:43:58,750 --> 00:44:01,167
much to my mum and dad's dismay.
558
00:44:03,042 --> 00:44:06,125
My father said, "Well, you can go off and be an actor,
559
00:44:06,125 --> 00:44:09,292
"but you'll never have two pennies to rub together."
560
00:44:16,750 --> 00:44:20,750
When we came back from Barnsley, and he shot Kes -
561
00:44:20,750 --> 00:44:23,167
couldn't get it released.
562
00:44:23,167 --> 00:44:25,333
The exhibitor thought, "It won't take a penny,
563
00:44:25,333 --> 00:44:26,917
"so why waste money on marketing?"
564
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:31,083
They'd open it in six cinemas in Yorkshire, thinking,
565
00:44:31,083 --> 00:44:33,125
"Oh, that'll be the end of that."
566
00:44:33,125 --> 00:44:36,792
And it broke the house record in every one.
567
00:44:36,792 --> 00:44:38,583
Then suddenly, we had a hit.
568
00:44:41,250 --> 00:44:45,375
While we were making it, I literally, sort of...
569
00:44:45,375 --> 00:44:46,458
What's been happening?
570
00:44:48,167 --> 00:44:51,875
And what had been happening were the May events in Paris in '68...
571
00:44:54,292 --> 00:44:56,375
..the Vietnam war was raging...
572
00:44:58,583 --> 00:45:03,625
..and disillusion, even amongst not very political people,
573
00:45:03,625 --> 00:45:06,417
with Wilson and the Labour government.
574
00:45:09,958 --> 00:45:13,833
I was interested in politics since my teens.
575
00:45:13,833 --> 00:45:16,000
I had known a lot of Communist Party members.
576
00:45:17,458 --> 00:45:19,000
Ken was not political...
577
00:45:20,417 --> 00:45:24,333
..but he became more and more interested in politics
578
00:45:24,333 --> 00:45:26,583
as we did our work together.
579
00:45:29,292 --> 00:45:31,458
And, of course, I introduced him to Jim Allen,
580
00:45:31,458 --> 00:45:33,875
which was another political step to the left.
581
00:45:37,125 --> 00:45:39,917
Jim Allen was a Manchester lad.
582
00:45:41,333 --> 00:45:44,333
A lot of people say up North, "He was as rough as a bear's arse."
583
00:45:46,500 --> 00:45:48,667
He'd been a docker,
584
00:45:48,667 --> 00:45:52,917
he'd worked on the barges, he'd been a bus conductor,
585
00:45:52,917 --> 00:45:56,458
and he obviously had this gift for writing.
586
00:45:57,917 --> 00:45:59,500
He was the opposite to Ken.
587
00:45:59,500 --> 00:46:01,125
They were chalk and cheese.
588
00:46:01,125 --> 00:46:02,667
We're very different people.
589
00:46:03,708 --> 00:46:05,333
He's a very private person.
590
00:46:08,250 --> 00:46:10,125
I'm a bit of an extrovert.
591
00:46:10,125 --> 00:46:13,500
I like to get drunk, I love pubs, etc.
592
00:46:13,500 --> 00:46:16,083
I think one thing that brings us together is that...
593
00:46:17,542 --> 00:46:22,542
..we have the same kind of political approach to life.
594
00:46:22,542 --> 00:46:24,708
We would like things to be different.
595
00:46:28,667 --> 00:46:31,708
I don't think Ken had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth,
596
00:46:31,708 --> 00:46:34,917
but I don't think he'd ever had the knocks or the hardship
597
00:46:34,917 --> 00:46:36,458
that Jim Allen had had.
598
00:46:37,625 --> 00:46:39,708
He knew about being blacklisted,
599
00:46:39,708 --> 00:46:43,542
he knew about being on the dole and out of work and stuff like that,
600
00:46:43,542 --> 00:46:48,083
and I think he was able to put it on paper, in writing,
601
00:46:48,083 --> 00:46:49,375
for Ken to understand.
602
00:46:56,792 --> 00:47:01,417
What he got was that there were two powerful forces at work in society.
603
00:47:01,417 --> 00:47:04,292
There is capital and there is labour,
604
00:47:04,292 --> 00:47:05,583
and they are enemies.
605
00:47:12,208 --> 00:47:15,917
If you make a film about a socialist movement,
606
00:47:15,917 --> 00:47:18,917
it's a given what the class conflict is.
607
00:47:21,042 --> 00:47:23,167
It's... How do you win the power?
608
00:47:24,125 --> 00:47:26,625
And who is there to stop you?
609
00:47:26,625 --> 00:47:27,833
CHEERING
610
00:47:29,833 --> 00:47:31,417
Solidarity!
611
00:47:31,417 --> 00:47:34,625
CROWD: # Solidarity forever
612
00:47:34,625 --> 00:47:38,375
# Solidarity forever. #
613
00:47:38,375 --> 00:47:40,792
Jim had been through it.
614
00:47:40,792 --> 00:47:42,167
What I want to know is,
615
00:47:42,167 --> 00:47:45,833
what is Brother Hagen doing about our long outstanding claim
616
00:47:45,833 --> 00:47:48,083
for a two and sixpence an hour increase?
617
00:47:48,083 --> 00:47:52,750
He knew about the betrayals of trade union bureaucrats.
618
00:47:52,750 --> 00:47:55,250
Now, listen, half a crown an hour, you must be bloody...
619
00:47:56,792 --> 00:48:00,625
He knew that the role of the Labour Party
620
00:48:00,625 --> 00:48:03,917
was to deliver the working class to betrayal.
621
00:48:05,042 --> 00:48:08,292
I believe that those are the men that can win the struggle,
622
00:48:08,292 --> 00:48:12,125
could win it much quicker only if we can get help from other workers.
623
00:48:12,125 --> 00:48:16,042
Jim made the ideas flesh in his writing.
624
00:48:16,042 --> 00:48:21,042
That drama of political argument, driven by need...
625
00:48:22,500 --> 00:48:25,542
..I think was the essence of drama, it was the essence of conflict.
626
00:48:31,083 --> 00:48:35,417
The problem with the BBC is that I didn't know how far I could push.
627
00:48:36,542 --> 00:48:39,417
If I didn't push far enough or hard enough,
628
00:48:39,417 --> 00:48:41,625
I'd be missing an opportunity.
629
00:48:41,625 --> 00:48:44,333
If I pushed too far, we'd be dead.
630
00:48:52,958 --> 00:48:57,292
As usual, with The Big Flame, I had not shown the BBC anything,
631
00:48:57,292 --> 00:48:59,792
because they would have hit the roof.
632
00:48:59,792 --> 00:49:01,833
I just said, "It's a love story,
633
00:49:01,833 --> 00:49:06,958
"a sort of Romeo and Juliet between the son and daughter of two dockers,
634
00:49:06,958 --> 00:49:09,417
"one Catholic and one Protestant."
635
00:49:09,417 --> 00:49:13,167
And that's what I told the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board,
636
00:49:13,167 --> 00:49:15,083
who owned our location.
637
00:49:16,792 --> 00:49:19,333
Now, everyone in favour of the resolution, please show.
638
00:49:20,917 --> 00:49:24,792
But what we actually did was get a strike going.
639
00:49:24,792 --> 00:49:27,292
And then the dockers stayed on the dock...
640
00:49:28,667 --> 00:49:30,583
..declaring a soviet.
641
00:49:30,583 --> 00:49:35,250
The root cause of our problem lies in the capitalist system of
642
00:49:35,250 --> 00:49:39,000
private ownership and calls for the nationalisation of the dock
643
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:42,792
and the shipping industry under the workers' control.
644
00:49:42,792 --> 00:49:46,333
I was in London and I got a phone call to say the film was off,
645
00:49:46,333 --> 00:49:49,667
because the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board had seen the script.
646
00:49:49,667 --> 00:49:52,167
And I laughed, and said,
647
00:49:52,167 --> 00:49:55,708
"Do you honestly think the BBC would allow
648
00:49:55,708 --> 00:50:01,542
"a film about dockers declaring a soviet on the docks of...
649
00:50:01,542 --> 00:50:04,958
"Do you think they'd allow that to happen? Come on."
650
00:50:04,958 --> 00:50:06,792
And they were reassured.
651
00:50:06,792 --> 00:50:11,833
All day long, convoys of troops have been arriving as this takeover
652
00:50:11,833 --> 00:50:15,333
by 10,000 Merseyside dockers enters its second day.
653
00:50:15,333 --> 00:50:18,583
And eventually, of course, the Army was brought in.
654
00:50:18,583 --> 00:50:23,417
They were betrayed by their so-called friends and leaders
655
00:50:23,417 --> 00:50:26,917
and ended up in court and were sent to jail.
656
00:50:26,917 --> 00:50:31,333
This theory of social revolution becomes as dangerous
657
00:50:31,333 --> 00:50:34,875
as a loaded pistol in the hands of a criminal.
658
00:50:34,875 --> 00:50:37,958
Officer, arrest those two men.
659
00:50:37,958 --> 00:50:44,167
I think Ken's politics gelled in that early work with Jim and me,
660
00:50:44,167 --> 00:50:46,250
and when he got it, he got it.
661
00:50:49,750 --> 00:50:50,875
And...
662
00:50:50,875 --> 00:50:53,250
you won't shift him now.
663
00:50:53,250 --> 00:50:57,583
Obviously, we use the hallway, we use this room, the kitchen,
664
00:50:57,583 --> 00:51:00,083
the bathroom, the stairs.
665
00:51:00,083 --> 00:51:04,750
'If you make films about people's lives, politics is essential.'
666
00:51:06,375 --> 00:51:10,875
When she collapses, we'll probably take some stuff round here...
667
00:51:12,333 --> 00:51:17,333
If you're making a film about a family, what determines those lives?
668
00:51:17,333 --> 00:51:19,750
And then at some point,
669
00:51:19,750 --> 00:51:23,167
she'll make her way round the bed
670
00:51:23,167 --> 00:51:26,458
and then we'll cut to him on that shot.
671
00:51:26,458 --> 00:51:29,208
The starting point is, where do we live?
672
00:51:29,208 --> 00:51:30,458
What work do you do?
673
00:51:30,458 --> 00:51:33,458
How does that affect your relationship?
674
00:51:33,458 --> 00:51:35,958
Do you go on holiday? What did your parents do?
675
00:51:35,958 --> 00:51:37,583
What was your upbringing?
676
00:51:41,250 --> 00:51:46,833
They're all this result of political struggle over generations.
677
00:51:46,833 --> 00:51:49,208
So, in a way, you can't walk away from it.
678
00:51:58,625 --> 00:52:01,875
The present situation is not the fault of the miners.
679
00:52:03,667 --> 00:52:08,042
We are the victims of an industry that has been ruined
680
00:52:08,042 --> 00:52:11,000
by private ownership, and this private ownership
681
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:13,000
is also ruining the country.
682
00:52:19,833 --> 00:52:23,625
We would've gone on working together,
683
00:52:23,625 --> 00:52:25,458
but things were closing down.
684
00:52:29,667 --> 00:52:33,750
The regime at the BBC made it plain that we weren't welcome.
685
00:52:42,292 --> 00:52:44,625
The British film industry...
686
00:52:44,625 --> 00:52:48,083
There was certainly no place for the kinds of films that we wanted to do.
687
00:52:51,792 --> 00:52:54,625
There was a period when he couldn't find the money for his films,
688
00:52:54,625 --> 00:52:57,125
and neither could anyone else.
689
00:52:57,125 --> 00:52:59,875
And what happened was that my generation,
690
00:52:59,875 --> 00:53:03,083
we all went to the United States and we were able to make films about
691
00:53:03,083 --> 00:53:07,458
American life in a way that Ken absolutely was not prepared to do.
692
00:53:11,833 --> 00:53:14,333
Family Life - in England, they said it didn't take enough
693
00:53:14,333 --> 00:53:16,500
to pay the usherettes.
694
00:53:16,500 --> 00:53:20,667
Black Jack - that opened in a soft porn cinema in Leeds.
695
00:53:20,667 --> 00:53:22,833
What it was doing up there, God knows.
696
00:53:25,208 --> 00:53:26,500
With that track record,
697
00:53:26,500 --> 00:53:29,500
there was no chance of getting a feature film made.
698
00:53:38,792 --> 00:53:41,750
It was as though a time was over,
699
00:53:41,750 --> 00:53:43,875
a period of one's life was over.
700
00:53:49,333 --> 00:53:53,167
Ken was also in a state of some...
701
00:53:54,625 --> 00:53:55,750
..difficulty.
702
00:53:56,917 --> 00:53:58,958
It was very...
703
00:53:58,958 --> 00:54:00,042
personal.
704
00:54:07,458 --> 00:54:08,917
It certainly changes you.
705
00:54:10,250 --> 00:54:15,167
I mean, anyone who loses a child will be changed with it forever.
706
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:22,958
Before that, you know what a kind of happiness is,
707
00:54:22,958 --> 00:54:25,292
and after that you never do.
708
00:54:25,292 --> 00:54:28,708
And there's a stone in your stomach that never goes away, really.
709
00:54:28,708 --> 00:54:29,792
So...
710
00:54:37,250 --> 00:54:42,250
We were driving along the M1 on a Sunday.
711
00:54:42,250 --> 00:54:45,667
A car on an inside lane
712
00:54:45,667 --> 00:54:47,000
had a defective...
713
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:48,250
Was defective in some way.
714
00:54:48,250 --> 00:54:52,875
A wheel came off, the car drove into us, it pushed us into a bridge,
715
00:54:52,875 --> 00:54:54,500
the upright of a bridge.
716
00:54:57,333 --> 00:55:01,667
My wife, Lesley, was...
717
00:55:01,667 --> 00:55:05,417
Fought for her life for six weeks and survived.
718
00:55:06,583 --> 00:55:09,083
Her grandmother was killed.
719
00:55:09,083 --> 00:55:11,667
Our eldest son,
720
00:55:11,667 --> 00:55:15,708
who was seven, survived, and I survived.
721
00:55:17,292 --> 00:55:19,542
Our second son, who was five, was killed.
722
00:55:23,375 --> 00:55:24,750
And that's...
723
00:55:26,458 --> 00:55:28,583
..how that happened, really.
724
00:55:28,583 --> 00:55:29,708
And...
725
00:55:29,708 --> 00:55:31,750
Well, it...
726
00:55:31,750 --> 00:55:33,292
Well, it changes you.
727
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:09,625
- MARGARET THATCHER:
- We will not disguise our purpose,
728
00:56:09,625 --> 00:56:11,375
nor betray our principles.
729
00:56:13,167 --> 00:56:16,625
We will do what must be done.
730
00:56:16,625 --> 00:56:19,583
We will tell the people the truth,
731
00:56:19,583 --> 00:56:22,750
and the people will be our judge.
732
00:56:38,333 --> 00:56:39,417
I was struggling.
733
00:56:41,750 --> 00:56:46,750
And there was this sudden desperate mood in the country.
734
00:56:49,583 --> 00:56:53,542
Day after day, factories were going to the wall.
735
00:56:53,542 --> 00:56:55,375
Mass unemployment.
736
00:56:55,375 --> 00:56:56,458
And this was raging.
737
00:57:00,667 --> 00:57:02,958
I didn't know how to respond.
738
00:57:08,167 --> 00:57:10,417
So, I tried documentaries,
739
00:57:10,417 --> 00:57:13,375
but with disastrous consequences.
740
00:57:17,083 --> 00:57:19,958
Three cheers for the destruction of Maggie's government.
741
00:57:19,958 --> 00:57:21,375
Hip-hip!
742
00:57:21,375 --> 00:57:25,625
Central Television proposed this series of films by Ken Loach,
743
00:57:25,625 --> 00:57:28,792
wonderful film-maker, about the British trade union movement.
744
00:57:28,792 --> 00:57:30,958
Hooray. Commissioned immediately.
745
00:57:33,792 --> 00:57:36,792
In the press, all you would read about were union barons
746
00:57:36,792 --> 00:57:38,833
encouraging their members to strike.
747
00:57:38,833 --> 00:57:40,375
The reverse was the case.
748
00:57:42,542 --> 00:57:47,208
People at the shop-floor level were ready to fight Thatcher,
749
00:57:47,208 --> 00:57:49,250
but the trade union leaders were doing a deal.
750
00:57:49,250 --> 00:57:52,708
That is the biggest load of codswallop that I have ever heard.
751
00:57:52,708 --> 00:57:55,042
Because we obtained, for...
752
00:57:55,042 --> 00:57:58,917
The films arrived. Unfortunately, each one said,
753
00:57:58,917 --> 00:58:01,875
"The leaders of the trade union movement had betrayed the workers.
754
00:58:01,875 --> 00:58:04,875
"The leaders of the trade union movement had betrayed the workers,"
755
00:58:04,875 --> 00:58:06,167
and film number three said,
756
00:58:06,167 --> 00:58:09,167
"The leaders of the trade union movement had betrayed the workers."
757
00:58:09,167 --> 00:58:10,583
How can those at the bottom...
758
00:58:10,583 --> 00:58:13,583
how can the working class actually control the leaders?
759
00:58:13,583 --> 00:58:16,083
The chairman of Channel 4 thought,
760
00:58:16,083 --> 00:58:18,708
"This is a left wing rant, I'm not having it."
761
00:58:18,708 --> 00:58:20,208
And they stopped them.
762
00:58:20,208 --> 00:58:22,250
But the way they did it is very interesting,
763
00:58:22,250 --> 00:58:24,292
because they did it in a very British way.
764
00:58:24,292 --> 00:58:27,292
They didn't say, you know... Like, if it was in Poland or somewhere,
765
00:58:27,292 --> 00:58:29,875
they'd say, "OK, you're sent to... Go to the salt mine."
766
00:58:29,875 --> 00:58:31,000
They didn't say that.
767
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:33,542
They said, "Let's think about this.
768
00:58:33,542 --> 00:58:35,792
"Let's provide a little balance."
769
00:58:35,792 --> 00:58:38,583
I don't mind dealing with the questions. What I don't want to be
770
00:58:38,583 --> 00:58:41,333
is tricked into saying something, then you're going to marry it
771
00:58:41,333 --> 00:58:42,833
to something somebody else says.
772
00:58:42,833 --> 00:58:45,292
It was quite clear that the trade union leaders knew
773
00:58:45,292 --> 00:58:47,625
what was going on, they knew what Ken was up to,
774
00:58:47,625 --> 00:58:50,958
and they did everything they possibly could to ban the films.
775
00:58:50,958 --> 00:58:55,125
I think, as far as I'm concerned, you've not been fair with me.
776
00:58:55,125 --> 00:58:57,500
And if you want to put this on the camera, you can.
777
00:58:57,500 --> 00:59:02,000
At which point, the chair of the channel announced that he had taken
778
00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:05,375
unilateral action and he'd sent the films back to Central
779
00:59:05,375 --> 00:59:06,833
as untransmittable.
780
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:09,042
End of story.
781
00:59:20,458 --> 00:59:25,417
The miners' strike was the pivotal event of our post-war history,
782
00:59:25,417 --> 00:59:27,667
and everybody knew what was at stake -
783
00:59:27,667 --> 00:59:30,875
it was the success of the Thatcher project, or its defeat.
784
00:59:33,875 --> 00:59:38,750
I tried the usual channels to make a film about it, without success.
785
00:59:38,750 --> 00:59:40,125
Everybody said no.
786
00:59:40,125 --> 00:59:42,375
Who am I to ask them why
787
00:59:42,375 --> 00:59:43,958
this pit must live,
788
00:59:43,958 --> 00:59:45,542
that pit must die?
789
00:59:45,542 --> 00:59:48,792
Ken came and said, "Look, a lot of good work's being done here,
790
00:59:48,792 --> 00:59:52,167
"there's a lot of poetry and songs coming out of the strike,
791
00:59:52,167 --> 00:59:54,250
"and I'd like to do a film about that."
792
00:59:54,250 --> 00:59:55,625
And I said, "What a great idea.
793
00:59:55,625 --> 00:59:57,000
"Let's do it."
794
00:59:57,000 --> 00:59:59,042
These treble lines of blue
795
00:59:59,042 --> 01:00:03,042
that escort the scabs through the gates...
796
01:00:03,042 --> 01:00:05,625
I think he thought he'd made an arts film.
797
01:00:09,708 --> 01:00:12,500
There was a pause again when we'd made it, and they said,
798
01:00:12,500 --> 01:00:15,167
"I don't think we're going to be able to show this."
799
01:00:15,167 --> 01:00:18,375
ITV companies in those days, 15 of them,
800
01:00:18,375 --> 01:00:22,750
every so often had to rebid for the right to broadcast.
801
01:00:22,750 --> 01:00:26,625
And the power of withholding the franchise was being murmured about
802
01:00:26,625 --> 01:00:27,958
and being invoked.
803
01:00:30,708 --> 01:00:33,708
I said, "Well, that's what they're writing about.
804
01:00:33,708 --> 01:00:36,500
"If you listen, this is what their poems are about,
805
01:00:36,500 --> 01:00:38,542
"this is what their songs are about,
806
01:00:38,542 --> 01:00:40,917
"about police brutality."
807
01:00:40,917 --> 01:00:42,042
"Can't show that."
808
01:00:42,042 --> 01:00:44,833
We are talking about people who are losing their franchises,
809
01:00:44,833 --> 01:00:47,917
ie, an entire company's future.
810
01:00:47,917 --> 01:00:51,750
And they saw this looming, because Ken had been banned over there,
811
01:00:51,750 --> 01:00:54,292
as some of them thought, for good reasons.
812
01:00:54,292 --> 01:00:56,500
I mean, it was like that at that stage...
813
01:00:56,500 --> 01:00:58,375
I don't think that's good enough.
814
01:00:58,375 --> 01:00:59,708
I mean, you either believe...
815
01:00:59,708 --> 01:01:03,625
You either have integrity as a broadcaster or you don't.
816
01:01:03,625 --> 01:01:06,833
I think they had no integrity by suppressing it.
817
01:01:16,792 --> 01:01:21,625
We must have overheard that the films were being cancelled,
818
01:01:21,625 --> 01:01:26,875
and we just became completely incensed that this was happening,
819
01:01:26,875 --> 01:01:28,833
and thought we would write to Channel 4.
820
01:01:28,833 --> 01:01:32,333
I think we might have written a couple of letters, I think we might
821
01:01:32,333 --> 01:01:35,458
have written, and then a couple of weeks later, written again,
822
01:01:35,458 --> 01:01:39,708
to say that Dad was really tired,
823
01:01:39,708 --> 01:01:43,417
and had been going up and down to London a lot,
824
01:01:43,417 --> 01:01:45,542
and we thought that was outrageous.
825
01:01:47,542 --> 01:01:51,958
It was a touching act of family solidarity,
826
01:01:51,958 --> 01:01:54,292
which was very nice of them.
827
01:01:54,292 --> 01:01:56,375
He was mortified that we...
828
01:01:57,917 --> 01:01:59,042
..had all written.
829
01:01:59,042 --> 01:02:02,083
I mean, it's excruciatingly embarrassing
830
01:02:02,083 --> 01:02:04,625
and completely undermined his authority.
831
01:02:20,542 --> 01:02:24,875
In the midst of this failure to get anything broadcast at all,
832
01:02:24,875 --> 01:02:28,500
Jim Allen had been beavering away on a play.
833
01:02:41,708 --> 01:02:43,833
I thought it fell within the spectrum
834
01:02:43,833 --> 01:02:45,667
of work that we could support.
835
01:02:47,667 --> 01:02:49,000
I knew that it would be...
836
01:02:50,208 --> 01:02:53,875
..provocative, but I had little idea how provocative
837
01:02:53,875 --> 01:02:56,708
and what a storm it would raise.
838
01:02:59,208 --> 01:03:02,125
I went to the Royal Court and I met Ken,
839
01:03:02,125 --> 01:03:05,833
his polite, charming, quiet, self-effacing self,
840
01:03:05,833 --> 01:03:07,667
and I thought to myself,
841
01:03:07,667 --> 01:03:10,917
"How did this guy direct that stuff?"
842
01:03:13,125 --> 01:03:14,500
Because I had expected
843
01:03:14,500 --> 01:03:17,333
a more Oliver Stone-type presence, you know.
844
01:03:20,292 --> 01:03:22,417
Two weeks into the rehearsal,
845
01:03:22,417 --> 01:03:27,417
we began to hear the rumblings of discontent.
846
01:03:27,417 --> 01:03:30,375
Good evening. You won't have seen Jim Allen's
847
01:03:30,375 --> 01:03:33,333
controversial courtroom drama, Perdition.
848
01:03:34,875 --> 01:03:38,417
The play is based on the events which led to the extermination
849
01:03:38,417 --> 01:03:43,000
of Hungarian Jews, and accuses Zionist leaders of collaborating
850
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:46,750
with Nazi Adolf Eichmann in sending them to the gas chambers.
851
01:03:49,000 --> 01:03:57,125
Jim found this story that a deal was done by certain Zionist leaders
852
01:03:57,125 --> 01:03:58,875
in Budapest,
853
01:03:58,875 --> 01:04:02,625
that they would keep secret from the other Jews who were going to get on
854
01:04:02,625 --> 01:04:06,458
the trains, they would keep secret the destination of those trains,
855
01:04:06,458 --> 01:04:11,667
provided Eichmann gave permission for 1,000 or several thousand Jews
856
01:04:11,667 --> 01:04:13,500
to escape to Palestine.
857
01:04:15,333 --> 01:04:18,250
And it was a shocking, shocking bargain.
858
01:04:20,792 --> 01:04:25,083
People who hadn't read the play were beginning to give judgment about it.
859
01:04:25,083 --> 01:04:27,958
They were saying that the play was anti-Semitic and that it was
860
01:04:27,958 --> 01:04:30,125
selective in what it showed.
861
01:04:30,125 --> 01:04:34,125
What would you say was Eichmann's biggest problem, Dr Yaron?
862
01:04:34,125 --> 01:04:40,708
And, within a week, every newspaper had a huge full-page article.
863
01:04:43,375 --> 01:04:44,917
This was serious.
864
01:04:47,625 --> 01:04:49,875
Outside, a storm was brewing.
865
01:04:51,500 --> 01:04:54,417
One of the actors had a swastika painted on his door.
866
01:04:56,417 --> 01:04:59,042
There was a sense that this was now a kind of...
867
01:04:59,042 --> 01:05:02,917
Not just a controversial play, but a potentially dangerous play.
868
01:05:06,250 --> 01:05:09,292
My relationship with Ken broke down completely.
869
01:05:10,917 --> 01:05:13,625
He had an inflexible set of principles
870
01:05:13,625 --> 01:05:15,875
that really couldn't be questioned.
871
01:05:17,250 --> 01:05:20,625
I suppose I became more and more uncomfortable with my position
872
01:05:20,625 --> 01:05:22,000
of defending the play.
873
01:05:23,625 --> 01:05:26,250
Jim Allen, you've seen, around this table,
874
01:05:26,250 --> 01:05:31,667
the offence your play has created and the distress it causes.
875
01:05:31,667 --> 01:05:35,042
Do you still think it would be right to put it on?
876
01:05:35,042 --> 01:05:39,167
Yes. It causes distress to these people who are here
877
01:05:39,167 --> 01:05:41,542
as the representatives of Zionism.
878
01:05:41,542 --> 01:05:44,042
It lets the skeletons out of the cupboard
879
01:05:44,042 --> 01:05:46,583
and they will do anything possible to prevent the public
880
01:05:46,583 --> 01:05:49,000
seeing Perdition and making up their own mind.
881
01:05:49,000 --> 01:05:51,917
They bowed to pressure. Just before we were due to open,
882
01:05:51,917 --> 01:05:55,542
I said, "Max, you'll have to tell the cast and it's your decision".
883
01:05:55,542 --> 01:05:59,833
So they sat in the auditorium and he sat on the stage,
884
01:05:59,833 --> 01:06:02,000
and he said he was going to cancel it.
885
01:06:03,458 --> 01:06:06,208
And they tore him to pieces.
886
01:06:09,583 --> 01:06:11,292
Ken Loach stood on that stage,
887
01:06:11,292 --> 01:06:15,417
and I really wish that I had memorised what he said,
888
01:06:15,417 --> 01:06:17,542
but it was articulate and it was...
889
01:06:19,625 --> 01:06:21,542
..ruthless
890
01:06:21,542 --> 01:06:24,167
and it was accusatory.
891
01:06:24,167 --> 01:06:27,083
He left the stage like a broken man, and well he should be.
892
01:06:27,083 --> 01:06:30,042
I mean, I think that was despicable.
893
01:06:30,042 --> 01:06:32,750
I mean, I think I made two mistakes.
894
01:06:32,750 --> 01:06:34,750
One was on putting the play on,
895
01:06:34,750 --> 01:06:36,792
and the second was on taking it off.
896
01:06:37,833 --> 01:06:42,167
So I am not proud of my own behaviour over that time.
897
01:06:42,167 --> 01:06:43,583
But, at the same time,
898
01:06:43,583 --> 01:06:49,583
we headed into an area that I thought was far from clear.
899
01:06:49,583 --> 01:06:52,208
Max is... It was not a mistake, it was cowardice.
900
01:06:52,208 --> 01:06:57,042
Cowardice isn't a mistake, it's a choice, and it's a moral choice.
901
01:06:57,042 --> 01:06:58,208
He chose cowardice.
902
01:06:59,833 --> 01:07:04,250
What he reminds me of is of the old knights who used to go at each other
903
01:07:04,250 --> 01:07:10,708
with big long lances and try to kill each other from their horses.
904
01:07:10,708 --> 01:07:17,792
Ken is much more of the kind of knight who dislodges the other rider
905
01:07:17,792 --> 01:07:22,542
with his lance and then stands gently and respectfully over them
906
01:07:22,542 --> 01:07:27,667
as he pushes back a small opening in their armour
907
01:07:27,667 --> 01:07:29,292
and slits a vein
908
01:07:29,292 --> 01:07:31,250
and watches them bleed to death.
909
01:07:33,583 --> 01:07:35,833
And he did that in the Royal Court that day,
910
01:07:35,833 --> 01:07:38,292
and I watch him do it when he's on television.
911
01:07:38,292 --> 01:07:42,292
You see, the thing about it is, what they call intractable,
912
01:07:42,292 --> 01:07:44,000
what they call unchanging...
913
01:07:46,167 --> 01:07:48,917
..it's what makes him be that powerful.
914
01:07:48,917 --> 01:07:53,250
And it's a wonderful thing to see such quiet power.
915
01:07:53,250 --> 01:07:54,500
It's an amazing...
916
01:07:54,500 --> 01:07:56,875
It's an amazing thing to watch.
917
01:07:56,875 --> 01:07:58,958
And I would not like to cross him.
918
01:08:13,625 --> 01:08:17,792
Every son or child, I think, remembers that moment
919
01:08:17,792 --> 01:08:20,625
when they realise their dad is not all-powerful
920
01:08:20,625 --> 01:08:22,750
and can't sort out every situation.
921
01:08:26,833 --> 01:08:30,875
It was the first time I'd really seen him
922
01:08:30,875 --> 01:08:33,875
with a sort of defeated look on his face.
923
01:08:43,042 --> 01:08:45,625
We were forbidden to talk about the commercials -
924
01:08:45,625 --> 01:08:48,000
it's even now a kind of elephant in the room.
925
01:08:49,792 --> 01:08:52,250
I think it was either make them or we move house.
926
01:09:01,875 --> 01:09:05,208
After that experience, I was pretty well unemployable, really.
927
01:09:06,542 --> 01:09:09,333
It didn't sit very happily with...
928
01:09:09,333 --> 01:09:13,750
With me at the time, having expressed the views I'd expressed,
929
01:09:13,750 --> 01:09:15,750
but I didn't see the alternative, really.
930
01:09:15,750 --> 01:09:18,167
Come on, man. Flick it in, go on.
931
01:09:18,167 --> 01:09:20,250
Useless! Absolutely useless!
932
01:09:20,250 --> 01:09:22,667
How can you miss from the six-yard box, tell me that?
933
01:09:22,667 --> 01:09:24,625
Your mum could do better than that.
934
01:09:24,625 --> 01:09:25,958
Useless!
935
01:09:27,958 --> 01:09:30,958
(Caramac. The golden creamy bar.)
936
01:09:32,250 --> 01:09:34,625
I did one for McDonald's, yeah,
937
01:09:34,625 --> 01:09:38,208
which, erm, sits really badly on my conscience.
938
01:09:38,208 --> 01:09:40,042
- You like that?
- I do like it, but do you?
939
01:09:40,042 --> 01:09:42,333
Well, let's have that, then. I love it, really.
940
01:09:42,333 --> 01:09:46,167
- Honestly, really.
- He's driving me mad.
941
01:09:46,167 --> 01:09:48,000
Big Mac. I'll have a Big Mac, please.
942
01:09:48,000 --> 01:09:50,750
100% beef, 100% big.
943
01:09:50,750 --> 01:09:52,667
Sometimes only a Big Mac will do.
944
01:09:54,333 --> 01:09:57,542
Here's me berating other people for betrayal, and I've done that.
945
01:10:21,500 --> 01:10:26,833
When we were growing up, there was a complete firewall, I would say,
946
01:10:26,833 --> 01:10:31,417
between our family life and the film industry.
947
01:10:31,417 --> 01:10:34,208
OK, here we go. And turning over...
948
01:10:34,208 --> 01:10:36,250
And... OK, Dave.
949
01:10:36,250 --> 01:10:38,708
We thought Ken Loach was somebody else.
950
01:10:38,708 --> 01:10:41,708
You know, we thought he was another person.
951
01:10:41,708 --> 01:10:43,958
Good, that worked quite nicely.
952
01:10:43,958 --> 01:10:46,250
Yeah, we'll just try one more like that.
953
01:10:46,250 --> 01:10:48,375
I remember, when I was very young,
954
01:10:48,375 --> 01:10:52,292
kind of realising that he was my dad, you know.
955
01:10:52,292 --> 01:10:54,375
And up to that point I think we'd thought
956
01:10:54,375 --> 01:10:56,000
he was someone else entirely.
957
01:10:56,000 --> 01:10:59,542
Don't go in. Who's put that pillock in?
958
01:10:59,542 --> 01:11:01,375
Jesus Christ.
959
01:11:01,375 --> 01:11:03,000
He was always away a lot,
960
01:11:03,000 --> 01:11:04,542
working away from home.
961
01:11:04,542 --> 01:11:05,750
So, he wasn't around.
962
01:11:05,750 --> 01:11:09,625
There were times when he wasn't around very much.
963
01:11:09,625 --> 01:11:11,542
We'll race back as soon as we can.
964
01:11:11,542 --> 01:11:13,708
Can you bear one more? Can you bear it, yeah?
965
01:11:13,708 --> 01:11:17,042
There is a side of him that works,
966
01:11:17,042 --> 01:11:21,042
and there is also a quiet side to my dad,
967
01:11:21,042 --> 01:11:24,708
quiet and reflective and quite private.
968
01:11:26,708 --> 01:11:28,583
Get the lad!
969
01:11:28,583 --> 01:11:34,958
Ken Loach is fearless, indestructible, fiercely loyal,
970
01:11:34,958 --> 01:11:36,917
absolutely driven.
971
01:11:36,917 --> 01:11:38,167
Fucking hell.
972
01:11:38,167 --> 01:11:42,125
But my dad is very distinct from that person.
973
01:11:45,250 --> 01:11:48,917
As a failed actor, he loves musicals.
974
01:11:48,917 --> 01:11:50,750
He loves dancing, and he loves...
975
01:11:50,750 --> 01:11:52,458
Not that he dances, thank God.
976
01:11:52,458 --> 01:11:57,375
But he does love musicals and, sort of, the more camp
977
01:11:57,375 --> 01:11:59,833
and the more glossy they are, the better.
978
01:12:01,417 --> 01:12:04,875
# One singular sensation
979
01:12:04,875 --> 01:12:08,167
# Every little step she takes. #
980
01:12:08,167 --> 01:12:10,333
It's not contradictory to me.
981
01:12:11,833 --> 01:12:16,667
I guess, in musicals, they have quite a sort of simple morality,
982
01:12:16,667 --> 01:12:19,000
which, I guess, you know, is quite nice, isn't it?
983
01:12:19,000 --> 01:12:21,125
And I suppose it's escapism.
984
01:12:21,125 --> 01:12:24,000
You know... And he's a bit camp, isn't he?
985
01:12:24,000 --> 01:12:26,000
So, he likes all that.
986
01:12:26,000 --> 01:12:27,667
He likes men dressing up.
987
01:12:31,875 --> 01:12:34,167
- KENNETH WILLIAMS:
- Hold hands. This is an upstick.
988
01:12:34,167 --> 01:12:36,292
Up with your sticks, this is a hand-hold.
989
01:12:36,292 --> 01:12:38,792
- I beg your pardon.
- I mean, this is a stick up.
990
01:12:38,792 --> 01:12:44,333
The first professional job I got was understudying in a revue called
991
01:12:44,333 --> 01:12:45,500
One Over The Eight.
992
01:12:45,500 --> 01:12:47,458
Oh, stop messing about.
993
01:12:47,458 --> 01:12:50,750
Kenneth Williams and Sheila Hancock were the leads.
994
01:12:50,750 --> 01:12:54,667
There was this funny little man who was understudying Kenneth.
995
01:12:54,667 --> 01:12:57,708
I mean, it's an unlikely place for him to have been.
996
01:12:59,125 --> 01:13:01,667
I have an image of him in the wings.
997
01:13:01,667 --> 01:13:02,833
I think he was a bit scared.
998
01:13:05,458 --> 01:13:07,917
We had to go through the dance routines with an actor
999
01:13:07,917 --> 01:13:10,958
called Jill Gascoigne - she had to gallop across the stage.
1000
01:13:10,958 --> 01:13:15,917
As she arrived, I had to grab her round the waist and swivel her over
1001
01:13:15,917 --> 01:13:17,667
and put her upright.
1002
01:13:17,667 --> 01:13:19,750
And I was hopeless at this.
1003
01:13:19,750 --> 01:13:23,542
And she was a bonny lass, she was not...
1004
01:13:23,542 --> 01:13:26,083
sylph-like, at least, but, I mean, very...
1005
01:13:27,125 --> 01:13:29,792
Good dancer. But I would seize her round the waist,
1006
01:13:29,792 --> 01:13:32,125
and she'd be saying, "Get me over, get me over!"
1007
01:13:32,125 --> 01:13:34,958
And, invariably, she would end up with her head on the floor
1008
01:13:34,958 --> 01:13:37,083
and her legs waving
1009
01:13:37,083 --> 01:13:39,750
and my anxious face peering in between them.
1010
01:13:49,208 --> 01:13:52,125
Well, he just suddenly turned up at the theatre.
1011
01:13:52,125 --> 01:13:58,333
He was a very strange-looking young man with a rolled umbrella and a tie
1012
01:13:58,333 --> 01:14:00,667
and a suit and a briefcase.
1013
01:14:00,667 --> 01:14:01,917
I mean, it was funny.
1014
01:14:04,542 --> 01:14:07,042
He played Br'er Fox, and that's how I met him.
1015
01:14:09,500 --> 01:14:11,125
To me, when he was on stage,
1016
01:14:11,125 --> 01:14:15,833
his brain always worked marginally before his instincts,
1017
01:14:15,833 --> 01:14:19,583
so that he sort of thought about it and then acted it.
1018
01:14:21,542 --> 01:14:23,375
It's a bit naughty to say this,
1019
01:14:23,375 --> 01:14:27,750
but he was the sort of actor he wouldn't dream of employing,
1020
01:14:27,750 --> 01:14:29,125
if you know what I mean.
1021
01:14:35,625 --> 01:14:37,583
Curious journey people go on...
1022
01:14:50,000 --> 01:14:52,875
Ken didn't make a film for nearly 12 years.
1023
01:14:57,000 --> 01:15:01,708
Here was a first-class director who had actually been virtually silent
1024
01:15:01,708 --> 01:15:03,542
in the cinema for a decade.
1025
01:15:04,708 --> 01:15:07,417
TRAILER: An American has been murdered in Northern Ireland.
1026
01:15:07,417 --> 01:15:11,000
Police said the car failed to stop at a roadblock outside Dungannon.
1027
01:15:11,000 --> 01:15:14,792
And a high-ranking British inspector has been assigned to the case.
1028
01:15:14,792 --> 01:15:18,250
When he made Hidden Agenda, nobody would put it on.
1029
01:15:18,250 --> 01:15:20,542
Nobody would even give it a press show.
1030
01:15:27,583 --> 01:15:29,625
I think you lose confidence, you know,
1031
01:15:29,625 --> 01:15:32,583
if you go for a few years and you don't make a film, you think,
1032
01:15:32,583 --> 01:15:35,958
"I'm not going to be able to do it again. I'm going to forget the words to say."
1033
01:15:42,167 --> 01:15:43,750
It went to Cannes.
1034
01:15:43,750 --> 01:15:46,625
The right-wing press went for us.
1035
01:15:46,625 --> 01:15:49,625
There was a Tory MP who denounced it before he'd seen it,
1036
01:15:49,625 --> 01:15:54,750
a familiar tale, where he said it was the IRA entry at Cannes.
1037
01:15:54,750 --> 01:15:56,708
Hidden Agenda.
1038
01:15:56,708 --> 01:15:58,583
Every government has one.
1039
01:16:00,500 --> 01:16:02,875
The film was a success at Cannes,
1040
01:16:02,875 --> 01:16:04,833
despite that,
1041
01:16:04,833 --> 01:16:07,333
and he was known again,
1042
01:16:07,333 --> 01:16:09,583
and suddenly he was able to make films.
1043
01:16:18,167 --> 01:16:20,750
When he made Riff-Raff,
1044
01:16:20,750 --> 01:16:23,917
the National Film Theatre took it up,
1045
01:16:23,917 --> 01:16:26,667
and the critics all said, "Wonderful film."
1046
01:16:26,667 --> 01:16:29,583
And the bathroom here, which I think you'll find very impressive.
1047
01:16:29,583 --> 01:16:31,208
SPLASHING
1048
01:16:31,208 --> 01:16:32,833
THEY GASP
1049
01:16:32,833 --> 01:16:34,875
THEY SHOUT IN OWN LANGUAGE
1050
01:16:34,875 --> 01:16:36,792
What are you doing here?
1051
01:16:36,792 --> 01:16:38,167
Who are you?
1052
01:16:38,167 --> 01:16:39,417
Who are you?
1053
01:16:39,417 --> 01:16:40,833
I'm checking the plumbing.
1054
01:16:40,833 --> 01:16:41,875
Get out of there.
1055
01:16:44,583 --> 01:16:46,542
Everything seems to be working.
1056
01:16:59,417 --> 01:17:02,792
Once the political climate had changed a little,
1057
01:17:02,792 --> 01:17:08,458
and once it became possible to raise a bit of money from Channel 4,
1058
01:17:08,458 --> 01:17:12,042
or even cobble together a bit of distribution money around Europe...
1059
01:17:13,333 --> 01:17:14,417
..he just...
1060
01:17:15,583 --> 01:17:17,917
..took off where he'd left off
1061
01:17:17,917 --> 01:17:19,417
with an opportunity.
1062
01:17:22,917 --> 01:17:27,458
He found a group of people that shared his outlook
1063
01:17:27,458 --> 01:17:29,583
and wanted to make films with him.
1064
01:17:31,958 --> 01:17:36,500
I certainly remember him carrying himself much freer,
1065
01:17:36,500 --> 01:17:38,167
just being happier.
1066
01:17:43,125 --> 01:17:46,375
He knows that he's found...
1067
01:17:48,208 --> 01:17:50,542
..what he's looking for when he finds it.
1068
01:17:54,917 --> 01:17:56,417
I got a phone call off him.
1069
01:17:56,417 --> 01:17:58,917
"Rick," he said, "I'm doing this movie," he said,
1070
01:17:58,917 --> 01:18:01,750
"and it's about more or less a battered wife.
1071
01:18:01,750 --> 01:18:04,292
"She's got to have had a couple of kids to this fella,
1072
01:18:04,292 --> 01:18:07,500
"a couple of kids to that fella, been knocked about and battered."
1073
01:18:07,500 --> 01:18:10,792
He said, "But I can't find what I want, can you help me out?"
1074
01:18:10,792 --> 01:18:12,917
And I said, "How many do you want?"
1075
01:18:12,917 --> 01:18:15,167
And he went, "No, I'm serious." I said, "So am I."
1076
01:18:16,292 --> 01:18:18,125
He picked a girl called Crissy Rock.
1077
01:18:19,292 --> 01:18:24,417
# Come along and share the good times while we can
1078
01:18:24,417 --> 01:18:27,458
# I beg your pardon
1079
01:18:27,458 --> 01:18:28,625
# I never promised... #
1080
01:18:28,625 --> 01:18:31,292
I said, "Look, if I'm not what you want
1081
01:18:31,292 --> 01:18:32,958
"or I think you made a mistake,
1082
01:18:32,958 --> 01:18:35,875
"you can sack me and tell me to go and I'll understand,
1083
01:18:35,875 --> 01:18:37,333
"cos I'm not really an actress."
1084
01:18:37,333 --> 01:18:39,625
Woooooo!
1085
01:18:39,625 --> 01:18:41,833
And he goes, "No, but I trust you.
1086
01:18:43,167 --> 01:18:44,583
"I know you can do this."
1087
01:18:54,667 --> 01:18:57,500
As a director, the most precious thing you've got
1088
01:18:57,500 --> 01:18:59,000
is the actor's instinct.
1089
01:19:00,250 --> 01:19:04,167
If you've acted a bit yourself, you know, however badly,
1090
01:19:04,167 --> 01:19:07,167
you know how open actors can be and how vulnerable they can be,
1091
01:19:07,167 --> 01:19:10,167
and how easily they can be blown off-course.
1092
01:19:14,125 --> 01:19:17,417
He's got that gift to go inside.
1093
01:19:18,833 --> 01:19:22,000
He talks to you and he says,
1094
01:19:22,000 --> 01:19:25,458
"If this is happening, how would you handle that?"
1095
01:19:25,458 --> 01:19:27,792
I'm Kevin McNally from Social Services.
1096
01:19:27,792 --> 01:19:30,250
- This is my colleague...
- Sarah Thompson.
1097
01:19:30,250 --> 01:19:34,708
He actually makes you believe that you're that person.
1098
01:19:34,708 --> 01:19:40,250
We came to a decision last week where we will have to take the baby
1099
01:19:40,250 --> 01:19:43,000
- to a place of safety...
- What's safer than here?
1100
01:19:43,000 --> 01:19:45,917
The baby is safe, and you have no right, and you have...
1101
01:19:45,917 --> 01:19:48,250
We can go with the baby to the court if we want.
1102
01:19:48,250 --> 01:19:49,625
But you don't need to take, OK?
1103
01:19:49,625 --> 01:19:53,000
- It is something that...
- Just go to your office!
1104
01:19:53,000 --> 01:19:55,333
- Jorge, it's illegal...
- Just leave us!
1105
01:19:55,333 --> 01:19:59,208
The anguish of losing your children when in fact
1106
01:19:59,208 --> 01:20:01,208
you are capable of looking after them...
1107
01:20:01,208 --> 01:20:03,417
I mean, that was the point of the story.
1108
01:20:06,333 --> 01:20:08,583
It's a kind of well of experience.
1109
01:20:10,042 --> 01:20:13,250
People have said, "Well, this isn't acting, she's just being herself."
1110
01:20:13,250 --> 01:20:17,708
But, actually, the ability to tap into your own emotions
1111
01:20:17,708 --> 01:20:22,250
and express them in a fictional scene is absolutely acting.
1112
01:20:27,708 --> 01:20:29,167
You don't realise he's doing it.
1113
01:20:30,833 --> 01:20:34,708
So you're just raw, he just picks a raw piece of silk up,
1114
01:20:34,708 --> 01:20:36,917
and he makes it into a beautiful purse.
1115
01:20:39,917 --> 01:20:41,917
Neil. Neil.
1116
01:20:41,917 --> 01:20:43,000
You OK?
1117
01:20:43,000 --> 01:20:44,458
Right.
1118
01:20:44,458 --> 01:20:47,250
Right, one word before we start.
1119
01:20:47,250 --> 01:20:49,750
We hear it, we hear it.
1120
01:20:49,750 --> 01:20:54,417
And if you do it really realistically, it sounds right.
1121
01:20:54,417 --> 01:20:56,833
If you don't do it realistically, it sounds wrong.
1122
01:20:56,833 --> 01:20:58,833
Hayley, Hayley.
1123
01:20:58,833 --> 01:21:01,208
Do you mind just being there?
1124
01:21:01,208 --> 01:21:03,833
I'm working from somewhere I've never worked before,
1125
01:21:03,833 --> 01:21:05,542
which is not having seen a script.
1126
01:21:05,542 --> 01:21:08,375
It's kind of a dream, you know, shooting chronologically,
1127
01:21:08,375 --> 01:21:10,417
not knowing what happens.
1128
01:21:10,417 --> 01:21:13,375
It's what you want, because it means you're going to be able to do it
1129
01:21:13,375 --> 01:21:16,500
then and there, and it's just about you and who you're with.
1130
01:21:16,500 --> 01:21:18,458
- Would you like to go and see Agnes?
- Agnes?
1131
01:21:18,458 --> 01:21:21,042
When I went to the food bank, and we saw the extras outside,
1132
01:21:21,042 --> 01:21:22,625
I found it really overwhelming.
1133
01:21:23,667 --> 01:21:27,167
The reason it's so raw is because you're stepping into people's lives,
1134
01:21:27,167 --> 01:21:29,083
and these people that are using this place,
1135
01:21:29,083 --> 01:21:32,042
they're in this position and they're around you doing it with you.
1136
01:21:32,042 --> 01:21:34,667
It'll be from there round to the fruit and veg.
1137
01:21:34,667 --> 01:21:38,667
It's the purest environment you could ever have.
1138
01:21:38,667 --> 01:21:40,917
That's what all this very,
1139
01:21:40,917 --> 01:21:47,458
very precise preparation and precise casting is all to achieve,
1140
01:21:47,458 --> 01:21:48,667
this truth, I guess.
1141
01:21:53,167 --> 01:21:56,583
It fundamentally changed how I approach acting,
1142
01:21:56,583 --> 01:21:58,625
and it's never been the same since.
1143
01:21:58,625 --> 01:22:00,208
171, take 3...
1144
01:22:02,250 --> 01:22:05,375
You know, there's no marks, there's no action, there's no cut.
1145
01:22:07,417 --> 01:22:10,583
You don't have the script as your document, you're just...
1146
01:22:10,583 --> 01:22:16,000
You're reacting as it happens, you know, on film.
1147
01:22:16,000 --> 01:22:20,833
So, it becomes all emotion and not intellect.
1148
01:22:20,833 --> 01:22:22,250
It's all right, it's all right.
1149
01:22:22,250 --> 01:22:23,833
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
1150
01:22:23,833 --> 01:22:25,958
It's OK, it's OK.
1151
01:22:25,958 --> 01:22:29,042
It was like going on this adventure with all these people
1152
01:22:29,042 --> 01:22:31,125
who you became very, very close to.
1153
01:22:38,125 --> 01:22:42,458
We had gone on this journey,
1154
01:22:42,458 --> 01:22:48,375
which felt, to us, as close as it could possibly be to reality.
1155
01:22:48,375 --> 01:22:51,958
Oh, Jesus Christ. I can't take much more of this.
1156
01:22:56,625 --> 01:23:00,792
So by the end, certainly for me, it didn't feel like I was performing,
1157
01:23:00,792 --> 01:23:04,292
I was just kind of swept up in this world that we'd created,
1158
01:23:04,292 --> 01:23:08,167
that we were invested in, that felt completely authentic and real
1159
01:23:08,167 --> 01:23:11,625
and truthful, and that was because Ken set it up that way.
1160
01:23:22,208 --> 01:23:25,083
The reason to do films like the Spanish Civil War
1161
01:23:25,083 --> 01:23:29,375
or the Irish Civil War - they're high points in our story.
1162
01:23:30,875 --> 01:23:35,125
They're critical moments where if things had gone differently,
1163
01:23:35,125 --> 01:23:39,292
we would have a different world now.
1164
01:23:39,292 --> 01:23:43,125
We try to gather people who, if the situation were to recur,
1165
01:23:43,125 --> 01:23:44,542
might do that again.
1166
01:23:45,750 --> 01:23:48,458
It was a People's Army, to fight fascism.
1167
01:23:49,917 --> 01:23:52,875
So, it was a very... It was a very...
1168
01:23:52,875 --> 01:23:56,292
happy bunch of brothers and sisters.
1169
01:23:56,292 --> 01:23:58,542
- How's your arm?
- It's much better now,
1170
01:23:58,542 --> 01:24:01,000
I had the stitches taken out two days ago.
1171
01:24:02,167 --> 01:24:05,500
- What are you doing here?
- Bernard gave me seven days' leave.
1172
01:24:05,500 --> 01:24:08,125
And then it reached the point where Blanca,
1173
01:24:08,125 --> 01:24:12,583
the girl who has really embodied the revolutionary spirit -
1174
01:24:12,583 --> 01:24:14,042
she's shot.
1175
01:24:14,042 --> 01:24:17,667
Of course, they didn't know this.
1176
01:24:17,667 --> 01:24:20,625
I said, "Can I have a word?" And she said, "What's up?" and I said,
1177
01:24:20,625 --> 01:24:24,333
"Look, I'm really sorry, but you get shot here."
1178
01:24:26,375 --> 01:24:29,000
And she said, "But I don't want to die."
1179
01:24:31,708 --> 01:24:33,917
And we both got quite upset, really.
1180
01:24:41,875 --> 01:24:45,208
Of course, no-one knew about it, and they were just...
1181
01:24:45,208 --> 01:24:47,917
Couldn't believe it, really, that she'd gone.
1182
01:25:02,417 --> 01:25:04,542
And the Palme d'Or goes to...
1183
01:25:04,542 --> 01:25:06,333
Ken Loach.
1184
01:25:14,333 --> 01:25:18,958
What people in England don't realise is how much he is adored,
1185
01:25:18,958 --> 01:25:21,708
not just in France, but all over Europe.
1186
01:25:23,292 --> 01:25:28,125
Here is someone over 70 who still believes,
1187
01:25:28,125 --> 01:25:29,750
and they find that very moving.
1188
01:25:39,000 --> 01:25:42,583
We didn't expect the film to win the Palme d'Or, but then,
1189
01:25:42,583 --> 01:25:48,458
what was remarkable was this, just, outburst of fury by Tory politicians
1190
01:25:48,458 --> 01:25:49,667
and right-wingers.
1191
01:25:53,500 --> 01:25:55,833
One of the most bizarre was a guy
1192
01:25:55,833 --> 01:25:58,583
who wrote for the Telegraph, I believe,
1193
01:25:58,583 --> 01:26:00,208
and he said...
1194
01:26:01,250 --> 01:26:05,167
..that he hadn't seen the film and he didn't want to see the film,
1195
01:26:05,167 --> 01:26:08,458
because he didn't need to read Mein Kampf
1196
01:26:08,458 --> 01:26:11,000
to know what a louse Hitler was.
1197
01:26:17,750 --> 01:26:21,000
We don't set out to provoke.
1198
01:26:21,000 --> 01:26:25,000
The purpose of it is to try and understand how power operates,
1199
01:26:25,000 --> 01:26:27,625
who has control of a narrative.
1200
01:26:28,750 --> 01:26:30,458
The choices that a character makes...
1201
01:26:31,917 --> 01:26:35,000
..are totally affected by the society in which they live.
1202
01:26:36,167 --> 01:26:38,333
Like Robbie in Angels' Share...
1203
01:26:40,125 --> 01:26:43,250
You know, he's a kid who's just become a dad,
1204
01:26:43,250 --> 01:26:47,083
and he's totally caught by his history, by his family,
1205
01:26:47,083 --> 01:26:50,542
but he's absolutely determined to just build a future
1206
01:26:50,542 --> 01:26:52,250
for this baby in his arms.
1207
01:26:55,042 --> 01:26:58,500
Or this kid, trying to buy a caravan,
1208
01:26:58,500 --> 01:27:01,417
buying the drugs because there's no other way to earn some money
1209
01:27:01,417 --> 01:27:04,292
so that he could rescue his mother and be with her.
1210
01:27:11,167 --> 01:27:14,042
Even Looking For Eric, I mean,
1211
01:27:14,042 --> 01:27:18,000
right behind that comedy on the surface is a disintegrating family.
1212
01:27:18,000 --> 01:27:21,125
You know, so there is kind of tragedy in the laughter.
1213
01:27:22,417 --> 01:27:24,750
Je suis...
1214
01:27:24,750 --> 01:27:26,708
Eric Cantona.
1215
01:27:26,708 --> 01:27:28,208
Fucking hell, it is you!
1216
01:27:29,750 --> 01:27:32,042
What the fuck, man?!
1217
01:27:32,042 --> 01:27:34,417
Wait till the fucking lads hear about this!
1218
01:27:34,417 --> 01:27:40,292
You just hope that resonates without being explicit, you know.
1219
01:27:40,292 --> 01:27:43,542
You see the delicate surface of those characters' lives.
1220
01:27:46,958 --> 01:27:50,125
But the great political questions are a way down there,
1221
01:27:50,125 --> 01:27:52,000
like the bottom of the iceberg.
1222
01:28:10,750 --> 01:28:13,292
How could Ken be a political danger to anybody?
1223
01:28:15,208 --> 01:28:16,292
He loves cricket.
1224
01:28:18,250 --> 01:28:21,042
He would really be at home in the 18th century,
1225
01:28:21,042 --> 01:28:23,292
cos he loves the architecture and the furniture.
1226
01:28:27,333 --> 01:28:31,000
I got some e-mails from him last night, and I thought,
1227
01:28:31,000 --> 01:28:34,375
"God, he's on e-mail." I mean, "He's discovered e-mail."
1228
01:28:34,375 --> 01:28:36,667
What's happened?
1229
01:28:36,667 --> 01:28:38,958
He even disliked the phone.
1230
01:28:41,000 --> 01:28:43,625
He's a very conservative...
1231
01:28:44,708 --> 01:28:46,417
..quiet gentleman.
1232
01:28:49,417 --> 01:28:51,000
The point is that Ken...
1233
01:28:52,208 --> 01:28:54,500
..will not be deterred.
1234
01:29:00,375 --> 01:29:04,667
I'm not a shirker, a scrounger, a beggar nor a thief.
1235
01:29:06,333 --> 01:29:09,958
I'm not a national insurance number or blip on a screen.
1236
01:29:11,375 --> 01:29:15,250
I paid my dues, never a penny short, and proud to do so.
1237
01:29:17,083 --> 01:29:20,417
I don't tug the forelock, but look my neighbour in the eye
1238
01:29:20,417 --> 01:29:22,250
and help him if I can.
1239
01:29:29,250 --> 01:29:32,792
Here he is now, coming up to 50 years of film-making...
1240
01:29:35,458 --> 01:29:41,417
..and the politics comes first, not in a party superficial manner,
1241
01:29:41,417 --> 01:29:44,417
but you can only have the energy to do that
1242
01:29:44,417 --> 01:29:46,667
if there's something burning inside you.
1243
01:29:46,667 --> 01:29:51,500
It's like he's got this big V8 engine in this skinny little body,
1244
01:29:51,500 --> 01:29:53,250
and that just drives him on.
1245
01:29:55,167 --> 01:29:57,708
And I think, even if he probably wanted to stop,
1246
01:29:57,708 --> 01:29:59,542
I'm not sure he could, really.
1247
01:30:03,583 --> 01:30:07,542
He is speaking for the people who are not catered to,
1248
01:30:07,542 --> 01:30:09,958
what they call the voiceless.
1249
01:30:11,083 --> 01:30:14,625
People walk out of theatres and say, "Yeah, I really...
1250
01:30:14,625 --> 01:30:17,292
"That was just like watching the people down the road."
1251
01:30:24,208 --> 01:30:28,083
Ken wanted people to recognise, from the inside,
1252
01:30:28,083 --> 01:30:31,750
their own lives reflected back to them,
1253
01:30:31,750 --> 01:30:34,250
and that was politics.
1254
01:30:39,042 --> 01:30:41,792
Given the tides of political conflict,
1255
01:30:41,792 --> 01:30:45,417
trying to make little films in the middle of that is like a cork
1256
01:30:45,417 --> 01:30:48,167
bobbing on the waves - it doesn't stop the tide.
1257
01:30:49,375 --> 01:30:52,750
You are a small voice amongst many,
1258
01:30:52,750 --> 01:30:54,750
many much louder voices.
1259
01:30:54,750 --> 01:30:56,375
Is it worth doing? I don't know.
1260
01:30:57,583 --> 01:31:00,292
It's like Marlon Brando, you know, in Rebel Without A Cause.
1261
01:31:00,292 --> 01:31:02,708
They say, you know, "What are you rebelling against?"
1262
01:31:02,708 --> 01:31:05,292
He said, "What have you got?" And whatever institution,
1263
01:31:05,292 --> 01:31:08,167
whatever government, whoever's there, Ken would...
1264
01:31:08,167 --> 01:31:10,250
It wouldn't be good enough for Ken.
1265
01:31:11,708 --> 01:31:12,833
Bastards.
102939
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