Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach Page #6

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You either have integrity as a broadcaster or you don't.

I think they had no integrity by suppressing it.

We must have overheard that the films were being cancelled,

and we just became completely incensed that this was happening,

and thought we would write to Channel 4.

I think we might have written a couple of letters, I think we might

have written, and then a couple of weeks later, written again,

to say that Dad was really tired,

and had been going up and down to London a lot,

and we thought that was outrageous.

It was a touching act of family solidarity,

which was very nice of them.

He was mortified that we...

..had all written.

I mean, it's excruciatingly embarrassing

and completely undermined his authority.

In the midst of this failure to get anything broadcast at all,

Jim Allen had been beavering away on a play.

I thought it fell within the spectrum

of work that we could support.

I knew that it would be...

..provocative, but I had little idea how provocative

and what a storm it would raise.

I went to the Royal Court and I met Ken,

his polite, charming, quiet, self-effacing self,

and I thought to myself,

"How did this guy direct that stuff?"

Because I had expected

a more Oliver Stone-type presence, you know.

Two weeks into the rehearsal,

we began to hear the rumblings of discontent.

Good evening. You won't have seen Jim Allen's

controversial courtroom drama, Perdition.

The play is based on the events which led to the extermination

of Hungarian Jews, and accuses Zionist leaders of collaborating

with Nazi Adolf Eichmann in sending them to the gas chambers.

Jim found this story that a deal was done by certain Zionist leaders

in Budapest,

that they would keep secret from the other Jews who were going to get on

the trains, they would keep secret the destination of those trains,

provided Eichmann gave permission for 1,000 or several thousand Jews

to escape to Palestine.

And it was a shocking, shocking bargain.

People who hadn't read the play were beginning to give judgment about it.

They were saying that the play was anti-Semitic and that it was

selective in what it showed.

What would you say was Eichmann's biggest problem, Dr Yaron?

And, within a week, every newspaper had a huge full-page article.

This was serious.

Outside, a storm was brewing.

One of the actors had a swastika painted on his door.

There was a sense that this was now a kind of...

Not just a controversial play, but a potentially dangerous play.

My relationship with Ken broke down completely.

He had an inflexible set of principles

that really couldn't be questioned.

I suppose I became more and more uncomfortable with my position

of defending the play.

Jim Allen, you've seen, around this table,

the offence your play has created and the distress it causes.

Do you still think it would be right to put it on?

Yes. It causes distress to these people who are here

as the representatives of Zionism.

It lets the skeletons out of the cupboard

and they will do anything possible to prevent the public

seeing Perdition and making up their own mind.

They bowed to pressure. Just before we were due to open,

I said, "Max, you'll have to tell the cast and it's your decision".

So they sat in the auditorium and he sat on the stage,

and he said he was going to cancel it.

And they tore him to pieces.

Ken Loach stood on that stage,

and I really wish that I had memorised what he said,

but it was articulate and it was...

..ruthless

and it was accusatory.

He left the stage like a broken man, and well he should be.

I mean, I think that was despicable.

I mean, I think I made two mistakes.

One was on putting the play on,

and the second was on taking it off.

So I am not proud of my own behaviour over that time.

But, at the same time,

we headed into an area that I thought was far from clear.

Max is... It was not a mistake, it was cowardice.

Cowardice isn't a mistake, it's a choice, and it's a moral choice.

He chose cowardice.

What he reminds me of is of the old knights who used to go at each other

with big long lances and try to kill each other from their horses.

Ken is much more of the kind of knight who dislodges the other rider

with his lance and then stands gently and respectfully over them

as he pushes back a small opening in their armour

and slits a vein

and watches them bleed to death.

And he did that in the Royal Court that day,

and I watch him do it when he's on television.

You see, the thing about it is, what they call intractable,

what they call unchanging...

..it's what makes him be that powerful.

And it's a wonderful thing to see such quiet power.

It's an amazing...

It's an amazing thing to watch.

And I would not like to cross him.

Every son or child, I think, remembers that moment

when they realise their dad is not all-powerful

and can't sort out every situation.

It was the first time I'd really seen him

with a sort of defeated look on his face.

We were forbidden to talk about the commercials -

it's even now a kind of elephant in the room.

I think it was either make them or we move house.

After that experience, I was pretty well unemployable, really.

It didn't sit very happily with...

With me at the time, having expressed the views I'd expressed,

but I didn't see the alternative, really.

Come on, man. Flick it in, go on.

Useless! Absolutely useless!

How can you miss from the six-yard box, tell me that?

Your mum could do better than that.

Useless!

(Caramac. The golden creamy bar.)

I did one for McDonald's, yeah,

which, erm, sits really badly on my conscience.

- You like that?

- I do like it, but do you?

Well, let's have that, then. I love it, really.

- Honestly, really.

- He's driving me mad.

Big Mac. I'll have a Big Mac, please.

100% beef, 100% big.

Sometimes only a Big Mac will do.

Here's me berating other people for betrayal, and I've done that.

When we were growing up, there was a complete firewall, I would say,

between our family life and the film industry.

OK, here we go. And turning over...

And... OK, Dave.

We thought Ken Loach was somebody else.

You know, we thought he was another person.

Good, that worked quite nicely.

Yeah, we'll just try one more like that.

I remember, when I was very young,

kind of realising that he was my dad, you know.

And up to that point I think we'd thought

he was someone else entirely.

Don't go in. Who's put that pillock in?

Jesus Christ.

He was always away a lot,

working away from home.

So, he wasn't around.

There were times when he wasn't around very much.

We'll race back as soon as we can.

Can you bear one more? Can you bear it, yeah?

There is a side of him that works,

and there is also a quiet side to my dad,

quiet and reflective and quite private.

Get the lad!

Ken Loach is fearless, indestructible, fiercely loyal,

absolutely driven.

F***ing hell.

But my dad is very distinct from that person.

As a failed actor, he loves musicals.

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