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Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach
Not Rated
Documentary
6.6/10(16 ratings)
A surprisingly candid behind-the-scenes account of the career of Ken Loach, one of Britain’s most celebrated and controversial filmmakers, as he prepares to release his final major film I, Daniel Blake.
06-30-2016
1h 33m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Louise Osmond
Production:
BBC Film, Dogwoof, BFI, Sixteen Films
Key Crew
Executive Producer:
Lizzie Francke
Executive Producer:
Christine Langan
Executive Producer:
Joe Oppenheimer
Producer:
Rebecca O'Brien
Locations and Languages
Country:
GB
Filming:
GB
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Ken Loach
Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936; Nuneaton) is a British film director, screenwriter and producer. His socially critical directing style is 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).
Kenneth Charles Loach was born on 17 June 1936 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, the son of Vivien (née Hamlin) and John Loach. He attended King Edward VI Grammar School and at the age of 19 went to serve in the Royal Air Force. He read law at St Peter's College, Oxford and graduated with a third-class degree. As a member of the Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club he directed an open-air production of Bartholomew Fair for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford, in 1959 (when he also took the role of the shady horse-dealer Dan Jordan Knockem). After Oxford, he began a career in the dramatic arts.
Loach's film Kes (1969) 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.
Congenial character actor, Tony Selby was the epitome of the down-to earth, friendly Londoner of stage and screen. He starred in films such as Alfie, Adolf Hitler - My Part In His Downfall, Villain and even Superman, but it is the small screen that was his more natural home; he headlined Get Some In (1975) as the memorable bully Corporal Marsh, and had a main part in Love Hurts (1992-94) opposite Adam Faith and Zoe Wanamaker. Perhaps his greatest contribution had been guest appearances where his charisma, which could be menacing when he chose, saw him pop up in several high profile and popular series - from his recurring role as the roguish Glitz in Dr Who, to Casualty, Lovejoy, Holby City, The Bill and EastEnders to name but a few.
Born to a miner father and a seamstress mother in Barnsley, South Yorkshire in 1953, David Bradley is best known for playing Billy Casper in Ken Loach's 1969 film, Kes. Prior to this starring role, Bradley had only ever acted in school pantomimes and secured the lead in an open audition against thousands of children. Following the success of Kes, Bradley had to change his name to Dai Bradley on account of the actor David Bradley already having an Equity card in that name. Bradley turned to television appearing as the lead in two children's series The Flaxton Boys and The Jensen Code and guest roles in Z Cars, Nearest and Dearest and A Family at War. He appeared in several other movies as a young man in the tail end of the 70s including All Quiet on the Western Front, Zulu Dawn and Absolution but by the following decade Bradley decided to retire from acting and tried his hand as a writer instead. In recent years he has returned to the profession as David Bradley once more and has had roles in the film Hummingbird and the children's TV series The Dumping Ground.
Hayley Squires (born April 16, 1988) is an English actress and a playwriter. Hayley trained at the Rose Bruford College and graduated in 2010. Hayley is mostly known for Call The Midwife (2012). Hayley is originally from South London.
Dave Johns is an actor, stand up comedian and talented improviser who played the lead role in Ken Loach's feature film 'I, Daniel Blake' which won the 2016 Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival. He is a regular guest with the Comedy Store Players on their improv show in London's West End.
He had toured with Johnny Vegas and Sean Lock and has performed at the Montreal, Kilkenny, Melbourne, Edinburgh and Adelaide comedy festivals. He has appeared on The West End stage in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest', starring Christian Slater, has co-written the stage adaption of Stephen King's 'The Shawshank Redemption' and has appeared on TV comedy panel shows 'Never Mind the Buzzcocks' and '8 Out Of 10 Cats'. - IMDb Mini Biography By: DAA Management
Sir Alan Parker was a director, writer and producer. His feature films have won nineteen BAFTA awards, ten Golden Globes and ten Oscars. His films include Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express, Mississippi Burning, The Commitments, Evita, Fame, Birdy, Angel Heart and Angela’s Ashes. He was founding chairman of the UK Film Council, a position he held for five years, and prior to that was chairman of the BFI. Sir Alan received the CBE in 1995 and a knighthood in 2002. He was also an Officier Des Arts et Lettres (France).
Gabriel James Byrne (born 12 May 1950) is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined London’s Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen début came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the spin-off show Bracken. The actor has now starred in over 35 feature films, such as The Usual Suspects, Miller's Crossing and Stigmata, in addition to writing two. Byrne's producing credits include the Academy Award-nominated In the Name of the Father. Currently, he is receiving much critical acclaim for his role as Dr. Paul Weston in the HBO drama In Treatment.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eric Tomlinson (born 26 September 1939), known by his stage name Ricky Tomlinson, is an English actor and comedian, best known for his roles as Bobby Grant in Brookside, DCI Charlie Wise in Cracker and James "Jim" Royle in The Royle Family.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Ricky Tomlinson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Christine Murray (born 23 September 1958), known professionally as Crissy Rock, is an English Award winning actress, stand-up comedian, author and reality TV star from Liverpool. Rock shot to fame in 1994 with the lead role in Ken Loach's Ladybird Ladybird, winning the Silver Bear for Best Actress award at the 44th Berlin International Film Festival. Best actor that year was Tom Hanks for Philadelphia.
Cillian Murphy (born May 25, 1976) is an Irish actor.
He made his professional debut in Enda Walsh's 1996 play Disco Pigs, a role he later reprised in the 2001 screen adaptation. His early notable film credits include the horror film 28 Days Later (2002), the dark comedy Intermission (2003), the thriller Red Eye (2005), the Irish war drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), and the science fiction thriller Sunshine (2007). He played a transgender Irish woman in the comedy-drama Breakfast on Pluto (2005), which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination.
Murphy began collaborating with filmmaker Christopher Nolan in 2005, playing Dr. Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow in The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012) as well as appearing in Inception (2010) and Dunkirk (2017) and portraying the lead role of J. Robert Oppenheimer in the biographical epic Oppenheimer (2023). By the year 2023, Murphy has already worked with Nolan for around 20 years and six films. He also gained prominence for his role as Tommy Shelby in the BBC period drama series Peaky Blinders (2013–2022) and for starring in the horror sequel A Quiet Place Part II (2020).
In 2011, Murphy won the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Actor and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for the one-man play Misterman. In 2020, The Irish Times named him one of the greatest Irish film actors.
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg, CH, HonFRS, FRSL, FBA (born 6 October 1939), is an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian. He is best known for his work with ITV as editor and presenter of The South Bank Show (1978–2010), and for the BBC Radio 4 documentary series In Our Time.
Earlier in his career, Bragg worked for the BBC in various roles including presenter, a connection that resumed in 1988 when he began to host Start the Week on Radio 4. After his ennoblement in 1998, he switched to presenting the new In Our Time, an academic discussion radio programme, which has run to over 900 broadcast editions and is a popular podcast. He was Chancellor of the University of Leeds from 1999 until 2017.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Melvyn Bragg, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Carole Joan White (1 April 1943 – 16 September 1991) was an English actress. She achieved a public profile with her performances in the television play Cathy Come Home (1966) and the films Poor Cow (1967) and I'll Never Forget What's'isname (1967), but alcoholism and drug abuse damaged her career, and from the early 1970s she worked infrequently.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, DStJ, PC, FRS, HonFRSC (née Roberts; 13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013) was a British stateswoman and Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the position. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.
Thatcher studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, and worked briefly as a research chemist before becoming a barrister. She was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her secretary of state for education and science in his 1970–1974 government. In 1975, she defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become leader of the opposition, the first woman to lead a major political party in the UK.
On becoming prime minister after winning the 1979 general election, Thatcher introduced a series of economic policies intended to reverse high inflation and Britain's struggles in the wake of the Winter of Discontent and an oncoming recession. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised greater individual liberty, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Her popularity in her first years in office waned amid recession and rising unemployment. Victory in the 1982 Falklands War and the recovering economy brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her landslide re-election in 1983. She survived an assassination attempt by the Provisional IRA in the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing and achieved a political victory against the National Union of Mineworkers in the 1984–85 miners' strike. In 1986, Thatcher oversaw the deregulation of UK financial markets, leading to an economic boom, in what came to be known as the Big Bang.
Thatcher was re-elected for a third term with another landslide in 1987, but her subsequent support for the Community Charge (also known as the "poll tax") was widely unpopular, and her increasingly Eurosceptic views on the European Community were not shared by others in her cabinet. She resigned as prime minister and party leader in 1990, after a challenge was launched to her leadership, and was succeeded by John Major, her chancellor of the Exchequer. After retiring from the Commons in 1992, she was given a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher (of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire) which entitled her to sit in the House of Lords. In 2013, she died of a stroke at the Ritz Hotel, London, at the age of 87.
A polarising figure in British politics, Thatcher is nonetheless viewed favourably in historical rankings and public opinion of British prime ministers. Her tenure constituted a realignment towards neoliberal policies in Britain; the complex legacy attributed to this shift continues to be debated into the 21st century.
