Ken Loach and Social Realism films

Ken Loach and Social Realism films

 by Lukas Agelastos
    My conviction is that every person should be born into equal opportunities. Social Realism films exhibit a socially conscious perspective while at the same time remaining accessible to mainstream audiences.  

I first watched Ken Loach films because of my love for Scotland. I am very fond of what I perceive to be the positive traits of their mentality: the humbleness, the humour, the hospitality, the genuine friendliness and the way people are not brought up to be the centre of the universe.

    I was astonished by how realistically life in Glasgow and surrounding areas was depicted in Ae Fond Kiss (2004), My Name is Joe (1998), Sweet Sixteen (2002) and more recently, The Angels’ Share (2012). The images of poverty, the realness of the humour, the language, and the way the films are shot are “real”.

Ken Loach's career

    Ken Loach was born in 1936 in Nuneaton. He went on to study law at Oxford. After a brief spell in the theatre, Loach was signed up by the BBC in 1963 as a television director. This launched a long career directing films for TV and the cinema, from Cathy Come Home (1966) and Kes (1969) in the sixties to Land And Freedom (1995), The Wind That Shakes The Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016) in more recent years (Sixteen Films 2016).

    Loach infamously directed a McDonald's commercial in 1990, at a point where his career was at a low point and he was struggling financially (Pidd 2016). But other than that, as a filmmaker, he has been unflinching as a thorn in the establishment's side and has maintained an uncompromising interest in the socially and economically marginalised.

    Heavily influenced by the Czech new wave and the Italian neorealists, he insisted on making his films realistic. “In these films, people are just being, not performing." (Loach in Hattenstone 2016).

    A personal tragedy in 1971, through which he lost his 5-year old son, resulted in a long period of inactivity and a loss of confidence. In the 1980s, his career floundered. His films were deemed too radical and kept getting banned. In 1990, his film Hidden Agenda about Northern Ireland terrorism, heralded his comeback, although naturally, it caused political turmoil.

    His films have regularly found more success abroad than in Britain, which allows him to secure funding consistently for his projects (Forrest 2013).

Susannah Lenton (script supervisor), Ken Loach (director), Barry Ackroyd (cinematographer) on the set of 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley', © Sweet Sixteen Films (globalfilmstudies.com, 2011)

Story approach

    Loach's current screenwriter Paul Laverty comes up with an interesting character and examines how this character can ‘get into the guts of what they want to talk about’ (“Michael Moore talks to Ken Loach and Paul Laverty” (2010)).

    Researching for Route Irish (2010) for example, one of the most interesting things he heard was how soldiers wanted "their old self back", the one that was there before they caused death and destruction. This was what he perceived as that important “human spark” they attempt to find in each of their stories (“Michael Moore talks to Ken Loach and Paul Laverty” (2010)).

My Name is Joe (1998)

Directing

    It is intriguing to observe that Loach very often works with amateur actors. He spends a great deal of time interviewing potential leads in order to ensure that their sensibilities or experiences relate well to the character in question (Osmond 2016). He casts actors who look and sound like genuine members of the community in which his stories are set and insists that his films feature the accents and colloquialisms of the area. Distributors consistently urge Loach to polish the dialogue for commercial viability, but he discards this notion for the sake of authenticity (Robins, 2003).

I, Daniel Blake (2016)

    Loach is also well-known for subjecting his actors to a sequential way of filming, in order for them to experience the story with a sense of spontaneity. Therefore, they are not supplied the script of the scene until the very last moment, or in some cases, they are only given a few lines and are told to make up the rest as they go (Reisz 2007).
    "If the person knows what the surprise is, even for the most sophisticated actor, it's very difficult. It becomes a technical matter of timing, rather than the instinctive reaction to something that takes you by surprise. It means the actor's instincts can work. You get that moment of non-comprehension" (Loach in Ed McGown 2016)

    In Sweet Sixteen (2002) for example, Martin Compston's character is surprisingly stopped at the last minute from killing someone when a gang of men come bounding out of a toilet cubicle. According to Compston (in Ed McGown 2016), they had rehearsed all day for his character to stab a person in the back with a fake knife and unbeknownst to the actor, the men were placed in a cubicle just seconds before the scene was shot.

Sweet Sixteen (2002)

Cinematography

    The cinematography in Ken Loach’s films adopt a natural, yet controlled visual style that typifies him (Robins, 2003). The cameraman Chris Menges mentions the camera being an observer rather than being handheld, namely sitting back and observing the action. And lighting it in a way that is unobtrusive, sympathetic, and naturalistic. “If you put a tighter lens on people and sit further back and light them in a friendly way, you identify with them and you share their feelings [...] And there’s a solidarity between the viewer and the person in the film.” (Reisz 2007). Actors recount how nobody in the film crew is allowed to look at them, and that they are free to relate to the other person in the scene without distractions. Often, in exterior shots, the camera is 150 yards away with a very long lens and the actors don’t even see it (Reisz 2007).

Photo Joss Barratt / Sixteen Films (Champetier, 2016)

    As a photographer, I am very fond of using telephoto lenses to observe people as a fly on the wall. I remember the first time I picked up a prime 85mm lens and how astounded I was at the results of pictures of people interacting. These lenses bring out a very emotional image of people.
    However, in Social Realism, one needs to be careful to not shoot with too open an aperture which will probably isolate the subjects from their backgrounds. One needs to maintain the importance of the surroundings to the states of minds and the social conditions of our characters.

    Loach's DPs also very seldomly shoot anything else but on tripods. In I, Daniel Blake (2016), DP Robbie Ryan mentions that Loach actually did a Steadicam shot for the first time ever (Champetier, 2016). In our documentary My Human Self (2017), the cinematography was mostly handheld to match the protagonist's quirky nature and the unknown outcomes of his endeavours.

Ae Fond Kiss (2004)

Editing style

    Ken Loach, as most Social Realism filmmakers, prefer long shots and single-camera angles. Therefore, the cutting is very unobtrusive and calm as the viewer observes the characters within their environments.
    Jonathan Morris has been cutting films for Loach since the early 1980s, having cooperated on about 20 feature films together. In a Fandor Keyframe interview (in Morrow, 2017) he says that he is around during the film's production and that he looks at all the rushes. Ken Loach is there during the editing process. While he does not shoot a lot of angles, he might shoot several angles within a shot. Morris explains that the way Ken Loach makes films "can sometimes be quite restricting in the way you edit. You cannot be flash, really. It's got to look real." (in Morrow, 2017). While most often, Morris and Loach don't 'cheat', there was one instance where they technically broke the austere rules of Social Realism. In My Name is Joe (1998), which is about a recovering alcoholic in Glasgow, there is a scene in which the main character Joe (played by Peter Mullan) discusses a past relationship with his new girlfriend (Louise Goodall). The screenplay included a flashback to when Joe was drunk and became violent in a previous relationship. As Morris recounts, they attempted to edit the scene with and without the flashback. They eventually decided to keep the scene, as they believed that it works within the setting of the narrative, intensifying rather than minimising its impact (Morrow, 2017). 

    In my personal opinion, since the shoot had ended, this was probably the best decision. But in hindsight, the script could have benefitted from handling the backstory differently. This is a rare moment that is quite jarring in a Loach film for a purist like myself.

Jonathan Morris and Ken Loach (Morrow, 2017)

Personal relevance

    My fondness for Ken Loach's films stems from my belief that they are humble and don’t draw attention to themselves with flashy techniques, stories, or characters.

    The achievements of Dogme 95 films like Breaking The Waves (dir. Lars von Trier, 1996), Italian for Beginners, shot on video for $600,000 and according to Wise (2003) the most profitable Scandinavian title in history (orig. title: Italiensk for begyndere, dir. Lone Scherfig, 2000) or Open Hearts (orig. title: Elsker dig for evigt, dir. Susanne Bier, 2002) shows that directorial craftsmanship and story are more important than expensive production values.

    The success of Loach's I, Daniel Blake (2016) and Hirokazu Koreeda's Shoplifters (2018) at Cannes proves that Social Realism is as relevant as ever today.

The Angel's Share (2012)

References

- “Michael Moore talks to Ken Loach and Paul Laverty” (2010) [Video], Available at: https://youtu.be/zlu_HxPTP_Q [Accessed 15 September 2016]

- Caroline Champetier, 2016. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan, BSC, ISC, discusses his work on "I, Daniel Blake", directed by Ken Loach [ONLINE]. https://www.afcinema.com/Cinematographer-Robbie-Ryan-BSC-ISC-discusses-his-work-on-I-Daniel-Blake-directed-by-Ken-Loach.html?lang=fr. [Accessed 20 January 2021].
- David Forrest, 2013. Social Realism: Art, Nationhood and Politics. 1st Unabridged Edition. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- Simon Hattenstone. 2016. Ken Loach: ‘If you’re not angry, what kind of person are you?’ [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/15/ken-laoch-film-i-daniel-blake-kes-cathy-come-home-interview-simon-hattenstone. [Accessed 13 December 2016]

- Globalfilmstudies.com, 2011. Ken's Jubilee – Into the Sixth Decade of Loachian Cinema. [ONLINE]. https://globalfilmstudies.com/2011/09/12/kens-jubilee-into-the-sixth-decade-of-loachian-cinema/. [Accessed 10 December 2016]
- Ed McGown (director). 2016. Ken Loach and Sweet Sixteen: Directing and Shooting. [Video] Available at: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tours/sweetsixteen/tour4.html [Accessed 10 December 2016]

- Justin Morrow, 2017. 'We Can't Cheat': Lessons from Ken Loach's Long-Time Editor. [ONLINE]. https://nofilmschool.com/2017/01/we-cant-cheat-lessons-ken-loachs-long-time-editor. [Accessed 20 January 2021].

 - Louise Osmond (director). 2016. Versus. The life and films of Ken Loach. [Video] Available at: https://youtu.be/V0VrQwmIB0A. [Accessed 16 September 2016]
- Toby Reisz (director). 2007. Carry On Ken. [Video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9myOEukYIo [Accessed 22 October 2014]
- Mike Robins. 2003. Ken Loach. [ONLINE] Available at: http://sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/loach/. [Accessed 22 October 2014]
- Helen Pidd. 2016. Ken Loach comes clean about his McDonald's job. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/14/ken-loach-comes-clean-about-his-mcdonalds-job. [Accessed 13 December 2016]
- Sixteen Films. 2016. People: Ken Loach. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.sixteenfilms.co.uk/people/profile/1/ken_loach/. [Accessed 13 December 2016].
- Damon Wise. 2003. No Dane, no gain. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/oct/12/features.magazine. [Accessed 7 December 2016].