Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach Page #3

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you as a person, I think.

I think you want actors who don't put up defences.

You want actors who let you into their minds, into their thoughts,

into their weaknesses.

And many actors erect defences. They have...

They'll develop a technique,

which is about giving the impression of something,

and presenting something,

but you want to get beyond that into who they really are.

So, vulnerability is a really important quality.

But then you have a responsibility not to exploit that,

you know, they have to feel safe.

They have to feel safe in order to allow themselves to be vulnerable.

When Carol came for her audition,

she had a gift of intimacy that's quite unusual.

He saw her...

I suppose, her talent, to be completely there.

She was a nice girl, Carol.

I think her big mistake was going to America.

She should have stayed here.

Carol White had a quality.

She was undefended,

and that worked when she was with people who cared about her,

who loved her like Ken and I did.

But then she was seduced into Hollywood,

and they don't take prisoners there.

And she got into drugs and emotional difficulties,

and she died really quite young.

Theatres have a magic about them.

We had a theatre company used to visit every three weeks.

I used to go and hang around like schoolboys do,

just for some connection to these mysterious, magical people.

But Dad had a passion that I should be educated,

and was fierce in his instruction

that I couldn't go out on weekdays.

Only 60 boys a year passed the exam to go to the grammar school.

It was a ladder for bright, working-class kids to get out.

We had an election in school, it would have been the '50 election.

To my shame, I stood as the Conservative candidate.

Ken and I escaped.

We were lucky.

Why not my friend down our street who had to go to a secondary modern?

So when a novel called A Kestrel For A Knave

arrived on my desk, we read it in one day.

And we said, "We're going to make a film of this."

It went to something that Ken and I were very, very affected by.

The fate of working-class adolescents.

The central idea was that all kids are remarkable,

and we learn something about one boy who is cast as a failure

by the school and the world.

But we know he isn't.

And so we thought, well, if this is true,

then we can go to any school and we will find Billy Casper.

This is Billy Casper.

Billy Casper cheats.

Steals.

Lies.

Fights.

Because... Well, because he has to.

My dad was a coal miner, my mum was a seamstress,

she'd worked as a cleaner.

Whatever it took to make ends meet.

I just knew I couldn't handle working in a coal mine.

And then I received a letter, delivered by hand,

and there in purple writing, it said something along the lines of,

"Dear David, we would love for you to play the part of Billy Casper

"in our film, A Kestrel For A Knave."

I can't possibly explain how excited I was.

I wasn't frightened, because I felt this is where I belonged, in a way.

Come on.

Come on.

What determined a lot of the things about Kes, and the way it looks,

begins with this central image of the bird which flies free

and the boy who is trapped.

That is clearly what connects to people.

Ken and I, we quickly found a way that was particular

and a good and simple way to work.

Basically, dealing with people who hadn't acted before,

how do you remove the camera crew from the experience?

Our whole style of observational film-making

came through conversations with Chris.

We both saw the Czech films.

The camera has its own...

Its own sense of being a person observing.

You become a person there.

It seemed to bring out the humanity

of the people in front of the camera.

What I found amazing was that he trusted me so much.

Ken would explain a scene to me in very brief terms,

so that when we came to do the actual speech that Billy does

in front of the class,

I had only been given less than 24 hours to actually learn that scene.

But I think Ken wanted that rough quality.

Then, when it got to know me, I fed it on my glove.

And after a while I put it two inches away from its claws.

Like that, like.

I didn't want him to learn it too word-for-word,

because the point of the scene is not to tell the audience

how to train a kestrel.

The point of the scene is for a boy who can never string

two words together to become articulate.

I got about 70 yards from there, in the middle of the field,

I called her.

"Kes. Kes. Come on, Kes. Come on then."

Nowt happened.

So I thought, "Well, I better walk back and pick her up."

So, when I were walking back, I saw her flying - she came like a bomb.

About a yard off the floor, like lightning, head still,

and you couldn't hear the wings - there weren't a sound

from the wings. And straight on to the glove. Wham!

And she'll grab me for the meat.

Anyway, I were pleased with mysen...

With Ken as a director,

there is another side to his loving relationship with the actors,

his capacity to allow.

And that other side is his...

..ruthlessness.

The children being beaten in Kes...

The fact that he would allow those kids to be beaten is horrific.

I couldn't do that.

No. He had a point to make,

that the headmaster had only one response to this situation,

and that was the response at that time in our history -

beat the kids.

Same old faces.

Same old faces.

We were told we weren't going to get hit, so we hold out our hands,

thinking that this is when Ken Loach is going to say, "Cut."

But he didn't.

Ah!

A regular little cigarette factory, aren't you?

Sir.

Put that rubbish away.

Now, I hope it's going to be a lesson to you.

I don't suppose for one minute it will be.

I don't doubt, before the end of the week,

you'll be back in here again for exactly the same crime - smoking.

I've noticed only sons with devoted mothers to have characteristics

that other people may not have.

Their self-belief is absolute.

They seem to retain...

..the infantile omnipotence that is appropriate in a five-year-old.

And if you become a film director,

that omnipotence, as it were, can be preserved,

because a world is created for you,

in which you are omnipotent.

And you can be quite benign,

but it is your world to manipulate how you wish.

She says it's not just her.

There's four other women, four other families.

It's me and my boys and four other families.

And this... She was in a hostel, was she?

My phone rang at about five o'clock, and it was my agent,

and they said I'd got the part, and it was a real sort of...

It was a bit ridiculous, really.

It was a real moment.

My mum was downstairs cooking dinner.

I shouted her name really loudly

and she dropped everything in the kitchen.

Ken give me a ring as well just to say,

"Glad you're onboard," and I thanked him and that was it.

I think the girl that Paul's written is quite complex.

You want the girl to be sharp, to have ambition,

to see possibilities in the future.

But, when tough times happen,

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