Ken Loach: The Godfather of Social Realism

How Did He Grab The Audience's Attention?

Ken Loach is one of Britain’s most prominent (and sometimes controversial) political filmmakers and activists. Since the 1960s, his films have tackled social struggles, especially those faced by the working class, and sparked debate.

Ken and his writer, Paul Laverty, learn from public experiences their struggles in society and just life in general because of their background - extraordinary stories of how people were absolutely humiliated and degraded when they needed financial support to survive. The stories got more and more extreme and more and more grotesque, and so many of them weren't isolated.

Meaning, Ken most likely attracts audiences with his different style of filmmaking because he bases them, realistically, off of reality. Which indefinitely makes the audience relate to the characters in the movies. It makes the characters and issues explored in the plots relatable for the audience.

Films (Examples):

{I'm not going to list them all, because there's a lot}

* I, Daniel Blake (2016)

* Sorry We Missed You (2019)

* The Wind That Shakes The Barley (2006)

* Kes (1969)

* Jimmy's Hall (2014)

* The Angel's Share (2012)

* Raining Stones (1993)

* Bread And Roses (2000)

* Ladybird, Ladybird (1994)

* Poor Cow (1967)

* McLibel (1997)

* Black Jack (1979)

* Catastroika (2012)

(... And So On)

{I couldn't find anything about visual styles😕}

Thematic Concerns

"I have enormous respect for writers and I don’t subscribe to the auteur theory of film-making. When I direct a film, I don’t try to be the author. It’s self-evident to me that a film is a collaboration, in which, if anyone is the most important contributor, it’s the writer. Still, what the writer has provided is only a stage in the process. What matters is that what is actually on the celluloid is a valuable experience and that there’s a sense of authenticity about what you’ve created."

– Ken Loach

There's a prime example of Loach's style in a particular film. There’s a wonderfully bleak, yet humorous moment in Ken Loach’s Raining Stones (1993) that exemplifies his skill and artistry as a filmmaker. Bob (Bruce Jones), an unemployed father in Manchester, juggles one odd job after another in order to scrape together enough money to buy his daughter’s first communion dress. Having earned a nasty black eye in his latest role as nightclub bouncer, Bob visits his brother-in-law Jimmy (Mike Fallon) for help. Jimmy, manager of the local social services office, notices Bob’s eye and stridently jokes, “I hope you got it fighting for the working class.” Bob fires back the dirty look to end all dirty looks. Attempting to shrug off the comment, his eyes nearly scream, “I don’t have time to fight for the working class! I am the working class!” Thematically and stylistically, the scene encapsulates Loach’s characteristic concerns: the struggle of the British working class to achieve life’s basic needs, typically dramatized through the plight of an individual character; the significant impact of public institutions upon personal lives; sensitive performances with an ear for regional dialects and humour; and an unobtrusive yet evocative visual style that illuminates character and place in a naturalistic fashion.

Spanning 40 years and nearly 60 films (comprising 17 theatrical features and numerous dramas and documentaries for television), Loach’s oeuvre represents one of contemporary cinema’s most intriguing and thoughtful careers. His finest films remain explicitly political without becoming didactic, deadly serious though leavened by humour, and powerfully emotional even when fueled by the most intellectual ideas. Like the Italian and Czech films he cites as major influences, Loach mines profound insights out of the mundane details of ordinary life, creating a multivalent portrait of the working class seldom seen on film. As Vincent Canby suggests, “Loach’s movies may one day provide a more accurate record of a nation’s collective unconscious than the work of any other single director”.

Ideologies:

His socially critical directing style and socialist ideals are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty (Poor Cow, 1967), homelessness (Cathy Come Home, 1966), and labour rights (Riff-Raff, 1991, and The Navigators, 2001). The problems/issues in society basically.

“Films can do anything: from the broadest comedy, to the darkest tragedy, to documenting what’s happening in a very direct way.” When asked the question “Are films the best way to put forward a political agenda?” this was how Ken Loach responded. A director whose entire career has been spent highlighting social problems and individual experiences through a realist lens, Loach rejects the boundaries that we place on films, stating that we should not ask what films should do, and instead recognize what they can do. He looks for “stories that demand to be told, that have a significance beyond their simple narrative.”

Ken admits that one film alone cannot make a political movement. He argues that his films must be placed in their political context and that have inspired thousands of people into social action. One of his early works for the BBC, Cathy Come Home, had an enormous impact on social attitudes towards homelessness, spread awareness of the problem and encouraged support for the newly-formed charity Shelter. In making Cathy Come Home, Loach pioneered realistic documentary-style filmmaking.

Critical Responses:

On the film sets of legends, size matters: big equipment, big performances, big egos, big budgets, big screen. On this shoot, none of that applies. We are on a trading estate in Gateshead, in a unit that looks as tired as any depot you have ever seen, right down to the backroom office’s carpet tiles that are now the colour of boot soles. The fulcrum of this production is not a swaggering auteur, but a slight, bespectacled 83-year-old man who, instead of barking orders, speaks in a tone as polite and wholesome as Ovaltine.

His films get scores from movie critics, but audience wise... it's 50/50 if you will. A good portion agree and relate to the people in his movies and praise him for fighting for his message. However, the other half aren't very big fans at all - they say unnecessary stuff mostly, but it's usually that the movies are too real and boring.