Why am I Choosing Cathy Come Home (1966) and Poor Cow (1967)?

 Why am I choosing Poor Cow and Cathy Come Home? 

Poor Cow was one of Loach’s first big films, it carried the same documentation and realism of Cathy Come Home, but it was shot in colour and had Donovan as the soundtrack. I want to explore Poor Cow because of how visually exciting it is, and how it makes the every-day interesting. 

Small scenes such as Joy drinking a cup of tea or talking to her friend in the pub are interesting and it’s these small scenes, I find most valuable within the film. 

Aside from this the subject matter Loach approaches, the subtle hints to prostitution is very important and he did it very sympathetically. I feel the film on a whole gives a good insight into a working-class woman’s life and Loach makes it seem valuable and important when lives like Joy’s have often been tarnished with being worthless and immoral. 

Cathy Come Home gave a big impact on the public when it was first aired in 1966, it portrayed a side of society that isn’t very often seen worthy of a film. Aside from the film furthering my exploration into how the working-classes are portrayed within literature and film, I have chosen to explore it because of how relevant it still is today. 

Cathy Come Home depicts a young married couple and how they quickly fall to poverty through the unfair measures of the government particularly focusing on the housing side rather than the work. 

Within today’s society the housing crisis is still very relevant. There are over 8 million people still in unaffordable insecure housing, but there are no films being made about it that would help the crisis. 

The use of film and literature within mid-century was used for the people, the kitchen sink films and the art and literature that went along with it sought to not only appeal but to help the working-classes. Within today’s culture there isn’t any of this happening, programmes such as Play for Today and The Wednesday Night Play were for these sort of shows but the things we see on TV now are always from a lower middle class perspective and are about crime or are suspense dramas. I often find myself saying ‘where do they get there money from’ or ‘this isn’t practical’. 

Comedies such as ‘The Royle Family’ and ‘Early Doors’ provide an inside look into the working-class lives and do address smaller issues in a light way. Ricky Tomlinson who plays Jim Royle has worked with Ken Loach before on films such as Riff Raff and Raining Stones. Tomlinson himself was a builder and while on a strike for their rights was wrongly jailed and is still fighting for the dismissal of the case today. 

This way of using real people who know the subject matter is what makes these works successful, Cathy Come Home was shot on location and Loach is known for using the people of the area within his films. 

It is important to me that throughout this project, through my visual work I can create something that re-introduces the poetic realism of the kitchen sink dramas.