An Interview With Ken Loach

Ken Loach has spent the greater part of the last 40 years chronicling the struggles, hardships and perseverance of working-class families in Great Britain. In such socially realistic dramas as Poor Cow, Kes, Hidden Agenda and My Name Is Joe, the onetime Oxford law student and stage actor put a decidedly human face on headlines proclaiming the rusty collapse of the U.K.'s industrial economy.

Three years ago, in Bread and Roses, Loach and frequent collaborator, Paul Laverty introduced international audiences to the plight of a Los Angeles family caught in the middle of an emotionally charged strike by Mexican-American janitors. If the story occasionally appeared to drift across the line separating fact and fiction, it probably was because Loach enlisted real-life custodial workers to play several key roles and set some of the action in the same buildings they struck.

Introduced at last year's Cannes Film Festival -- where it won the Best Screenplay Award – Loach and Laverty's Sweet Sixteen describes how one Glasgow teenager tries to shield his mother and sister from the unemployment, decay and drug addiction that has ravaged their neighborhood. Even though the story is told in a heavy Glaswegian accent, it will resonate with anyone familiar with the cold realities of life in the inner cities of America and Europe.

When we meet the film's protagonist, Liam, on the cusp of his 16th birthday, he's anticipating the release from prison of his mother, Jean. He is committed to keeping her clean, sober and free from the clutches of her low-life boyfriend and degenerate father, but has to enter into a pact with the local devil to do it. His single-mother sister, Chantelle, is convinced Liam is wasting his time.

Loach draws remarkable performances from his three lead actors – Martin Compston, Michelle Coulter, Annmarie Fulton and Tommy McKee – all of whom make their debuts in Sweet Sixteen.

This interview took place two months ago, when the director was in Los Angeles promoting the movie.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: Comedian Margaret Cho describes Glasgow as the heroin capital of the world, and, in such films as Sweet Sixteen, My Name Is Joe, Small Faces, Ratcatcher and Orphans the Scottish capital makes Gary, Indiana, look like Honolulu.

KEN LOACH: I hope we didn't do the city a disservice. In fact, we could have set this movie in any number of cities and towns, in Europe and in America. But, we located it there because Glasgow is where this kind of crime flourishes and Paul Laverty, the writer, was really familiar with it.

MCN: Liam and his mates seem condemned to a life lived on the dole. It's no wonder, then, that Liam seizes the opportunity to get a leg up by agreeing to work for a local crime boss. Are things really that hopeless?

KL: Obviously, some kids will get out, but most won't. The possibility of finding a career that will last throughout their lives – like people in our generation could – just doesn't exist, anymore. The choices are temporary work, casual labor, short-term contracts and periods of unemployment.

There's been a huge change in the concept of work, even from 20 years ago. The whole idea of being able to find a secure future is gone.

MCN: Are there any safety-net programs on the order of affirmative action or Job Corps.

KL: There aren't any programs like that, because there aren't any jobs … even at the entry level.

MCN: Martin Compston, who plays Liam, turns in a pretty impressive performance, especially for a newcomer.

KL: It's always been Martin's ambition to be a footballer, and he signed with a local, second-division team just before he landed the job in the film. I think he's decided to give acting a go, even though I'd probably chose football, myself.

MCN: American teenagers, who find themselves in Liam's position, often dream about making the jump from high school to the NBA. Are the odds of doing so any better in the U.K.?

KL: The dream is the same, sure. But very few are successful and become famous at football. The proportion that stays behind will always remain the same.

MCN: No matter how much Liam tried, we're not surprised to see his mother fall back into bad habits. Still, the camera doesn't linger on her disgrace.

KL: It was important to know that she once was an addict, but it wasn't necessary for her to be hooked, again. If she were just going back to her boyfriend to get a fix, it would have been a lot less complex story.

MCN: Jean dealt drugs for him while she was in prison, and presumably clean, so he must have had some of kind of psychological hold on her, as well?

KL: Being addicted is quite a disabling experience. In our research, we learned it wasn't uncommon for addicts to go back to the same person who enabled their addiction to begin with.

People need the security of a relationship … someone who will take control of their lives for them.

MCN: The daughter, who's a single mother herself, saw Jean as a lost cause and wanted Liam to give up trying to help her by saving up to buy her a home. In fact, she wanted more of his attention, too.

KL: That's the way families develop, isn't it? All the relationships are complicated. She needed Liam, and, when their mother came out, she didn't want to lose him.

Chantelle didn't push Jean away, but she didn't help her much, either. Little slights added up, and their sheer weight might have been enough to push her away.

MCN: It was very sad.

KL: The mother would have loved to be the mother her son and daughter wanted her to be. But Jean didn't have the strength or resources to do it herself.

MCN: In your movies, external pressures have disastrous impacts on families.

KL: The family is where we all experience drama in our lives … or partners or children. I find it to be endlessly fascinating.

MCN: Were the actors in Sweet Sixteen using their own accents, or did you ask them to affect a working-class attitude?

KL: That was them, really. I wouldn't have wanted them to play it up or down, because it wouldn't be real.

MCN: Did you plan to add subtitles or was that someone else's idea?

KL: I wasn't surprised by the decision. Even in England, that dialect is difficult to grasp. It's quite tough.

It was important to use it, though, because the dialect was so much a part of the characters. The humor, the energy of the language also is so much a part of the place.

MCN: Has the movie been rated here, yet? I have to assume it will get an R, for the language.

KL: Is that 15 or 17? In Scotland and Switzerland, it was 15.

MCN: Seventeen, even though there isn't much nudity or graphic violence.

KL: Interesting. Violence is seen as not being corrupting, while language is.

MCN: The c-word will automatically get you an R here, I think.

KL: It doesn't quite have the same connotation in some places. People use it all the time. But, the film was rated for 18 in Britain, so there's not much difference there with America.

MCN: When you come to L.A., do ever see the people whose lives you chronicled in Bread and Roses?

KL: We try to stay in touch, but my visits to Los Angeles are very short.

A Review of Sweet Sixteen