Ken Loach S/D

his Spirit of '45 doc was such enraging, execrable rose-tinted claptrap I didn't last long with it. I don't know if I was just in a grumpy mood, but it seemed unbearable at the the time.

I'm getting so pissed off my typing is stuttering

ran across this spirited attack

https://letterboxd.com/phk/film/sorry-we-missed-you/

His own political history – the Workers' Revolutionary Party, the Socialist Workers Party, George Galloway's RESPECT Coalition – is like a timeline of the most vacuous, posturing elements of Britain's bourgeois celebrity Left. Any real causes he may have aided can be chalked up to the stopped-clock principle.

lol ... totally otm!

A bit offside to have a go at his petite bourgeoisie roots, there is plenty enough to criticise about his movies or his predilection for crank left political wasters!

lol harsh but broadly fair, not a critique of his film-making tho so

i'd like to think about *why* most of the films are so unconvincing, such bad cinema. his politics are connected to that - they're missionary work, mostly, which accounts for some of the glaring duffness of tone, but i'd like to read a more complete account of their failures as movies, without running a rote "avant-garde vs realism" take. i mean yeah of course he's shit compared to Godard, but it'd be more interesting to think about why he's shit compared to say the Dardenne Bros

Some good points in that attack/rant. I for one found some of the absolutely shit 'acting' in "Sorry We Missed You" did more to ruin the film than the ott piling on of tragic events. "Kes" rules forever, though.

I'm not saying Brizé's The Measure of a Man (2015) is classic, but I did enjoy infinitely more than My Name Is Joe and as heavy handed as it is, it does touch on the theme that we are all bad and should all feel bad, not just the tories or dead eyed bureaucrats dishing out human misery, we are all a bunch of bastards!

I have read reviews where people Loach has coaxed some good performances from amateur actors. I always think the exact opposite, rather he has indoctrinated them into the ways of hack acting and it will take some work to undo that damage!

loved the last film

i feel like the point of using non-actors is not to have them "ACT"

tbf Alfred if i watch a whole new Loach film now it's by accident/against my will

The non-actress is the heart of the film, a bit like Chrissy Rock in Ladybird Ladybird.

The only non-actor who appeared in a Loach film that I can remember going on to have any k inf of acting career was, er... the guy who played Les Battersby in Coronation Street! I stand corrected if there are others.

... and kind, that is, not any k inf.

Martin Compston has had a very successful career.

Oh forgot him, better than Les Battersby for sure.

I enjoyed "I, Daniel Blake" despite myself. was the best of his 21st century films (that id seen) but still mawkish and hamfisted.

lol I meant I, Daniel Blake above not My Name Is Joe

my name is Joe at least has a bit of moral complexity

The 60s films and wednesdays plays were a total revelation to me when I saw them. Cathy Come Home, Up the Junction, Poor Cow. The didacticism of the kitchen-sink narrative sections are disrupted and often contradicted by the polyvocal audio documentary elements. They're good documents of postwar youth culture: music, dancing, teased hairstyles and leather jackets.

I tend to find the criticism of his films more tedious than anything I've come across in the films themselves: the purported bleakness feels humane and with more humour than critics let on, the purported hysteria and exaggeration disregards the scale of human cruelty in the real world and the insane baroquely nasty situations that people seem to be trapped in, day after day. There are certainly far more noxious figures in the british politico-media aristocracy and at the very least he's made a film world that is recognisable and means something. I'd definitely take him over Mike Leigh with his nastily misogynistic morality plays. I daniel blake was mawkish yeah but felt legitimate and urgent when 'austerity' had completely ossified into a journalistic bookmark with no referent. If he's as shit as people say he is, it really is a testament to what a cesspit the establishment press is.

Anyway, it always makes me laugh when broadsheet newspaper critics try having a go at films for being simplistic when you see the lists of shitty films that get acclaimed year after year.

Great posts, plax. I mostly agree but you've explained why I agree, which I wasn't quite sure of until I read it, tbh.

"If he's as shit as people say he is, it really is a testament to what a cesspit the establishment press is."

I don't really get this plax, are you trying to say I've been brainwashed into thinking he's shit? No probably not , but I still don't quite get it! I've come to this point after watching something close to a dozen of his post Cathy Come Home, Kes, The Price Of Coal era movies. And I wouldn't draw attention to the humour in his movies, it really isn't his strong point and usually is about as funny as a stale Chris Williamson fart. He hasn't put anything out in the last two decades even half as good as Leigh's Turner or Peterloo movies if you are pitting him against him. I'm not opposed to the idea of some lefty type director putting the spotlight on austerity, but he is a boring grinder, with no flair and no real anger tbh.

I feel like a bit of curmudgeon for having a go at him while an abject piece of garbage like nolan is so highly rated on here, but his movies just really fucking annoy me.

No question Leigh's the better director.

xp to calzino,

no i meant only that its possible the uniform airless rightwing 'discourse' that operates everywhere is potentially the only thing that makes his work consistently vital, as one of the few alternative voices that's been allowed to survive this long.

so many leigh films are completely marred for me by how obviously he seems to absolutely hate women. i haven't read much about him so I don't know if this is something that is commented on often but usually there's at least one absolute trainwreck pathetic woman played as a grotesque: Life is sweet is a film I could love ('old' King's Cross, small disappointments, small mercies) but the sister character is so overblown.

I'm never going to agree with your opinions on the Loach project but understand where you are coming from though plax and peace to you!

Leigh spent a lot of time being a snide patronising wanker I think, the recent history films feel like an anomaly to some extent

I still find his shitty caricature movies at least less boring than Loach. But yah his late period stuff, in particular the last two have been some of hist best.

My gosh "Black Jack" is great.

Just was face to face with a kestrel hawk at my daughter’s college.

there is a guy who lives across the road from me who looks a lot like a young Brian Glover, but balder than he was in the late 60's and with tribal tatts.

If you have a very high threshold for emotional manipulation--I don't know if even Frank Capra would have included the dog stuff here (twice over)--I recommend The Old Oak. I think it would be a better film without that, and without some of the speechifying (Yara and TJ get one each), but there are still many fine moments throughout. I think the only other Loach films I've seen are Poor Cow and Kes, both long ago. So another disclaimer: I don't know how this squares with the quality of all his other films.

And I love dogs!

Reading up some, I didn't realize Loach was 87 (should have, or at least close) or that he says this will be his last film (something he's said a couple of other times, evidently). I won't withdraw anything I say above, but if he does follow through on that and walks away, I expect this will be remembered whenever the subject of greatest final films comes up.

Director's Final Films

I have a nutty story about Ken Loach. Back in the late '00s, I went to see a schoolmate of mine who had returned home to London. He knew how much I loved films so he took me to the BFI, and as we walked around, he ran into a woman he knew who was with a much older man. He and the woman started talking, and it was one of those things where you end up withdrawing because it's clearly a private moment between two people that doesn't involve you. So as I'm just hanging about, I make eye contact with the older guy and I'm just like "how you doing?" and he's like "all right" and we proceed to have a polite, cordial but thoroughly bland chat since we were complete strangers who on the surface didn't remotely have much in common. Finally my friend wraps up his conversation and we all part ways. He immediately apologizes, explaining that not only was that an ex-girlfriend (with whom he had a recent break-up) but she was now working for Ken Loach, and that was the guy I was talking to. I 100% knew who he was, I just had no idea what he looked like before. And he would've said something but it was just a terribly awkward encounter to see his ex. Totally understood, but still, ugh...

Anyway, there's a massive Ken Loach retrospective that starts at Film Forum this week. Highly recommend it because so many of those films aren't easily found in the best quality here in the U.S. (They may not stream or they may only have old SD transfers available for home viewing, in which case seeing it in 35mm will be a real treat.)

https://filmforum.org/series/ken-loach