“The last uncompromising leftist filmmaker.” - Amy Taubin, The Village Voice
“A tireless cinematic champion of the underdog.” - A.O. Scott, The New York Times
“A voice of defiance in British film and television. . . . Loach's films remind us that our own engagement cannot remain in the cinema, but must move into the political sphere if any transformation of social systems is to take place.” - George McKnight, Agent of Challenge and Defiance: The Films of Ken Loach
“We can't reveal the human condition if we don't bleed with everyone else, [if] we don't get angry with everyone else.” - Ken Loach
British-born director Ken Loach will turn seventy this year, and thus far shows no sign of relenting in his political commitment and dedication to the art and possibilities of cinema. Far from sharing the fate of many an auteur - a term Loach would almost certainly reject - whose later films lose their spark, Loach's craft seems, if anything, to be on another upswing; his most recent effort, THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY, won world cinema's most coveted award last year, the Cannes film festival's Palme d'Or, and films like SWEET SIXTEEN (2002) attest to his unwavering vision, suggesting a master at the summit of his skill. His career, spanning more than forty years, is a monument of post-war, socially conscious filmmaking, and can be seen as the heir to the important aspirations of the Italian neorealist movement. Featuring many of Loach's rare early films, including some of the essential BBC TV films made in the Sixties, this retrospective reveals a singularity of purpose and aesthetic rigour that support an assessment of Ken Loach's oeuvre as the most assured, compassionate, and passionate in contemporary political cinema.
The origin of Loach's filmmaking in television is no mere accident or outcome of economic necessity. The son of a factory foreman in Warwickshire county, Loach overcame the challenges of a working class British background by being accepted into Oxford to study law, a feat that defied prevailing odds. Quickly
|
 |
|