The most famous mutation of the traditional western was the spaghetti western. These were films made largely in Europe (Spain being the most believable location to double as Arizona or Texas) by Italians mainly that created an identifiable sub genre with its own characteristics.

Important directors on the world stage came out of this movement such as Sergio Leone and Bernardo Bertolucci. Leone put his case forward as one of the world’s great directors with such films as the Fistful of Dollars trilogy and Once upon a Time in the West, a candidate for the greatest western of all time. Bertolucci, at this stage in his career was involved as a scriptwriter for Leone and emerged later on as a fine director in his own right outside the western genre.

There were scores of spaghetti westerns made during the period 1965-1980. They were recognisable for their stylistic differences to the traditional westerns. In particular, the use of closeups of the characters’ expressive faces usually dripping with sweat or smoking a cigarette before an explosively violent scene ramped up the tension in these westerns. The villains were colourful and hideous and psychopathic. No horrific act was out of their range. They even made that Hollywood western stalwart, Henry Fonda, into a steely-eyed child killer in the epic Once Upon a Time in the West.

Heroes were not the archetypal heroes of old westerns. They were much more complex. More like anti heroes. Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name in the Fistful of Dollars trilogy typifies this. He is probably the least disagreeable character in the film but is no angel himself. In Once Upon  a Time in the West the main protagonists are symbols more than characters telling the painful story of the opening up of the west. None is without sin but there is a chance of redemption by the end for some of them.

Spaghetti westerns are violent and sometimes unpredictable interms of plot and ending. One notable example of this is The Great Silence directed by Sergio Corbucci. It is sometimes referred to as the Alpine western with its backdrop of mountains and snow and is a very dark tale with a completely miserable ending. No heroes riding off into the sunset here. Very little light relief during the film aswell. Italian directors were definitiely experimenting with stories, characters and visuals to create unique films that could still be called westerns.

No self-respecting spaghetti western was complete without a quirky yet mesmerising soundtrack from Ennio Morricone that emphasised the difference between this western and the traditional Hollywood western. Sometimes beautiful and evocative, sometimes downright irritating, Morricone’s soundtracks make the spaghetti westerns even more distinctive.

The western was also influenced from further east, Japan. Hollywood film makers saw the upsurge of spaghetti westerns and knew they would have to up their game. So they looked for new storylines and John Sturges used Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai as the template for The Magnificent Seven. Both of these films were successful in their own genre. Leone used the basic plot of Yojimbo directed by Kurosawa as his base line for A Fistful of Dollars. And yet Kurosawa openly acknowledged his regard for John Ford’s westerns. So chicken… egg?

Despite all the critical acclaim given to westerns, all was not well. By the mid 1980s the western was dead as a genre. Nobody was making significant western films. What happened? I’ll talk about that next time.

But the western started to become more of an art form in cinema when John Ford made his Cavalry trilogy in the forties and fifties. They coined the term “horse opera” and could be seen as works of art. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Fort Apache and Rio Grande all  had the panache of a director at the top of his game with action and the western genre.

However, the most important film he made was The Searchers bringing out a performance by John Wayne, his long time leading man, which is the best of his career. The Searchers also uses the interiors and exteriors to suggest danger and isolation both physical and psychological with a strong performance by the supporting cast. It explores the issues of racism, friendship, loss and grief within the boundaries of the the western genre. It is probably the most complete western film of all time – strong in story, cinematic image, action and acting.

Perhaps the most over-looked and under-rated John Ford western is My Darling Clementine. Someone described it as more of a poem than a story. More lyrical in pace and narrative. It was a retelling of the gunfight at the OK corral but uses pacing and imagery to provide a unique beat to the film. A gem of a film by a master director.

And who can forget John Ford’s initiation into westerns with Stagecoach giving an young and then unknown actor called John Wayne his big break.

Later period John Ford westerns such as The Horse Soldiers, Sergeant Rutledge and Two Rode Together did not hit the heights of the earlier films although there was a brief return to form in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. He did direct the civil war segment of How The West Was Won and finished his westerns with Cheyenne Autumn, an unusual film of its time that looked at the west from the point of view of the native Americans. This was ground-breaking in its day.

A John Ford western could be characterised by ravishing visuals of the landscape with Monument Valley providing the inevitable backdrop in many of his westerns. Dust and desert, sunrises and sunsets, rousing soundtracks and music, exquisite action and horsemanship, strong story lines and usually some humorous scenes to counter balance the serious and dangerous aspects of the film. He blended it together to produce moving and rousing entertainment and, some would argue, high art as well. He is one of the first “auteurs” as he had his own signature on most of his films. That indelible stamp influenced many directors that followed and was the baseline of development for the western genre.

Post John Ford westerns started to diversify but all owed a debt of gratitude to Ford for setting the benchmark by which westerns were to be measured.

“Interesting” doesn’t come near to describing this film of extremes. It is an assault on the senses, a real shocker in the true sense of the word. I don’t know whether I liked it or not but I will certainly not forget some of the scenes in the film in a hurry.

To pigeonhole it, I suppose you might call it a revenge thriller. You have to admire its bravado and confidence in the cinematography and acting. The premise of the movie is that the central character has been imprisoned in a room for 15 years and it follows his escape and his attempts to find out who imprisoned him and why. If you can suspend disbelief at the start it becomes a roller coaster of a film charting the effect on him of regaining his freedom and his eventual search and revenge on his captor.

There are scenes of extreme torture, memorable fight sequences, graphic sex and one scene where the central character eats a live octopus! The tentacles were still wriggling around his chin during the scene. And there is a twist involving incest near the end which heightens the extreme nature of the film.

The acting is very good. “Over the top” works very well in this film and seems normal. It is not a film for subtle acting. The screenplay on the face of it should not work as it is unbelievable and it is difficult to empathise with most of the characters. The plot is convoluted but if you can stay with it (I got lost a couple of times but regained it later) it has a feel of “Seven” about it especially with the late realisation of a horrific act.

There are some wonderfully realised scenes during the film, quite bretahtaking really. Some of the earlier scenes showing his madness during captivity and the 2D fight sequence as the “hero” fights his way through a dozen or so thugs to reach the end of a corridor show a very creative visual force behind the film. This force is ever present during the movie and is surely the work of the director Park Chan Wook.

Why is it that Asian film directors are so adept at creating such gut-churning violence and shocks? And then Hollywood does a remake that sanitises the film to make it palatable for western audiences. The shocks are not the “jump out of your seat” variety but more the “why would you ever consider showing THAT!” variety.

But with Old Boy you have a director who is clearly gifted in translating the implausible narrative into a coherent set of images and scenes that draw you into the film. You have to admire the creative force that spawned this movie, his confidence with the extreme subject matter and his mastery of the film making arts.

Whether you like the movie… well that’s another matter.

]]> http://films.davesinfocafe.com/old-boy-asian-extremism/feed/ 0 http://films.davesinfocafe.com/malicks-new-world/ http://films.davesinfocafe.com/malicks-new-world/#comments Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:17:51 +0000 Dave http://films.davesinfocafe.com/159/malicks-new-world/ It is always interesting to watch the films of a director who marches to the beat of a different drum. Terrence Malick is one of those directors whose films captivate and sometimes infuriate the film critics. His latest film – The New World – seems to have divided critics and been less than enthusiastically received by the viewing public. Not that that is really going to dent his kudos or make him re-evaluate his work. His take on the life of the pilgrim fathers as they struggled to form a community in the New World and their impact on the native Americans is a work of art and a stimulus for the brain.

I watched The New World the other night on TV and found it spookily like his previous film The Thin Red Line in many ways. Stylistically, there are many similarities. The mobile camera work, the beautiful photography of the natural world, the long takes, the sometimes-fractured continuity, the occasional character voice over of innermost thoughts, the sun-and-sky-through-the trees visual motif that almost acts as punctuation for the film’s narrative.

I found the film quite engaging albeit very long. The narrative is told through the probably mythical love affair between Captain John Smith and Pocahontas and is more like an epic poem than a narrative-driven piece. Smith is portrayed by Colin Farrell as an non-conformist outcast who escapes death at the hangman’s noose and the native tomahawk and who becomes more at ease with the native way of life than the European settlers’ grim existence at Jamestown. Pocahontas, played by newcomer Q’orianka Kilcher is the young and enchanting native princess who falls in love with him. Both experience major changes and dilemmas that bring them together and then force them apart. The film’s actions revolve around their central relationship for the most part until Smith is called back by the king to explore for a North West passage.

While the film is woven around the facts about the precarious co-existence of the settlers and the natives there are big themes being explored here. Is the industrial European culture any better than the indigenous aboriginal culture? Clearly, Malick doesn’t think so as he portrays the settlers as unwanted intruders into a kind of Garden of Eden. The beautiful shots of the natives fishing and in their daily lives, seemingly at one with the natural world, contrast vividly with the settlers grim, muddy and argumentative existence inside walls of their own making in the early part of the film. But whose world will prevail? The natives help the intruders survive their first harsh winter through gifts of food thinking that they will leave within the year. When it is clear they are staying the natives adopt a different stance and attitude and bloody battles erupt. The natives fear they will be overrun by the newcomers. It is a statement about imperialism and colonisation.

The love affair between Smith and Pocahontas is shown in long tracking shots of them walking through meadows and playfully getting to know each other through touch and other senses. No unnecessary sexual scenes here. Just the hint, the mood, the nuances created by the length of time they are shown together. Later, as difficulties beset the relationship the distance between them widens and the colours drain. Beautiful mood creation.

As Pocahontas is ostracised by her people she is taken in by well meaning settlers who show her their ways. Eventually she travels to Europe and we see her start to appreciate the beauty and culture of England and understand it and be at peace with it. Malick shows us that the formal beauty of an English country garden can be just as ravishing as the wild forest, streams and meadows of the new world. This was Pocahontas’s new world. On her death at the end of the film Pocahontas is citizen of two worlds accepting the differences and seeing beauty in each.

In some ways, The New World is a search for beauty both visually, emotionally and intellectually and the triumph of beauty over mere squalid existence. The film flows gently and rhythmically like a stream (apart from the odd violent episode) and does not conform to a typical Hollywood format where all things are resolved in the ending, all loose ends tied up neatly and the audience go home satisfied. It leaves you thinking. It leaves you with a sense of the changing moods and perspectives of the time. It leaves you with some powerful visual images of outstanding beauty and wonderment. More a cinematic poem than an historical film. It is probably a film that will mature slowly and may even provide a better Director’s Cut than most.

Why am I raving on like a lunatic about this non Hollywood, German film director whose most famous films are so idiosyncratic and away from the mainstream? Not because these two films generally crop up in most film critics top 20 films of all time. Not because both films contain the acting talents of Klaus Kinski, one of the most charismatic and spell binding (not to say unpredictable) presences on celluloid. No, you just have to watch the films to find out how special they are.

I had seen Aguirre, Wrath of God, many years ago and it left an indelible impression on me. I just had to see it again. The story is based on a real event about a group of conquistadors fresh from defeating and enslaving the Incas in Peru and their search for El Dorado – the fabled city of gold – in the Peruvian jungles of the Amazon. The opening scene of the Spanish conquistadors trudging down the mountain into the Amazon jungle through the clouds is deliberately long with an electronic musical score and it sets the tone and pace for the rest of the film. As they trudge through the mud down into the jungle you have feelings of foreboding, that the jungle is ready to devour them physically and metaphorically. The canon gets stuck, the horsemen get caught in the jungle vines, the river looks menacing. Its not long before the nobles are arguing amongst themselves, and power struggles erupt with the hunch backed Aguirre plotting and conspiring. The expedition starts to devour itself and descend into madness.

What is so good about the film is the intensity of it. Kinski, in particular, is electric as the morose, treacherous and violent nobleman who eventually leads the doomed expedition further in to the jungle and madness. The cinematography is breath-taking with the merciless jungle and the raging river becoming major characters in the unfolding tragedy. It has epic pretensions but the encroaching jungle makes the film close in on itself. The conspiracies and power struggles are shown at close quarters. It explores the relationships between the classes – between the noblemen, the soldiers and the slaves. As it is based on the only surviving account of the expedition by a priest, there is also an examination of the realtionship between the state and the church. It looks real because it is real. The hardships were actual hardships for the actors. They really are miserable! No CGI or special effects here. Reality filmed well can be just as stunning. Long takes, no flash bang editing here. It sucks you in by osmosis. It gets under the skin. The finale shows the rapidly-unravelling raft floating down the river with the few remaining survivors after the indian attacks and the camera swoops in and flys in circles around the stricken craft whilst Aguirre rants at the jungle, the river and the dead bodies that surround him. An incredible death spiral image. Wow. If you can overcome the German dialogue and the sub titles I urge you to watch this film.

Just imagine. Immediately before Aguirre, Wrath of God, was Fitzcarraldo, an equally esoteric and eccentric piece of quality cinema. It has many of the features of Aguirre, Wrath of God. Kinski is on acting duty again but playing a much different character – an eccentric Irshman called Fitzgerald who buys a plot of rubber plantation land in the inaccessible Peruvian jungle. Everyone thinks he’s mad because he has no way of getting the rubber out of the impenetrable jungle. This is a much more uplifting story of one man’s insistence that the impossible can be made possible (with a little help from your friends). The jungle and the river are once again major players but not so malevolent this time and beautifully filmed. There are long takes and deep focus shots of the steam boat sailing around the bends of the river at normal speed against the majestic backdrop of the jungle. There are long takes of the steam boat actually being mechanically hauled over a steep piece of cleared jungle  over to the next river. This is actually happening. You have to marvel at it. Herzog, however, manages to make it seem fantastical at the same time. And the operatic score perfectly compliments the film. It symbolises civilisation of the wilderness as we see the indigenous tribe buy into Fitzgerald’s dreams. And the music teeters between tragedy and triumph as they overcome the various obstacles put in their path. Not only does he manage to make his money from rubber but he also satisfies his passion for opera as he builds the first opera house in the jungle.

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Quite simply the images in this film, as in Aguirre, Wrath of God, burn into your skull. Once seen never forgotten. Iconic images you will not see the likes of elsewhere. Both films march to the beat of their own drums. They are multi-layered and complex but worth investing time in to stimulate your mind and your senses. In the current parlance, these are two films to see before you die.

It obviously started with Braveheart which is Hollywood through and through. But the violence was quite strong for its time of release. The graphic slitting of throats was a hark back to Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. And I feel sure that the final hanging, drawing and quartering scenes might have been even more graphic had it not been for trepidations about censorship. We hadn’t seen anything like this before in such detail and it gave us a feeling of revulsion. But he got away with it and precedents were set. One could argue that the scenes were justified in terms of the film narrative. Wallace had to have a strong motivation to hate the English. What better than to show us (not him, by the way, in the film) the graphic death of his wife at the hands of an English Lord. And the final execution scenes were pure Hollywood to show his lasting legacy to Scotland in the form of continuing rebellion.

Next, The Passion of the Christ, gave us Gibson’s account of the final days of Christ up to an including his crucifixion. He stated that the film was about “faith, hope, love and forgiveness”. I am sorry but the abiding memory I will have of the film is of brutality, graphic scenes of violence and revulsion again. His messages were lost in a sea of gore. The film was unbalanced by the long scenes of torture and violence of the flesh. You could almost put the film into the new Gorno category. There seems to be a delight in the violence.

I have not seen Apocalypto yet but I understand from people who have seen it and from reviews that it is no exception to the Gibson “buckets of gore” mantra. It is stunningly beautiful to look at (the cinematography looks exquisite) and perhaps it is a more fitting historical vehicle for him to explore the darker side of human nature and society’s evils. Human sacrifice in the Mayan civilisation is a central issue here in the narrative and as such gives him licence to explore the issue in detail.

Nevertheless, Gibson makes us (un)willing accomplices or voyeurs in these films. You cannot take your eyes off the screen. Is it real violence? Of course not. But how do they achieve that effect? Is it heightened realism? Over the top for the sake of dramatic effect. Probably. Is it meant to offend and cause revulsion? Again probably. Debate and controversy in the media before opening night always guarantees a decent box office with people wanting to make up their own minds. Does it cater to our baser instincts? Has he tapped into an older human consciousness that is in everyone but is rarely awakened? Don’t know is my answer at the moment. Now I am no prude when it comes to watching violence on screen but Mel Gibson’s violence makes me feel revulsion, titillation and guilt in equal measure. The titillation is that I cannot take my eyes off the screen and the guilt is that I cannot defend not taking my eyes off the screen.

His films are never less than interesting but if his films reflect his thoughts, feelings and predispositions then Mel Gibson has already gone to the dark side.

There I was, a forty something guy, going through this course with a group of young sixth form students (18 years old at the most). The lecturer – Alistair Mickie - was a joy, really enthusiastic about his subject and it rubbed off on to everybody. It gave me a great lift to go down to the college one night a week and forget about the worries of the day job. I had decades of experience of watching films over the kids and could quite easily pull out specific examples from my memory. I particularly enjoyed the detailed analyses of parts of films and found new meanings and images that I had never seen before. You suddenly start to understand what the director or the actors meant to get across. The theory gave me an insight into how to watch and understand films better than before. It gave me a new lease of life.

Watching Eisenstein and the old Russian directors showed me what montage was all about. We even tried to do a Proppian analysis of the story in Casablanca – the first time that the teacher had even tried this. Even analysis of more recent films (not necessarily great ones) such as Speed and The Net provided insights into the grammar of film and the underlying story telling. Studying Kubrick as an auteur/author and the rules on different genres and being able to discuss them and listen to different views was quite liberating. We had to watch Citizen Kane, every one had to not because it is supposed to be the greatest film of all time but because, as a student it gave you examples of so many cinematic and editing techniques that it could be an example in almost all of the exam questions. And you could choose to analyse more closely some of your favourite films. I chose Seven Samurai and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Very different but very rewarding.

I don’t consider myself a film geek or even an authority. I am an enthusiast. I can still watch new films and appreciate them better than I used to. I have very eclectic tastes. From Hollywood to Art House, studio blockbusters to small independent films, english, american or sub titled and virtually any genre (although I am not too keen on romantic weepies – my better half loves them wouldn’t you know!). I do know that following that course helped me appreciate films and the cinema a lot more. Reading books is fine but discussion and debate makes it better. I suppose film forums and film chat rooms can provide that sort of outlet for your views nowadays. It opens your eyes and sharpens your senses and gives you a vocabulary to talk about a visual medium.

My main message from this post is to keep learning about film. That way you can get a better appreciation and ultimately more satisfaction watching films whether they are good or bad.

We all have our own ideas about what makes a great film. Are popular films great? You would think that something that draws in audiences in their thousands and millions must be great. Not so. Look at Rush Hour 2 and Pearl Harbour. It could be just that the latest hot film star is appearing in their next movie. Bankable stars in mediocre movies. What about Harrison Ford in Sabrina and Six Days, Seven Nights. Your favourite auteur film director’s latest offering should be great based on past performance. Not necessarily. Even Spielberg slips up occasionally – look at 1942 and Amistad. Conversely, some great films have inauspicious beginnings. What film did little business at the box office but became one of the most successful DVDs of all time and in the process became re-evaluated as a great film? The Shawshank Redemption.

All I’ve tried to do is to show that there is no simple way to forecast what will make a great film. As usual it is a combination of factors that, mixed together and cooked at the right temperature with loving care, produce a great film. I believe that no one factor on its own can produce greatness. Not just the director, not just the star, not just the subject. Not just the story or script.

However, two or usually three or more factors working together can do it. Here is my list of ingredients for greatness.

• Story/ Script – This is the most important ingredient for me. You need a story that grabs the audience and takes them with it on a journey. It must affect the audience’s emotions. You need a script that does justice to the story and provides colour and originality to the action. If you don’t have a good story or script you rely too heavily on other factors and the probability of producing a great film plummets. Watch The Godfather I and II. Great stories from an average book but even better scripts. You are drawn into another world with very different codes of conduct and behaviour and morals. The Shawshank Redemption’s story is gripping even though the script came out of a short story by Steven King. Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven provides an unusual raw and downbeat view of the old west with no heroes riding off into the sunset.
• Acting – good actors telling a good story gives the basis for greatness. One example of greatness that involves just a good story and great acting is Salvador. James Woods gives a career high performance as the thoroughly unlikeable war photographer who goes to El Salvador to make money and retrieve his reputation and in the process gets caught up in the civil war. Good supporting cast performances particularly by James Belushi as his unwitting sidekick drive the film with a nervous energy that has you wincing and squirming. It could be the film that disproves my previous hypothesis where the acting alone could make this film great. A more recent example might be Forest Whittaker’s portrayal of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.
• Cinematography – By this I mean that what you see on the screen makes you go wow. Not just the CGI although that has to be taken into consideration e.g. The Lord of The Rings. But just consider David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia. Beautiful sweeping cinematography conveys the epic feel of the film, the vastness of the desert, the scale of the battles. However, you can equally be impressed by the edgy quality of the cinematography in something like Traffic or Heat. You can also marvel at the beauty, colour and technical artistry in some of the recent Chinese films such as The House of Flying Daggers and In the Mood for Love.
• Editing – Editing conveys the pace of the film and splices the narrative together. Poor editing can leave an audience confused or bored. A well edited film will enhance the story telling and adjust the pace of the story to the action. Well edited films will have an internal rhythm to them.
• Direction – You may wonder why I’ve taken so long to get to direction. The director is the ringmaster and as such needs to juggle all the above (and more such as art direction, sound, costume etc.) to come up with a great film. The great ones can coax new meanings and nuances out of formulaic stories and scripts. Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket could have been just another Vietnam war movie but he turned it into a psychological study that showed the dehumanisation of young recruits to help them face the horrors of war. They provoke exciting performances from average actors. Just watch the incredible performance of Sharon Stone coaxed out by Martin Scorcese in Casino. They can inject beauty, originality and controversy into what could have been mundane films.  Terence Malick’s Days of Heaven uses beautiful photography of the American mid west plains to reflect the ebb and flow of the story. They can tap into the issues in society today and make films relevant to the audience. Spielberg does a great job of raising discussion of crime detection and the legal system by projecting a future where crimes can be detected before they happen in Minority Report. Even historical films can touch a nerve by reflecting issues that are important in today’s society. Kurosawa’s medieval Japanese masterpiece – Rashomon – is all about deception and the search for truth played out as a whodunit in the case of an alleged rape in the woods. And directors can put their own individual stamp on films which has lead to the cult of auteurism or authorship.

There you are. Only five factors but great films will have at least two and usually more of these factors present. Just think of films you believe are great films and assess them against these factors. It is fairly simple to do. Do they stand up?

In conclusion. Why is Citizen Kane a great film? Well, it has at least three of the above factors. The story is good although a little dated now as it is about the rise of a press baron (loosely based on the life of Randolph Hearst) and shows the arc of his life and the effect on people around him. However, it does not engage the emotions of the audience and is quite cold. Where it scores highly is in the cinematography, the editing and the direction. The cinematography and editing are ground-breaking and extremely well executed and were way ahead of their time. They actually helped to form a new grammar for films. The direction was excellent in that the telling of the story and the use of new cinematography techniques add nuances and layers to the film beyond the story and script. One could argue that the acting was first rate as well from Orson Welles as the eponymous lead and Joseph Cotton. So, 3or 4 out of 5 is pretty good. Whether it is the best film of all time………

How has this happened? To understand this fascinating enigma you have to understand the man himself, where he has come from and his principles and beliefs.

Loach started in television and made his name initially directing social issue dramas for the BBC. He was so successful that “Cathy Come Home”, an episode from the Wednesday play series in 1966 about homelessness, created such a profound impact on viewers that it actually precipitated changes in the law in the UK. It was a social realist drama using unknown actors and had the feeling of a documentary rather than a traditional drama.

He is passionate about exposing social injustice and highly critical of the state and corporate business. In this respect he might be compared to Michael Moore. He always tells his stories through the eyes of common people and shows the effects of state or big business corruption on them. Dealing with real and contemporary issues is his stock in trade. Needless to say this has not endeared him to the establishment in either the UK or USA.

His political perspective is there for all to see. An unashamed left winger, he does not compromise his political beliefs when making a film and they influence both the subject matter and the way in which the story is portrayed. One can see why this might make him a pariah in Hollywood given the checkered history of communism in Hollywood. His film “Carla’s Song” shows the impact of the popular Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua through the eyes of a refugee who returns to find her family and it shows the role of the US administration in supporting the contras who terrorised these ordinary people. The USA is also vilified in “Land and Freedom” – Loach’s Spanish Civil War epic -  for supporting Franco’s fascist regime. So, he doesn’t expect to make too many influential friends in the USA soon.

However, why he is without honour in his native land is more complex. The UK has generally sanctioned diversity of political opinion. Communism is tolerated in principle as are the various shades of red. But this is in the context of a brightly coloured rainbow of political beliefs. And in Europe this is magnified several fold. However, Loach pushes too many buttons that embarrass the UK ruling elite in his films. Just watch ”Raining Stones”, “Ladybird, Ladybird”, “Family Life”,  “Riff Raff” and probably his most famous film “Kes”. They all expose the social malaises of the day by accurately portraying the lives of ordinary people and who are affected by poverty, mental illness, the intrusion of the state (social workers) into our lives, unemployment, poor education etc.

His modus operandi is to tell a story through the eyes of the victim. He uses unknown actors or sometimes even non actors in his films to put the focus on the subject rather than the actors themselves. He shoots the films in a neo realist documentary style to draw you into believing that what you are seeing is real. There are no special effects to wow you or take you off message. A lot of it seems to be improvised although I doubt that this is the case. He takes you along with the characters and their journeys into pain, disillusionment, anger, betrayal. He wants you to feel outraged, as outraged as he is himself by the conditions that these common folk find themselves in.

Because of his consummate film making skills honed over many years he is able to influence people’s opinions. Is it propaganda? Probably, but then every story can be looked at from different points of view. But he always manages to embarrass the government of the day by implying (or even baldly stating) that they are responsible and should do something about the problem he has exposed.

His more overtly political films are “Hidden Agenda” about the murky goings-on in Northern Ireland and the recent “The Wind That Shakes The Barley” about the republican movement in Ireland that fought the Black and Tans in 1920. Both films go into areas that show the British government in a less than flattering light.

His more recent films are starting to turn on corporate business and their exploitation of workers treating them as a commodity rather than people. “Bread and Roses” is about the efforts of two latina cleaners who fight for the right to unionise. “McLibel” follows the famous law case where McDonalds took a postman and a gardener to court in the longest trial in UK legal history (7 years) and created an enormous  PR disaster as a result. His most recent production, “It’s a Free World” focuses on the use of immigrant workers, a hot subject on the UK political radar.

I don’t think that Ken Loach is just a political agitator for the hell of it. He passionately believes in his subjects, he exposes the facts and arguments that you don’t normally get to hear in establishment media. He then skillfully weaves a realistic story to bring out these messages and he wants you to think about what you have seen, not just accept what you hear on the radio or read in the newspapers. He wants to stimulate debate. I see him as Britain’s conscience on social and political issues. In fact, he is more effective than the traditional political opposition parties on single issues. But by adopting this role he nevertheless courts controversy.

In Europe he is adored as one of the standard bearers of social realist film making and his films are major events in France, Germany and Italy. This is where he is able to get funding for his films. They are always low budget but he still needs a cocktail of many different funding sources to finance his film making efforts. Every backer knows that they are involving themselves in a quality product but the financial risks are there.

Loach is uncompromising in his vision of film making. He has to be passionate about his subject matter. He has to do it his way. It has to make a difference, to stimulate debate. If he has to reveal uncomfortable truths then so be it. He won’t fudge issues. And in the process he has to be true to his own beliefs. Ken Loach is a unique film maker of enormous integrity and he still deals with contemporary and relevant issues even after 40 years in the business. We will never see Ken Loach do Hollywood. He could not work in those conditions with major studios. He has carved himself a unique niche in film history outside of the Hollywood machine and his reputation is still growing.

• War films (Paths of Glory, Full Metal Jacket),
• Sci Fi (2001 - A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange),
• Horror (The Shining),
• Historical Epic (Spartacus, Barry Lyndon),
• Comedy/ Satire (Dr Strangelove)
• Love and Sex (Lolita, Eyes Wide Shut).

With a Kubrick film you expect to see certain things like:

• Controversy – a lot of his films entertained controversy at the time of their release. Lolita was about adaptation of a controversial novel about what we would now see as paedophilia; Paths of Glory portrayed the shocking treatment of French soldiers in the trenches by their generals; and, A Clockwork Orange was banned because of its graphic violence before Kubrick himself withdrew it from general circulation.
• Arresting images – In each of Kubrick’s films there are images that linger on in the memory. The battle scenes in Spartacus, the balletic violence of the fight scenes in A Clockwork Orange, Slim Pickens final hurrah astride a nuclear warhead in Dr Strangelove…There are so many.
• Technical Excellence and Innovation – For a great many of his later films Kubrick experimented with the latest technology to achieve originality on screen. Barry Lyndon is a good example. Kubrick and his cinematographer found a way to shoot scenes in candlelight and the results achieved provide a remarkable quality of picture. In 2001 - A Space Odyssey, a highly-engineered, circular, revolving stage with camera set up was built to simulate the scenes in a space station. In addition, some of the most sophisticated special effects of that time went into that movie.
• Recurrent themes – Don’t expect a happy ending in a Kubrick film. Even the funniest (Dr Strangelove) ends with the world being destroyed by nuclear bombs! The stench of death is never very far away. Society brutalising the common man – the soldiers in Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket, the slaves in Spartacus, Alex in A Clockwork Orange (eventually). There always seems to be an objectivity or detachment in Kubrick’s work. There is always something that makes you think, some shock or contravention of the genre rules. The Shining was described by some critics as the first horror film with the lights on. Music is used in subtle ways to heighten the message being conveyed. Who can forget the spaceships in 2001 waltzing in space to the Blue Danube. Or the world ending in Dr Strangelove to the strains of Vera Lynn singing We’ll Meet Again. And where music met controversy when Kubrick had the temerity to use electronic synthesiser versions of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in A Clockwork Orange.
• Control -  Ever since his early films up to and including Spartacus, Kubrick would always have total control over the output and finished product. This personal requirement meant that he did not work that often (only 16 films in over 48 years) as studios shyed away from giving a director that much control. He was a perfectionist and would only release a film when he was happy with it. That also meant painstaking and long shooting schedules. Obsessive might be one way of describing him.

As he is no longer with us we can only look back at the significant body of films he left rather than anticipating the next Kubrick controversy.