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Family Life in the Making

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Family Life in the Making 7 Days 12 January 1972 A 7 Days Discussion Tony Garnett and Ken Loach talk about Family Life Nevis Cameron in the making C ATHY COME HOME”, “Up the Junction”, “The Big Flame”. “Kes”, and now “Family Life”. Ken Loach (Director) and Tony Garnett (Producer) have been responsible for some of the most important films to appear on British T.V. and cinema for the last decade. Using naturalistic documentary techniques, their films have uncompromisingly explored social injustice. Why have they made these kinds of movies? How have they financed them? Is there a future for naturalistic films? Peter Wollen (script writer and author of Signs and Meaning in the Cinema), John McGrath (playwright, script-writer and T.V. director, currently touring with his new theatre company 7/84), John Mathews (who pro­ duced Cinemantics) and Anthony Barnett (co-researcher with John Mathews of last weeks feature on British Mental treatment in 7 DAYS) went to talk to Ken Loach along with Tony Garnett — who was in bed recovering from Tony Garnett laryngitis. Ken Loach JM: How did you come to make Family closed, they’ve been attempting to schizogenic family. KL: I tend to see it as the inverse of audience? Life? create “asylums”, in the best sense, in PW: That must have meant a lot of care what you’re saying... It’s possible KL: No, I’m sure you can make films houses — there’s one in North London in the casting. from observing individuals reacting on which are un-naturalistic in the way the TG: Well actually it goes back to when I — where people who have had long and was at university — at University KL: Yes, if you can find the right one another to make some generalised sequences are juxtaposed, but if people awful experiences in bins can just “be”. people, then it will go. That’s the statement, and that in fact you’re College, London — reading psychology It’s a way of not having to go back into can see a situation and say: Yes, I in a desultory way — being taught about biggest hurdle. looking through the other end of the recognise that, I recognise those people, a bin when you’re still at a stage when telescope. rats in mazes, Skinner boxes, and things you can’t quite cope with the rigours of JMG: Do you see the theoretical that’s true of me, or that’s true of PW: You can look at it either way: like that. Then I came across Erving the outside world. We met a therapist richness and ideas in the film as the someone I know, then you’ve made a either you can say they’re all like that, Goffman — a book called “The called Ben Churchill, through him we content, and the realisation through this basic contact. If it’s a film about an or this one is special. And neither of presentation of self in everyday life” talked to Mike Riddall particular way of doing it as industrial situation, it’s very important which just knocked me over. I started to constituting a form. Would you accept those alternatives is presumably what that everybody in the film is accurate so read in areas of psychology which KL: And he was fresh from the that as a valid distinction to start with? you want to say. the people seeing it recognise their own weren’t broached at all in the academic experience of working in a NHS JMG: It seems to be a question of the fellow factory workers. It’s also very hospital, where he had to cope with TG: When something works as a whole, world. They weren’t considered to be you can’t split it up. It’s a unit. The limits of naturalism. I’ve seen most of important that you can follow what’s “tough-minded” in the William James problems on a large scale. This was just what you’ve done, and at times you’ve going on — the story line. Given that, what we were looking for . And he content and form — what it’s about and sense. Then I struck up a friendship how it manifests itself — are the same broken from naturalism very clearly. it’s hard to avoid going towards a film with David Mercer whose own reading made a very real contribution. He When we worked together in television, that looks naturalistic. could say: “It’s not like this — this is thing. When it comes a cropper, they’re- had gone through all these changes as not the same. There’s an artificial, a and before that in the theatre, you were JM: But do you agree that there’s a well, and then meeting Ronnie Laing, how it is” . he was one of the notoriously non-naturalistic, or anti- touchstones of reality. Not that he’s to mechanical relationship between them. problem here? If your political and and talking to him, and then it all came naturalistic, in your approach, particu­ cinematic purposes are naturalism, and together. blame for any of the mistakes. But if PW: In a more general way, there are larly in the theatre, but also in “Diary you’re filming an interview, then he can you present the events on the screen as JM: What about the actual story line — two important problems about Family of a young man”. But of late you seem if they were real life, then compounded say that this is false, and we can change Life that I’d like your response to. One, to have been getting closer into a did you take a case history as your it. That was his major contribution. with Peter’s funnelling effect won’t you material? you seem to begin with the theoretical naturalistic vein. end up with a form of pessimism? ideas, which are general, and then move TG: Well it’s a bit like “Cathy” really. The main difficulty was in bringing KL: Y es,' I think that’s true . .. We’re TG: Why do you end up with You can say that all those things really the three people together — the mother, into the particular. That always has the just trying to make films to reflect pessimism? the father, the daughter — who aren’t in effect, for me, of zooming in, or happened to various people, but we people in situations as accurately as JM: Family Life seems to be obstructed couldn’t point to one person that they fact a family, and if they had been, zeroeing in, of going down a funnel, possible. Most other communications probably wouldn’t have been a until at the end you reach a dead point. by the lack of an underlying dialectic all happened to. you read or see or experience seem so connecting the family with the wider schizogenic family, ie one which creates I think that comes out, as a result of the totally inaccurate. We’ve tried to say: PW: How many of you discussed the preconception you have of what you’re society; it was isolated. This lack of film? schizophrenics. The difficulty was “Well look, this is how it is” in a way making then appear as if they would be doing — which I wasn’t completely dialectical connection would seem to TG: At that stage it’s David Mercer, Ken which ordinary people can appreciate, end up in pessimism. a schizogenic family, while they used happy about in Family Life. By making and me. And then a bit later Mike so they can glean some perspective. their personalities, that is those parts it these particular people, and by TG: I think there might be some justice Riddall was very helpful. He played the We’ve tried not to make it an which could have produced a child who making it so perfectly realistic, in the in that. If you start off with some basic progressive psychiatrist in indiscriminate naturalism, and by the Family Life had difficulty in establishing her own end it either becomes just those political assumptions — which we but he’s not an actor he is a progressive juxtaposition of different naturalistic identity. Getting that balancing act was particular people, and you lose sight of sequences — to make the comment needn’t go into — then there are lots of psychiatrist. difficult. People veer into other aspects the general, theoretical points which there. So that’s why we veered towards ways of filming that theme. JM: How did you come across him? of their personality which would have were what you started with. Or they are that sort of thing. PW: You mentioned Kingsley Hall, and TG: David had done a draft. One of the provided the girl with a way out. Billy seen as representatives, in which case these follow-up places. Did you think of the theory becomes too simplified; it JMG: How do you relate this to a things which didn’t quite work was the Dean played the father, and is a much consciously political approach? mentioning these in the film? business of the doctor being sacked — more open and generous bloke than he seems as if you’re saying all families are just like this. KL: It’s what you tend to make films KL. I don t think those facilities would which has happened to a number of appears in the film. The problem was to about. One thing which I think has been be available for most of the people Psychiatrists we know who were stop him showing too much of that, The other thing is the point about central to the films which we’ve done confronted by that situation.
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