The Cut and Thrust: The Power of Political Debate in the Films of Ken Loach Author(s): Graham Fuller Source: Cinéaste , Fall 2015, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Fall 2015), pp. 30-35 Published by: Cineaste Publishers, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/26356460 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Cineaste Publishers, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Cinéaste This content downloaded from 95.183.184.51 on Fri, 07 Aug 2020 09:43:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Cut and Thrust The Power of Political Debate in the Films of Ken Loach by GrahamGraham Fuller Fuller resistance—most notably in The Wind That he was by the language of the communist a footnote to history: the story of the Shakes the Barley and the Allen-scripted Span books and leaflets a militant guest had sent Ken Loach's selfless attempt new offilm, the communist Jimmy's Hall, is ish Civil War film Land and Freedom (2005)— him. When the aristocratic pit owner John agitator James Gralton (1886-1945) and his has proved unavoidable. In contradistinction Pritchard (Edward Underdown) calls in fellow County Leitrim villagers to run a to the hyperbolic sequences of glorified may troops to harass the miners and their families dance hall and community center in the face hem and murder synonymous with Holly into submission, however, Joel and Ben find of anti-red paranoia and the puritanical wood cinema, talk is action in Loach's films. their own language is adequate to express oppression of the Catholic during an emergency Church in the Irish Free meeting their radical yet State of 1932. This As the director announces his retirement, we pragmatic ideas about how eleventh full-length look col back at how his collaborations with different to force Pritchard to back laboration between Loach down. The session trans and screenwriter Paul screenwriters shaped the ideological viewpoint forms Ben from a sympa Laverty is a peacetime that runs from The Big Flame to Jimmy's Hall. thetic bystander to an movie and so naturally embryonic militant him less bloody than The Wind self, one who will soon That Shakes the Barley (2007), their tragic Although these heated conversations joingen the Communist Party of Great Britain evocation of the Irish War of Independence, erally avoid off-putting sociopolitical jargon, (CPGB). from which the Free State emerged under the speakers often represent nuanced political In Land and Freedom, the naive Liverpool fiamon de Valera's conservative Fianna Fail positions they may not fully understand orcommunist be David Carr (Ian Hart) joins an government after the 1921 Anglo-Irish able to articulate. In Days of Hope (1975), internationalist the Partido Obrero de Unifica Treaty. Though spasmodically violent, the four-part television period epic written cion by Marxista (POUM) militia unit to fight elegantly low-key drama about a fight for the Allen, Ben Matthews (Paul Copley), a young for the Republicans against Franco. Following right to convene, socialize, and be educated Yorkshireman who has deserted from the the unit's liberation of a rural village from the outside church and state control, is as mem British Army, is gradually politicized by fascists, his the locals vociferously debate if they orable for Jimmy's chaste romance with his experiences as a participant in the army's should form an agrarian collective. Among long-married former sweetheart, Republican ruthless oppression of the Irish Republican those present are POUM members with anar villagers' irate sorties to restore tenants evicted community following the 1916 Easter Rising, cho-syndicalist (Confederation Nacional del from landed estates, and especially the group and as the guest of a strike organizer, JoelTrabajo) or anarchist leanings and orthodox summits that ratchet up the tension. Barnett (Gary Roberts), and his family in Marxists. the The villager Teresa urges collec Such conversations, in which politically or Durham Coalfield in 1921. A literate and tivization from an unspecified political view socially opposed groups, or factions within the shrewd but meagerly educated man, point Joel because of the urgent need to provide same group, argue their standpoints, or self admits to the empathetic Ben how daunted food for the people and the men at the front. organizing working-class people Pepe, the tenant farmer beside her, vigorously debate issues essential agrees they should collectivize the to their or others' welfare and sur captured estate where they're talk vival, have become the signature ing but stipulates that he wants to trope of Loach's dramatic films. continue to farm, as an "individu Since making a Marxist analysis as alist," his "own bit" of land. Elder a young man, the British realist ly Miguel argues that working all director, who in 1980 told Leonard the land collectively will keep the Quart he "was close to a Trotskyist revolution going. A French volun position, and remain to this day an teer in POUM says that all anti-Stalinist socialist" (see "A "owned" land must be relin Fidelity to the Real: An Interview quished; a villager chimes in that it with Ken Loach and Tony Gar should be forcibly taken. A POUM nett," Cineaste, Vol. X, No. 4), has German, regretting the failure of worked primarily with the writers revolutionary socialism in his Jim Allen (the fiercely anti-Stalinist homeland, urges the rapid consol former labor organizer who died in idation of the Spanish revolution. 1999), Barry Hines, and Laverty to A POUM Scot (played by Laverty) embed the class struggle in wars of agrees that the energy of Spain's words and ensuing collective two million landless peasants actions such as strikes and protests, Army deserterdeserter Ben Ben Matthews Matthews {Paul (Paul Copley, Copley, left) left)mobilizes mobilizes Durham Durham minersshould beminers harnessed for the revo though the depiction of armed like BillyBilly ShepherdShepherd (Alun (Alun Armstrong) Armstrong) on ontheir their 1921 1921 strike strike in Days in Days oflution Hope. of immediately.Hope. 30 CINEASTE, Fall 2015 This content downloaded from 95.183.184.51 on Fri, 07 Aug 2020 09:43:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms InIn Jimmy'sJimmy's Hall, Hall, committee committee members, members, led by James led Graltonby James (Barry Gralton Ward, center(Barry left, Ward, hand raised),center meet left, to hand raised), meet to discuss how how best best to respond to respond to the Catholicto the CatholicChurch's condemnation Church's condemnation of their cultural of and their educational cultural activities. and educational activities. Loach's orchestration of these and other films, and, additionally, the debates' func opinions is so seamless that viewers may tionbe as narrative engines. They are not, of filming of which demonstrates the unaware that Gene Lawrence (Tom Gilroy), course, the sole domain of workers, union These cooperativeness debates—the and community organization spirit and a POUM American, sounds more dissonant organizers, and poor people who would among members of different film trades— notes than the individualist farmer; certainly, benefit from socialist initiatives such as col became integral to Loach's films after he began his comrades do not pick up on the treach lectivization, which was also put into prac his twenty-seven-year collaboration with Allen ery inherent in his advice. After advising tice by striking Liverpool dockers in The Big on The Big Flame. Over the years, he has immediate collectivization of the captured Flame (1969) and discussed by Irish Repub devised directorial strategies to maximize the land, Lawrence warns that radical socialist lican villagers in The Wind That Shakes the conversations' appearance of reality. For Land slogans should be toned down lest they scare Barley. Frequently, they involve their reac and Freedom's collectivization debate, he asked away foreign capitalist money necessary to tionary antagonists (landowners and indus the actors, professionals and nonprofessionals provide arms for Franco's defeat, which trialists, as well as managers and union lead alike, to "unlearn" their lines so that their must be accomplished, he says, before the ers who are often "lapsed" socialists seduced comments would seem spontaneous. The revolution proceeds. Speaking clumsily, Carr by power) or, more rarely, are conducted by long, gripping sequence benefits from overlap agrees with Lawrence, not realizing he is those who collude in exploiting the working ping dialogue, the clash of regional dialects buying into a Stalinist line that will subse class. that are not always easily understood, which quently divert him to fight senselessly as an was also the case with the construction work International Brigade recruit against antifas ers' talk in the Bill Jesse-scripted Riff-Raff cist anarchists during the 1937 May Days in (1991)—Loach preferring to add subtitles Barcelona. Following that debacle, he angrily rather than insist on the verbal clarity of classic tears up his CPGB card and rejoins his Hollywood cinema—and lines spoken hesi POUM unit, whereupon Lawrence