The Cinema of Ken Loach Jacob Leigh - notes

 Notes from ‘The Cinema of Ken Loach Art in the Service of People.’ Jacob Leigh 

Introduction 

‘The changing methods which Loach uses to incorporate his political beliefs and those of his writers into his work.’ P.1

Cathy Come Home

Jeremy Sandford wrote it – based it on his research he did for his radio documentary Homeless Families.

Filmed mostly on location in documentary style. 

An interview format – Cathy’s voice overs give a sense of being interviewed 

Male voice over – unsympathetic relaying of facts and statistics of the homeless numbers.

‘Cathy develops both as ‘story’ and ’report’, the latter being produced through the use of images and speech which generate a documentary referentiality around the main line of action, thereby connecting this to contemporary reality in a way which differs from conventional drama.’ P.40 

‘Some on the left have berated Loach for relying on social realism (with its allusion to Stalinist propaganda) and classic realism, both regarded as incapable of offering analyses of wider political and socio-economic issues.’ P.40 

‘Product of a tradition in broadcasting, indebted to the research methods and narrative strategies of the drama documentaries of the 1950’s.’ p. 40 

The rising twenties caryl Doncaster 

Jeremy Sandford and nell dunn were married 

Wednesday play in two minds 1967

Wednesday play the golden vision 1968

‘melodrama of protest.’ P.46 

Poor Cow 

‘whoever heard of girls like me making it?

Poor Cow – the cinema of Ken Loach 

‘More unhappy is Loach’s apparent hero-worship of Jean-Luc Godard, which comes out in the unassimilated Godardian effects – including the familiar title device and the direct-to-camera statements which end the film- whose misuse here only serves to revive one’s appreciation of Godard.’ David Robinson p. 50 of The Cinema of Ken Loach Jacob Leigh.

Building patterns of association ‘Typical associative montage.’ – close-ups of the customers in the pub where Joy works ; another shows holidaymakers eating ice-cream on a cold day at the seaside.  

The robbery – Loach doesn’t show the robbery any preparation or any aspect of it 

Gender relations in working-class life – 

Queenie Watts as Aunt Em – link to Shadows of Progress to reinforce this realism 

Aunt Em ‘took the landlord in for half an hour’ accepted that for social and financial gain women must give men pleasure. 

Beryl 

Joy – I need different men to satisfy my different moods.’ 

Joy becomes a pornographic model – sweaty middle-aged men 

Donovan song ‘Colours’ montage. Important to show the realism of happiness too. 

Brechtian strategies of distanciation fracturing the narrative