80-450: Anthony "Tony" Garnett (3 April 1936 – 12 January 2020) was a British film and television producer, and actor. Best known for his thirteen-year association with director Ken Loach , his work as a producer continued into the 21st century. Born Anthony Edward Lewis in Birmingham , he lost his parents when young: his mother Ida ( née Poulton) died when he was five from septicaemia following
160-800: A back-street abortion , and his father Tom Lewis, a garage mechanic turned insurance salesman, committed suicide nineteen days later. Tony was raised by his maternal aunt and uncle, Emily and Harold Garnett, whose surname he adopted in his late teens (while also simplifying his forenames), and his younger brother Peter was raised by other relatives. Garnett attended the Central Grammar School in Birmingham and read psychology at University College, London . By his own admission, he spent most of his time acting in their drama society and on television. Beginning as an actor, Garnett appeared in An Age of Kings (1960),
240-399: A Kiss , 2004) explored an inter-racial love affair, Sweet Sixteen (2002) concerns a teenager's relationship with his mother and My Name Is Joe (1998) an alcoholic's struggle to stay sober. His most commercial later film is Looking for Eric (2009), featuring a depressed postman's conversations with the ex- Manchester United footballer Eric Cantona appearing as himself. The film won
320-625: A car accident on the M1 motorway . Their son Jim (born 1969) became a filmmaker, while their daughter Emma is married to actor Elliot Levey . Loach is a patron of the British Humanist Association and a secularist , saying, "In particular, the indoctrination of children in separate faith schools is pernicious and divisive. I strongly support the British Humanist Association." The Price of Coal The Price of Coal
400-510: A director for BBC Television . His 10 contributions to the BBC's Wednesday Play anthology series include the docudramas Up the Junction (1965), Cathy Come Home (1966) and In Two Minds (1967). They portray working-class people in conflict with the authorities above them. Three of his early plays are believed to be lost . His 1965 play Three Clear Sundays dealt with capital punishment, and
480-596: A film about stars, or riches or absurd adventures". Throughout his career, some of Loach's films have been shelved for political reasons. In a 2011 interview with The Guardian newspaper he said: It makes you angry, not on your own behalf, but on behalf of the people whose voices weren't allowed to be heard. When you had trade unions, ordinary people, rank and file, never been on television, never been interviewed, and they're not allowed to be heard, that's scandalous. Loach argues that working people's struggles are inherently dramatic: They live life very vividly, and
560-905: A fine socialist who has done so much to further the cause of socialism is a disgrace". His expulsion was also opposed by the Socialist Campaign Group but supported by the Jewish Labour Movement . At the Labour Party Conference in September 2017, Loach said he had been going to Labour Party, trade union and left-wing meetings for over 50 years and had never heard antisemitic or racist remarks, although such views certainly existed in society. When asked about allegations of antisemitic abuse made by Labour MP Ruth Smeeth , he suggested that they were raised to destabilise Corbyn's leadership, due to his support for Palestinian rights. He
640-433: A long period." In July 2019, the BBC's Panorama aired an episode entitled "Is Labour Anti-Semitic?" . Loach commented, saying "it raised the horror of racism against Jews in the most atrocious propagandistic way, with crude journalism … and it bought the propaganda from people who were intent on destroying Corbyn". In 2016, Loach, a social campaigner for most of his career, said the criteria for claiming benefits in
720-573: A lot in common, including contempt for the irritating British penchant for claiming cultural superiority. Melbourne is a very different place to Londonistan". An article in The Scotsman by Alex Massie noted that Loach had not called for the same boycott of the Cannes Film Festival , where his film was in competition with some Israeli films. Loach, Laverty and O'Brien subsequently wrote: We feel duty bound to take advice from those living at
800-519: A lot to lose, it will come from people who will have everything to gain. A thematic consistency throughout his films, whether they examine broad political situations or smaller intimate dramas, is his focus on personal relationships. The sweeping political dramas ( Land and Freedom , Bread and Roses , The Wind that Shakes the Barley ) examine wider political forces in the context of relationships between family members ( Bread and Roses , The Wind that Shakes
880-690: A prize at an Italian film festival. Three weeks after the end of the strike, the film End of the Battle ;... Not the End of the War? was broadcast by Channel 4 in its Diverse Strands series. This film argued that the Conservative Party had planned the destruction of the National Union of Mineworkers ' political power from the late 1970s. In 1989, Loach directed a short documentary Time to go that called for
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#1732948630882960-468: A quartet of dramas looking at the failings of the British criminal justice system. Its broadcast resulted in questions being asked in parliament. The last production from Garnett's association with Loach was the children's film, Black Jack (1979). Garnett's later film credits include Prostitute (1980), Handgun (1983), Earth Girls Are Easy (1988) and Beautiful Thing (1996). After relocating to
1040-477: A reference to the migration of displaced colliers from the run-down coalfields in Durham and Northumberland to the richer Yorkshire coalfield in the 1960s. The plays contain an unusually large amount of swearing for a BBC production in the 1970s. This becomes part of the plot in the first episode, as the management ask the miners not to swear during the royal visit. When signs are put up in the pit baths to forbid swearing,
1120-464: A short illness. He was survived by his partner, Victoria Childs, and his sons. Ken Loach Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936) is an English filmmaker. His socially critical directing style and socialist views 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). Loach's film Kes (1969)
1200-534: A spokesman for the EIFF said that although it had returned £300 to the Israeli Embassy, the festival itself would fund Shalom-Ezer's travel from its own budget. Her film Surrogate (2008) is a comedy set in a sex-therapy clinic which is unconcerned with war or politics. In an open letter to Shalom-Ezer, Loach wrote: "From the beginning, Israel and its supporters have attacked their critics as anti-semites or racists. It
1280-461: A young schizophrenic woman's experiences of the mental health system. Tony Garnett began to work as his producer in this period, a professional connection which would last until the end of the 1970s. During this period, Loach also directed the absurdist comedy The End of Arthur's Marriage , about which he later said that he was "the wrong man for the job". Coinciding with his work for The Wednesday Play , Loach began to direct feature films for
1360-744: Is a tactic to undermine rational debate. To be crystal clear: as a film maker you will receive a warm welcome in Edinburgh. You are not censored or rejected. The opposition was to the Festival's taking money from the Israeli state". To his critics, he added later: "The boycott, as anyone who takes the trouble to investigate knows, is aimed at the Israeli state". Loach said he had a "respectful and reasoned" conversation with event organisers, saying they should not be accepting funds from Israel. In June 2009, Loach, Laverty and O'Brien withdrew their film Looking For Eric from
1440-569: Is a two-part television drama written by Barry Hines and directed by Ken Loach first broadcast as part of the Play for Today series in 1977. Set at the fictional Milton Colliery, near Barnsley in South Yorkshire , the episodes contrast "efforts made to cosmetically improve the pit in preparation for a royal visit (part one) and the target-conscious safety shortcuts that precipitate a fatal accident (part two)". The plot bears some similarities to
1520-512: The 2014 local elections . Loach gave a press conference during the launch of Left Unity's manifesto for the 2015 general election . In a letter sent to The Guardian in 2009, Loach advocated support for the Palestine Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) along with his regular colleagues Paul Laverty (writer) and Rebecca O'Brien (producer). In 2007, Loach
1600-657: The Cadeby Main pit disaster of July 1912, which occurred whilst the King and Queen were visiting pit villages in Yorkshire. This disaster is discussed by managers in the first episode, who refer to the timing of the disaster at the same time as the visit as "bad luck". Characters almost entirely use Yorkshire dialect and the episodes have been shown with subtitles even when broadcast in England. Some characters have north-eastern accents , in
1680-643: The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) returned a £300 grant from the Israeli Embassy to fund Israeli filmmaker Tali Shalom Ezer 's travel to Edinburgh after speaking with Loach. He was supporting a boycott of the festival called for by the PACBI campaign. In response, former Channel 4 chief executive Jeremy Isaacs described Loach's intervention as an act of censorship, saying: "They must not allow someone who has no real position, no rock to stand on, to interfere with their programming". Later,
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#17329486308821760-457: The Labour Party by 2017, and was a member until his expulsion in the summer of 2021. In August 2015, he endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's Labour leadership campaign . In September 2016, Loach's one-hour documentary In Conversation with Jeremy Corbyn was released during the second leadership election . In May 2017, Loach directed an election broadcast featuring a profile of Jeremy Corbyn for
1840-522: The Magritte Award for Best Co-Production . Although successful in Manchester, the film was a flop in many other cities, especially cities with rival football teams to Manchester United. The Angels' Share (2012) is centered on a young Scottish troublemaker who is given a final opportunity to stay out of jail. Newcomer Paul Brannigan , then 24, from Glasgow, played the lead role. The film competed for
1920-698: The Melbourne International Film Festival , where the Israeli Embassy is a sponsor, after the festival declined to withdraw that sponsorship. The festival's chief executive, Richard Moore, compared Loach's tactics to blackmail, stating that "we will not participate in a boycott against the State of Israel, just as we would not contemplate boycotting films from China or other nations involved in difficult long-standing historical disputes". Australian politician Michael Danby also criticised Loach's tactics, stating that "Israelis and Australians have always had
2000-651: The Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival for his film The Wind That Shakes the Barley , a political-historical drama about the Irish War of Independence and the subsequent Irish Civil War during the 1920s. Like Hidden Agenda before it, The Wind That Shakes the Barley was criticised by Ruth Dudley Edwards for allegedly being too sympathetic to the Irish Republican Army and Provisional Irish Republican Army , though it would transpire that Edwards had not seen
2080-973: The 1960s and 1970s, he was associated with (or a member of) the Socialist Labour League (later the Workers Revolutionary Party ), the International Socialists (later the Socialist Workers Party or SWP) and the International Marxist Group . He was involved in Respect – The Unity Coalition from its beginnings in January 2004, and stood for election to the European Parliament on the Respect list in 2004. Loach
2160-512: The BBC directed by Loach from scripts by dramatist Jim Allen . The first episode of the series caused considerable controversy in the British media owing to its critical depiction of the military in World War I , and particularly over a scene where conscientious objectors were tied up to stakes outside trenches in view of enemy fire after refusing to obey orders. An ex-serviceman subsequently contacted The Times newspaper with an illustration from
2240-492: The BBC's mounting of Shakespeare's eight contiguous history plays, the courtroom film The Boys (1962), Edgar Wallace Mysteries episode Incident At Midnight (1962), several television plays by David Mercer , and an episode Catherine (1964) in the Teletale series, significant for his career because it led to his first meeting with its director, Ken Loach . Recruited by Roger Smith, he became an assistant story editor at
2320-456: The BBC, working on The Wednesday Play . The plays he worked on included the "very, very personal" Up the Junction (1965), directed by Loach, which features an illegal abortion, but he was soon under contract as a producer. The best known of his contributions to The Wednesday Play series in this role is the docudrama Cathy Come Home (1966), again directed by Loach. Garnett in 1967 introduced Loach to writer Jim Allen , who would be one of
2400-695: The Barley , Carla's Song ), comrades in struggle ( Land and Freedom ) or close friends ( Route Irish ). In a 2011 interview for the Financial Times , Loach explains how "The politics are embedded into the characters and the narrative, which is a more sophisticated way of doing it". Many of Loach's films include a large amount of traditional dialect , such as the Yorkshire dialect in Kes and in The Price of Coal , Cockney in Up
2480-655: The British Army to be withdrawn from Northern Ireland, which was broadcast in the BBC's Split Screen series. From the late 1980s, Loach directed theatrical feature films more regularly, a series of films such as Hidden Agenda (1990), dealing with the political troubles in Northern Ireland, Land and Freedom (1995), examining the Republican resistance in the Spanish Civil War , and Carla's Song (1996), which
Tony Garnett - Misplaced Pages Continue
2560-579: The Children disowned it, and only finally screened in 2011 at BFI Southbank . Days of Hope (1975) was a four-part serial for the BBC written by Jim Allen and directed by Loach. It recounts events from the First World War to the General Strike of 1926. A two-part Play for Today , The Price of Coal (1977), reunited Garnett and Loach with Barry Hines, and was their response to the silver jubilee of
2640-642: The Holocaust was real. Loach was an official sponsor of the group Labour Against the Witchhunt , launched in 2017 to campaign against what it sees to be politically motivated allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party. In April 2018, Loach was reported to have said, at a screening of I, Daniel Blake organised by Kingswood Labour Party, that those Labour MPs who had attended a rally in Parliament Square
2720-629: The Junction and Poor Cow , Scouse in The Big Flame , Lancashire dialect in Raining Stones , Glaswegian in My Name Is Joe and the dialect of Greenock in Sweet Sixteen . Many of these films have been subtitled when shown in other English-speaking countries. When asked about this in an interview with Cineaste, Loach replied: If you ask people to speak differently, you lose more than
2800-476: The Junction , while The Big Flame (1969) for the BBC was an early instance of the word shit , and the certificate to Kes caused some debate owing to the profanity, but these films have relatively few swear words compared to his later work. In particular, the film Sweet Sixteen was awarded an 18 certificate on the basis of the very large amount of swearing, despite the lack of serious violence or sexual content, which led Loach to encourage under-18s to break
2880-405: The Labour Party in the 2019 general election . In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, he signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and
2960-458: The Labour Party's general election campaign. In all, he has made three broadcasts for the party. In interviews in September and October 2019, Loach said MPs around Corbyn had not acted as a team, and that most would prefer a rightwing leader. He said the Labour leadership had "compromised too much with the Labour right". He accused the right of the party, including Tom Watson , of aiming to destroy
3040-633: The Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival where Loach won the Jury Prize . Jimmy's Hall (2014) was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival . Loach announced his retirement from film-making in 2014 but soon after restarted his career following the election of a Conservative government in the UK general election of 2015 . Loach won his second Palme d'Or for I, Daniel Blake (2016). In February 2017,
3120-527: The Queen , mixing that celebration with a fatal accident involving two miners, similar to the events of the Cadeby Main pit disaster . The Spongers (1978), written by Allen and directed by Roland Joffé , also used the background of the silver jubilee, this time in the context of government spending cuts in the welfare state, in particular the closure of facilities used by a child with learning difficulties. Garnett produced G. F. Newman 's Law and Order (1978),
3200-495: The UK were "a Kafka-esque , Catch-22 situation designed to frustrate and humiliate the claimant to such an extent that they drop out of the system and stop pursuing their right to ask for support if necessary". Loach married Lesley Ashton in 1962. They reside in Bath, Somerset , and have two sons and two daughters together. They had another son, who died at the age of five on 2 May 1971 in
3280-598: The United States, Garnett lived by the principle "a movie should never be about what it's about" meaning that, although Earth Girls is disguised as a space comedy about aliens and Follow That Bird (1985) is a Sesame Street style children's film, the real theme of these motion pictures is racial prejudice. In 1990, he founded World Productions , for which Garnett oversaw Between the Lines (1992–94) and This Life (1996–97) and other productions. In 2009, an email by Garnett
Tony Garnett - Misplaced Pages Continue
3360-576: The Yorkshire working men's club circuit, including Duggie Brown , Bobby Knutt , Stan Richards and Jackie Shinn. The drama was filmed around the disused Thorpe Hesley colliery near Rotherham in South Yorkshire. The scenes in which the Mines Rescue Team set off were filmed in Wakefield with the real Mines Rescue Team in the area, who are given thanks in the end credits. Hines was raised in
3440-568: The beginning of the Gaza War of 2008–2009 , he said: "If there has been a rise I am not surprised. In fact, it is perfectly understandable because Israel feeds feelings of anti-Semitism". He added that "no-one can condone violence". Speaking at the launch of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine on 4 March 2009, he said that "nothing has been a greater instigator of antisemitism than the self-proclaimed Jewish state itself". In May 2009, organisers of
3520-569: The cinema, with Poor Cow (1967) and Kes (1969). The latter recounts the story of a troubled boy and his kestrel , and is based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines . The film was well received, although the use of Yorkshire dialect throughout the film restricted its distribution, with some American executives at United Artists saying that they would have found a film in Hungarian easier to understand. The British Film Institute named it No 7 in its list of best British films of
3600-401: The content of one of Loach's films in support of her argument, the then-recently released Jimmy's Hall . Loach first joined the Labour Party from the early 1960s. In the 1980s, he was in the Labour Party because of the presence of "a radical element that was critical of the leadership", but Loach had left the Labour Party by the early to mid-1990s, after being a member for 30 years. During
3680-531: The director's collaborators for a quarter of a century. Garnett worked with Allen too, sometimes independently of Loach ( The Lump , 1967) but also with him on such works as Allen's The Big Flame (1969), which had been shot in February and March 1968, but was withheld from transmission by the BBC. Together with dramatist David Mercer , fellow producers Kenith Trodd and James MacTaggart , and literary agent Clive Goodwin, Garnett founded Kestrel Productions , which
3760-429: The expenditure on the visit and who think the colliery was chosen because its union officials were relatively conservative; and other colliers who are looking forward to the visit. The second episode, Back to Reality , takes place a month later and deals with an underground explosion that kills several miners and follows the attempts to rescue others that remain trapped. Several of the cast were stand up comedians from
3840-532: The film was awarded a BAFTA as "Outstanding British Film". His 2019 drama Sorry We Missed You garnered good reviews. In May 2010, Loach referred in an interview to the three films that have influenced him most: Vittorio De Sica 's Bicycle Thieves (1948), Miloš Forman 's Loves of a Blonde (1965) and Gillo Pontecorvo 's The Battle of Algiers (1966). De Sica's film had a particularly profound effect. He noted: "It made me realise that cinema could be about ordinary people and their dilemmas. It wasn't
3920-624: The film. This film was followed by It's a Free World... (2007), a story of one woman's attempt to establish an illegal placement service for migrant workers in London. Throughout the 2000s, Loach interspersed wider political dramas such as Bread and Roses (2000), which focused on the Los Angeles janitors strike , and Route Irish (2010), set during the Iraq occupation , with smaller examinations of personal relationships. Ae Fond Kiss... (a.k.a. Just
4000-476: The first time on 1 September 2011, at the BFI Southbank. During the 1980s Loach concentrated on television documentaries rather than fiction, and many of these films are now difficult to access as the television companies have not released them on video or DVD. At the end of the 1980s, he directed some television advertisements for Tennent's Lager to earn money. Days of Hope (1975) is a four-part drama for
4080-400: The game'. Special toilets must be constructed "just in case" and destroyed after the visit. A worker is instructed to paint a brick holding up a window. On the eve of the visit, the slogan " Scargill rules OK " is painted on a wall. The manager comments "When I find out who did that I'll string him up by his knackers". In another scene, an argument takes place in a pub between colliers opposed to
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#17329486308824160-438: The law to see the film. In a 2014 article, feminist writer Julie Bindel criticised Loach's recent films for a lack of female characters who were not simply love interests for the male characters, although she praised his early films Cathy Come Home and Kes . She also wrote, "Loach appears not to know gay people exist". In the article, Bindel stated that she "hadn’t seen a Ken Loach film in years", and only made reference to
4240-607: The leadership of other trade unions to similar scrutiny from their members, but this has never been broadcast. Frank Chapple , leader of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union , walked out of the interview and made a complaint to the Independent Broadcasting Authority . A separate complaint was made by Terry Duffy of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union . The series
4320-415: The literary and cultural fields" in signing a letter that stated, in part, "celebrating 'Israel at 60' is tantamount to dancing on Palestinian graves to the haunting tune of lingering dispossession and multi-faceted injustice". The letter was published in the International Herald Tribune on 8 May 2008. Responding to a report, which Loach described as "a red herring ", on the growth of antisemitism since
4400-476: The miners attempt to speak in Received Pronunciation to mock the language of the royal family. The first episode, Meet the People , is a comedy-drama dealing with preparations for an official visit to the colliery by Prince Charles . The humour revolves around the expensive and ludicrous preparations required for an official visit from a member of the Royal Family. Some workers recognise this and cannot take it seriously. Management recognises it but has to 'play
4480-452: The mining community of Hoyland Common near Barnsley, and had been a coal miner when he left school. He recollected that when a neighbour saw him at the coalface and chided him "Couldn't tha find a better job than this?" he was inspired to return to full-time education and trained to be a teacher. In The Guardian ' s obituary of Barry Hines, The Price of Coal was described as "a vehicle for Barry to scrutinise class politics". Hines
4560-435: The party, but that he "support(ed) many of the people who have been expelled, because they are good friends and comrades". He also argued that his expulsion was an ex post facto action as the evidence the party cited in their letter informing him of their decision dated from before the organisations he was accused of being a member of had been banned by the party. Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said, "To expel such
4640-409: The poor "are smirked at or derided as chavs". In 1963, Garnett married Topsy Jane Legge, whom he met while performing in amateur theatre. They had a son, Will, and later divorced. In 1978, he married Alexandra Ouroussoff, with whom he had another son, Michael; the couple divorced in 1988. He wrote a memoir, The Day the Music Died: A Life Behind the Lens in 2016. Garnett died on 12 January 2020 after
4720-416: The previous month opposing alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party should be deselected or, as he reputedly expressed it, "kicked out" because of their lack of support for the current manifesto. Asked for clarification, Loach said the quoted remarks "do not reflect my position" and that "reselecting an MP should not be based on individual incidents but reflect the MP's principles, actions and behaviour over
4800-431: The production company had an interest in the feature films Kes (1969), based on a Barry Hines novel, and Family Life (1971), from a television play by David Mercer. Both were produced by Garnett and directed by Loach. In 1969, Garnett was the producer of Loach's The Save the Children Fund Film . Commissioned by the charity and originally intended for screening by LWT, it was suppressed for forty years after Save
4880-405: The publication of articles by Jonathan Freedland and Howard Jacobson which were critical of him, he said it was not acceptable to question or challenge the reality of the Holocaust, which was as real a historical event as the Second World War itself. The Jerusalem Post maintained Loach had not been quoted out of context, and that his words had been in response to the question about whether
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#17329486308824960-421: The sharp end inside the occupied territories. We would also encourage other filmmakers and actors invited to festivals to check for Israeli state backing before attending, and if so, to respect the boycott. Israeli filmmakers are not the target. State involvement is. In the grand scale of things it is a tiny contribution to a growing movement, but the example of South Africa should give us heart. Loach had rejoined
5040-563: The socialist programme put forward by Corbyn. He suggested that sitting Labour MP's and councillors should reapply for their jobs before each election so that they could be judged on their record. He also said that Labour people should make a case for socialism including "[en]hancing trade union rights, planning the economy , investing in the regions, kicking out the privatised elements of the NHS ". He considered issues such as health, schools, poverty, inequality and climate change as more important than Brexit . In November 2019, Loach endorsed
5120-413: The stakes are very high if you don't have a lot of money to cushion your life. Also, because they're the front line of what we came to call the class war. Either through being workers without work, or through being exploited where they were working. And I guess for a political reason, because we felt, and I still think, that if there is to be change, it will come from below. It won't come from people who have
5200-441: The time he was buying the Daily Mirror newspaper and needed the co-operation of union leaders, especially Chapple. Which Side Are You On? (1985), about the songs and poems of the UK miners' strike , was originally due to be broadcast on The South Bank Show , but was rejected on the grounds that it was too politically unbalanced for an arts show. The documentary was eventually transmitted on Channel 4, but only after it won
5280-430: The time of a similar scene. Loach's documentary A Question of Leadership (1981) interviewed members of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (the main trade union for Britain's steel industry) about their 14-week strike in 1980, and recorded much criticism of the union's leadership for conceding over the issues in the strike. Subsequently, Loach made a four-part series named Questions of Leadership which subjected
5360-404: The twentieth century, published in 1999. During the 1970s and 1980s, Loach's films were less successful, often suffering from poor distribution, lack of interest and political censorship. His documentary The Save the Children Fund Film (1971) was commissioned by the charity , who subsequently disliked it so much they attempted to have the negative destroyed. It was only screened publicly for
5440-432: The vested interests of a few." In August 2021, Loach was expelled from the Labour Party because of his membership with the organisation Labour Against the Witchhunt , with the party saying he was removed for failing to "disown" Labour members who had been expelled. In an interview with Jacobin the same month, Loach stated that he was not a member of any of the organisations which had recently been proscribed by
5520-415: The voice. Everything about them changes. If I asked you not to speak with an American accent, your whole personality would change. That's how you are. My hunch is that it's better to use subtitles than not, even if that limits the films to an art-house circuit. Loach was amongst the first British directors to use swearing in his films. Mary Whitehouse complained about swearing in Cathy Come Home and Up
5600-401: Was also asked about a conference fringe event at which Miko Peled suggested people should be allowed to question whether the Holocaust had happened. Loach responded: "I think history is for all of us to discuss. The founding of the state of Israel, for example, based on ethnic cleansing, is there for us all to discuss, so don't try and subvert that by false stories of antisemitism". Following
5680-551: Was born in Nuneaton on 17 June 1936, the son of Vivien (née Hamlin) and John Loach. He attended King Edward VI Grammar School and joined the Royal Air Force at the age of 19. He later read law at St Peter's College, Oxford , graduating with a third-class degree . As a member of the Experimental Theatre Club , he directed a 1959 open-air production of Bartholomew Fair for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre , in which he also starred as Dan Jordan Knockem. Loach first worked as an actor in regional theatre companies and then as
5760-516: Was broadcast at a time when the debate was at a height in the United Kingdom. Up the Junction , adapted by Nell Dunn from her book with the assistance of Loach, deals with an illegal abortion while the leading characters in Cathy Come Home , by Jeremy Sandford , are affected by homelessness, unemployment, and the workings of Social Services. In Two Minds , written by David Mercer , concerns
5840-422: Was circulated within the television industry, and published online, in which he argued that the BBC's management techniques "stifle the creativity which the organisation is supposed to be encouraging". Despite his involvement in the independent production sector, a term he found misleading, Garnett was critical of it. He said that the BBC no longer has an interest in "poor people". When "occasionally they do" feature,
5920-469: Was conceived as an autonomous unit connected with London Weekend Television . The arrangement led to the production of seventeen television dramas within two years. He and his colleagues, though, found the experience as limiting as they had their period at the BBC. LWT required Garnett and his colleagues to mainly use their television studio and record on video tape, only allowing them to shoot on film and on location occasionally. Despite this, as Kestrel Films,
6000-510: Was due to be broadcast during the Trade Union Congress conference in 1983, but Channel 4 decided against broadcasting the series following the complaints. Anthony Hayward claimed in 2004 that the media tycoon Robert Maxwell had put pressure on Central Television's board (Central was the successor to the original production company Associated Television ), of which he had become a director, to withdraw Questions of Leadership at
6080-424: Was elected to the national council of Respect the following November. When Respect split in 2007, Loach identified with Respect Renewal , the faction identified with George Galloway . Later, his connection with Respect ended. Together with John Pilger and Jemima Khan , Loach was among the six people in court who offered surety for Julian Assange when he was arrested in London on 7 December 2010. The money
6160-595: Was forfeited when Assange skipped bail to seek asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador, London . Loach supported the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in the 2012 London Assembly election . With the support of the activist Kate Hudson and academic Gilbert Achcar , Loach launched a campaign in March 2013 for a new left-wing party which was founded as Left Unity on 30 November. Left Unity candidates gained an average of 3.2% in
6240-544: Was one of more than 100 artists and writers who signed an open letter calling on the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival "to honour calls for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions , by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the LGBT film festival and not co-sponsoring events with the Israeli consulate". Loach also joined "54 international figures in
6320-550: Was set partially in Nicaragua . He directed the courtroom drama reconstructions in the docu-film McLibel , concerning McDonald's Restaurants v Morris & Steel , the longest libel trial in English history. Interspersed with political films were more intimate works such as Raining Stones (1993), a working-class drama concerning an unemployed man's efforts to buy a communion dress for his young daughter. On 28 May 2006, Loach won
6400-507: Was voted the seventh greatest British film of the 20th century in a poll by the British Film Institute . Two of his films, The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016), received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival , making him one of only nine filmmakers to win the award twice. He also holds the record for the most films screened in the main competition at Cannes with 15. Kenneth Charles Loach
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