Wednesday 04 April, 2001
Behind The Scenes With Ken Loach
Kes, Poor Cow, My Name is Joe and Riff Raff have made British director Ken Loach one of the most famous exponents of the gritty, realistic documentary-style approach to film-making.
Having once said that 'there has to be a powerful reason to work outside of your own country', Loach has recently returned from Los Angeles, where he has been working on his latest film – a hard-hitting portrayal of life as a Hispanic immigrant. Speaking to On Screen, Loach talks about his experiences of working in the land of the free.
Ken Loach has recently completed his 14th feature film, Bread and Roses. It's the first time he's ever made a film in America and although the location may be different, the subject matter is true Loach realism.
As usual, his film focuses on the poor and the dispossessed, the only difference here is that they're on the other side of the Atlantic. Bread and Roses is about a Mexican immigrant trying to survive in the US, cleaning the high rise office blocks of LA at night. As Loach explains:
'It's about her attempts to survive in the US as an illegal immigrant. She's got a sister in LA who works as a cleaner in offices – that's seen as a good job to get. But it's also a place where people are exploited.'
Land of the Free?
Loach is well known for his unique working methods - to make things as realistic as possible, he doesn't tell the cast how the film is going to end. Another of his trademarks is to use a mix of professional actors, and non-professionals - in Bread and Roses he hired real janitors.
Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival last year, Elphida Carrillo, who plays Rosa in the film, told of how she had to emigrate from Mexico with her 10 siblings after the death of her father. She said that she hopes that the film will also help Latin actors get roles other than those as "maids" and "prostitutes".
Referring to the disastrous film adaptation of Isabel Allende's House of Spirits a few years ago, when some of the white actors wore make up and played Latin roles, Carrillo commented:
'Glenn Close, Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons played Latinos in House of Spirits, which I thought was insulting. We want to go to the movies and see something about us, about who we are.'
Loach has a keen sense of the injustices in society and during his time in Los Angeles he became conscious of social divisions in operation. He explains:
| 'I think the way North Americans treat Central Americans shows a great deal about their society, because it's very hypocritical.' |
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'On the one hand they want someone who will do all the dirty jobs: clean the streets, cook in the kitchens. On the other hand, [these people] are abused as illegal immigrants.'
Different Crews, Different Views
The British crew, who had filmed with Loach before, were quite used to his working methods, but the American crew were completely baffled, having never experienced anything like it.
One of the tasks for the first assistant director, Ricardo Mendes Manta, was therefore to bridge the gap. He explains some of the differences that the crews had to overcome:
| 'Ken Loach doesn't work the same way that your typical American film director would. Almost nothing is the same.' |
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'Ken doesn't want a monitor to watch the shot. I can't think of one director I have worked with in 15 years that would do that…What I try to explain to a lot of the crew is that we're not really making another movie. It's a sort of hybrid, between a movie and a documentary and theatre. We, the film-makers, we're the intruders – we have to be tucked in a corner.'
If the Americans found Loach a bit odd, the British crew had some reservations about the American crew as director of photography Barry Ackroyd explains:
'Not being rude about the way people work here – because they are very professional – but they are not as flexible as we tend to be in Britain.'
'They [the American crew] like to know everything that's going to happen, lock it down, make it perfect. But it never is perfect. And what I like is that things aren't perfect. They find that strange, that we look for the chance element. There's no big deal, no big ego about it. Filmmaking to the Americans seems to be about how big you can build your ego up.'
|  |  | | | Loach Heads Cannes Critics |  |
| | Ken Loach will act as patron of the 40th Cannes Critics' Week which runs alongside the Cannes Film Festival.
This is only the second year that there have been such nominations. Last year Bernardo Bertolucci was chosen to participate in a debate with first and second time filmmakers.
Cannes Critics' Week, which takes place 10-19 May, concentrates on the work of new filmmakers. |
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