- 2 months ago
This week Chris Deacy is joined in the studio by Peter Taylor-Gooby to discuss the films; I, Daniel Blake, Woman at War, Cathy Come Home, and Run Lola Run.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club. I'm Chris Deesey and each week I'll be joined by a guest
00:19to dive deep into the impact certain films have had on their life. Each guest will reflect on
00:24the films which have met the most of them over the years. And every week there will be a Kent
00:28Film Trivia where we quiz you at home about a film that has a connection to the county.
00:34And now let me introduce you to my guest for this week. He is an academic in social policy and
00:39author of novels. He is Peter Taylor Gooby. Great to have you on the show Peter. Right well thank
00:46you for asking me along Chris. Absolute pleasure and oh well I Daniel Blake Ken Loach. What a
00:52phenomenal powerhouse of a film. Yes I thought it was brilliant. I think it's one of Ken Loach's
00:57best films ever. And the thing about it is that it's based on real cases. It's not one simple
01:04case. It's four cases put together. But all the experiences in the film actually happen to real
01:10people. And that's what gives it the power I think knowing that. And also it's a film which tells a real
01:18story about someone's life. And Ken Loach always gets this balance between the way our society treats
01:30some of the most vulnerable people. And really it humiliates them. And that is Daniel Blake's experience.
01:39I thought that this was so extraordinary because you feel that the characters there really do work
01:46for the Department of Work and Pensions. Everything about it looked painstakingly based on something
01:51that was very realistic. And also I thought that the real humanity that came through Ken Loach
01:59with these characters placed in the most difficult of social conditions. Yes that's absolutely right.
02:05So it's this contrast between the way we humiliate people. The amount of stigma involved. And these
02:12are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. And they're in situations which they didn't
02:17choose to be in. They didn't want to be in. But nonetheless they're treated like this. And you
02:25contrast that with the humanity and the kindness of many people in the film. And he shows for example in
02:33the scenes with the food bank in the film that there are people around who actually give up a lot of their
02:41time and energy. I'm involved in the food bank in Canterbury. And that's one of the things that struck me
02:47very powerfully about that. That you know I've been an academic all my life. So I meet a fairly narrow group of
02:55people really. People who are interested in the issues I'm interested in about social policy and
03:01benefits and so on. But when I go to the food bank I meet a much wider range of people. And that's one
03:09of the great things about it. Is that they're all concerned with the same objective. They basically want
03:16to help people. And I think that's wonderful. The part of the film that really I mean really moved me and was
03:23unexpected. We're showing as I remember the benefits worker who wanted to help more than she was allowed
03:30to. I think at the end she attends the funeral. Yes she does. And I found you know and up to that point I
03:36think I was watching it and felt quite angry as you know as I think we are meant to do at this social
03:41injustice. And that moment of humanity of someone who was you know clearly working for the institution,
03:49the bureaucracy. But also there was a real humanity there. And I thought that that was Ken Loach really
03:54showing that people you know have an innate decency but sometimes you have to try a bit harder to find
04:00it. Yes I think that's true. And I think we should always remember that the people who work in the
04:07benefits system are really constrained by the rules of that system. It's not their personal choice to behave
04:15in the way that they do. And most of them and I know a number of them had lots of dealings with
04:20people in Canterbury really want to be civilized people. They want to help people. They're not
04:26particularly well paid themselves and many of them are getting benefits to top up their wages and we
04:32should remember that. But also they're constrained by the whole system of rules and that really goes back
04:41to how the benefits system is set up by people who have no real understanding of what it's like to
04:48be poor and like to be trying to find work when you're prevented from doing so by your health
04:55conditions which is really Daniel Blake's problem. And I'm guessing this is a film that you've seen
05:01many times. I know it was showing at the Gulbenkian in Canterbury way back in 2017. Yes that's right.
05:09And I've also seen it well I've seen it on video but I've seen it at the other the other cinema the
05:16Curzon in Canterbury as well. So and it's always a film that works for me. Not sure all Ken Loach's
05:25films do. I think he's a very interesting director with a very interesting background. But he's sometimes
05:34ends up because I think he wants to work with real people all the time but he gets angry about some of
05:43the issues and then that makes the film rather unrealistic. You know it doesn't become convincing.
05:49I think you're right because there was the film that he made very recently set in the well it was
05:54the the miners strike and then you see what happens all those decades on. And I think it may even have
05:59been the same with I Daniel Blake but some of the actors there who gave very sort of naturalistic
06:03performances but they weren't actually you know actors they were people who who came from the very
06:08environment from the very community that he was depicting in the films. Yes and that's set in a
06:13village in in County Durham just east of Durham. A village I actually know because my brother lives up in
06:22that part of the world and I go out and see him quite a lot and it's a very accurate portrayal of
06:28that village actually. Well it is time now Peter to move on to your second chosen film and you've gone
06:35for Woman at War. Yeah I mentioned this one because I find people don't know about it and I think it's such
06:43a lovely film. It's so in your face and striking. It's really about climate change set in Iceland and it's one
06:52woman's struggle against climate change and it's got a brilliant opening sequence. I should talk
07:00about that. Please do because I think I think I saw this at the Curzon just a few years ago. Yes it has
07:05been on to have mass release here but essentially it's set in the context of the huge aluminium
07:13smelter which exploits raw materials in Iceland and is there because there is very cheap hydropower so
07:23there's an enormous hydro scheme and there's mining and this is in the heart of a pristine
07:30wilderness. A terrific public debate about should you do this kind of development, what's it going
07:37to do to the ecology in Iceland and so on. It has had a serious impact but it starts off with the actor
07:46striding across the the tundra really in Iceland and she has a backpack. She takes it off, puts it down
07:53and she just takes bits of metal out of it and she assembles them and it's a crossbow. You think what
08:00earth is she doing? She puts the bolt in and she connects the cord to it and then she takes aim and
08:07you suddenly realise she's standing next to an array of pylons and she shoots the cord very carefully
08:15over and she's got welly boots on and it's all insulated, thick insulated gloves and she hauls on
08:21the cord and pulls up a bigger cord and a stronger cord and a stronger cord and a stronger cord and
08:26finally there is, with lots of insulation, a wire and the wire hits the pylons and there are flashes and
08:34bangs and electric sparks everywhere. The whole thing is short-circuited then cut to this vast industrial
08:42complex with great vats of molten aluminium but suddenly all the sirens blow and lights flash and
08:50everybody runs in all directions and the vats tremble and start spilling because she's cut the power supply
08:56brilliantly and I just thought it was such a powerful opening sequence. I really love it.
09:03Absolutely. Well that's right because I remember when I watched this and I was thinking, is this
09:08going to be like a documentary? Is it a work of fiction? But I realised that actually using scenes
09:14like that where my heart was in my mouth and of course it means that being hooked at that point,
09:22the message that the film then had to convey was one that I was happy to engage with because I felt
09:28really connected. I didn't feel that I was being taught to, I didn't feel that this was a film that
09:34was telling me how I should think but I was engrossed from that opening scene. Yes, that's absolutely
09:40right and then of course the film is about the people who help her because of course she's chased by
09:45the police all around the tundra and so on, various people help her, she escaped but also a lot about her
09:52life which is quite complicated. She's trying to adopt a child from Eastern Europe to give the child
10:00a better life in Iceland and there's all the dealings with bureaucracy and the complexity of that
10:07going on. She runs a choir, she's a great singer so you get the singing in it which I loved a lot.
10:14It makes me think of what we heard about Ken Loach, about characters who sometimes wrong-foot you or
10:19subvert you or people who we identify with a particular cause but also they have other interests
10:25and passions that make them eminently relatable even to those people who may not have the same
10:30interest in the cause that she does. Yes, I think that's absolutely right and that's a very interesting
10:36issue about a lot of films and a lot of well really communication at all levels and I find that in
10:44my novels because being a boring academic I want to talk about social issues like poverty and homelessness
10:52and inequality and so on but if you write a novel about inequality it just says inequality is not
10:58necessarily a good thing and we have too much of it. That gets very boring. So my second novel,
11:03Ardent Justice, is the story of the tax inspector who is trying to nail a city fat cat who pays no tax of
11:13course by manipulating his affair and the complex tale of how that happens. She accidentally by a very
11:22complex chapter of accidents kidnaps him so she has to deal with this. Well that's about all the time
11:31we have for this first half of the show however before we go to the break we have a Kent Film Trivia
11:36question for you at home. Which 2024 international competition category of the Sin Euphoria Awards did
11:45the film Empire of Light win in? Was it A Best Director, B Best Film or C Best Cinematography?
11:53We'll reveal the answer right after this break. Don't go away.
11:56Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club. Just before the ad break we asked you at home a Kent Film Trivia
12:12question. Which 2024 international competition category of the Sin Euphoria Awards did the
12:19film Empire of Light win in? I asked was it A Best Director, B Best Film or C Best Cinematography? And now
12:26I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact C Best Cinematography. Best Cinematography was the only
12:32win for the film at the Sin Euphoria Awards although the film was nominated in all the above categories
12:38in addition to Best Original Music, Best Actor and Best Actress. Did you get the answer right?
12:45Well it is time now Peter to move on to your next chosen film and oh another Ken Loach classic.
12:52Cathy come home. Yes this film is on my list because it's a film that had enormous impact on me.
13:01It came out when was it 1966 I think when I was 19 and you know I'd had a nice middle class upbringing
13:10been to a well a state grammar school and then was going off to university and while I was aware
13:18sort of intellectually of inequalities in society I didn't really know very much about the realities
13:25of them and what they were like for the people who experienced them. The thing about Cathy come home
13:30and it had such an enormous impact at the time because it was talking about housing issues which
13:37and really how difficult it is for vulnerable people to get access to decent housing that it moves at such
13:46a rapid speed. It takes Cathy and her family and her children through what probably took would take
13:54place over five or six years in their life. In 90 Minutes I think it was it's TV film originally and
14:05it was a film that had impact at the time. It was associated with the foundation of the housing
14:11charity Shelter. Though I don't think it actually caused it but you know it's one of the things that fed
14:17into it. Created a huge public response and really again it's the way that Ken Loach manages to link
14:28together real issues in society and real people. Cathy and her husband Reg are real people very much and
14:37they're making their choices in the housing market and you can see how they're making bad choices but
14:42they're making normal choices that most people would make. They don't understand that if they ever want to
14:48get a chance of getting into a council house or social housing they have to stay within one local
14:56authority and of course they're continually moving around between various unsatisfactory bits of
15:02accommodation and one room flats that are totally damp and so on and losing any entitlement they have on
15:08a housing waiting list for example. And of course when they finally get to a state where a local
15:18authority will take them and that's when they've split up they've chosen to split up though they really
15:23don't want to because Cathy and her children will then become a priority category. They find that you
15:34know the local authority they're in simply does not have enough social housing and doesn't have the
15:40budget to provide it. That of course is exactly the situation we're in now in most of the south of
15:46England. So they're put in a very unsatisfactory hostel where Cathy can't take the situation where
16:00she has to share a kitchen with 19 other families and a loo and with children as well of course and
16:08is in an absolutely desperate situation. Well I'm just thinking as well because Mike Lee did the same
16:14because he's made films as well that also are very sort of suburban in their scope but sort of dealing
16:18with with often working-class communities but also made you know has done the Gilbert and Sullivan
16:23sort of adaptation. But back to Ken Loach on this when you watch this back in 66 or thereabouts was that
16:30a driver for you in your own because it sounds I mean in your own career your own research because it sounds
16:34as though it would have initiated so many of the the great research that you've done in the decades
16:43since. Yes it did feed into what I did and I ended up getting involved in social policy and initially as
16:52an intellectuals of writing stuff on theory of need and so on and that brought me into contact with some
16:58brilliant philosophers like Raymond Plant, Lord Plant who is absolutely you know my ideal academic
17:06because you can walk into a room and he can give you a perfect lecture on any subject you want like
17:12Hegel or something and it lasts 45 minutes and it's perfectly shaped covers all the points and ends.
17:20How can you do that? What goes on in his brain? Anyway but it certainly moved me in the direction of
17:27becoming interested in social policy and social policy issues. Then I became a community worker
17:34in York and I did a course there and I got involved in research at Batley Community Development Project which
17:43was a pioneering project south of Leeds and what we were trying to do was increase take up of benefits
17:51something I still try to do for the food bank in Canterbury because Britain has a very substantial
17:58income tested benefit system and there are something like 40 something separate benefits most of which
18:06most people have never ever heard of which doesn't help the take up. Okay well it is time now Peter to move
18:11on to your final chosen film. Oh I saw this actually at the BFI not too long ago and also when it first came out
18:18run Lola run. Oh yes run Lola run well I just love this film again because it's so much in your face it's so
18:28powerful it's so it's so energetic and vivid and of course the images of Lola running through Berlin
18:37trying to save her boyfriend from the drunks gang that are demanding the money that he's lost as a courier
18:44back by uh 25 minutes time is is absolutely because it's only about I think it's barely an hour and
18:5320 minutes and yet it's so packed it's so dense that it feels like a much longer film in in a good way
19:01but also of course you see the same events from different perspectives and it shows with little
19:06gradations little changes in you know some little obstacles that are in her path and because she
19:14either jumps over the obstacle or is hit by it that one second is the difference between one outcome
19:20and another like a video game and again like Ken Loach dealing with very real-worldly issues involving
19:25money and the lack of yes exactly and Tom Twicker Twyker the um director worked on the three colors
19:35series before which again looking at you know with rather larger budgets at people in real situations
19:42and how they manage them uh and how the world works around them which is something I think sort of
19:49difficult to explain this uh but what I have in mind is that it's not only Lola and the accidents that
19:59happen in her life it's the world that's set up by other people and by institutions that she has to
20:06find a way through and that she succeeds in the end and you're right that's remarkable but of course but
20:13but you say that she succeeds and that's the thing because of course she isn't aware we assume that she's
20:18not of all those different outcomes but we but of course it's like sliding doors but like groundhog
20:23day films which give you alternative scenarios and we're all thinking that could have been me that
20:28just missed getting on that train yeah or maybe there's a car heading towards you or or you're
20:33running to meet somebody and they they either hear or they don't just depending on the wind or just
20:37depending on factors that one second difference and so it's the sort of thing I come away from that
20:41and thinking you know if that was my life how differently might my life have turned out
20:46been configured yeah well maybe it was how do we know what happened how do you know did you see
20:52this when it came out because obviously you've chosen this here is it a film that you sort of
20:57intended to watch is it something that you saw accidentally and it made a really great impression
21:02on you well I saw it because my oldest son is terrifically keen on film and knows all about it
21:08uh so he's the guy who tells me what to watch basically uh and uh he told me to watch it so so
21:16i did yeah and i saw this so i saw it at the bfi not long ago when it came out i saw it on an old um
21:22video i think it was a rented video and uh and and i thought this was a film that really needs to be
21:26seen on the big screen so i made a trip to london just a few months ago to watch this and so it's sort of
21:31at nine in the evening it was all it finished by 10 40. but but tell me a little bit then about in
21:37watching this do you kind of feel because you deal with issues around risk and uncertainty is there
21:42there must be something in this film i guess as i'm thinking about it it's a perfect fit actually for
21:47yourself but you sort of watching that and thinking you know that is that is the way all of our lives
21:52really are set up yes i think that's true and i think our lives are like that and actually if you
21:58think like that it makes life much more exciting because you don't you know you have all your plans
22:02and aspirations but there are all these things that pass you on to a different course and then
22:07then you have your other plans and aspirations and things go on and what's really good about this
22:12is that in a way you know she's a really good you know feminist role model because you know the end of
22:17the day she does the sort of things that you know this was you know made in the 90s albeit the late 90s
22:21and she's doing the sort of things that you'd expect more of a male figure to be doing
22:24yes and but she is the one who has the right temperament the right attitude she's the sensible
22:30one she's also the the the action hero and it feels as though she's you know perfectly rounded in all the
22:36different in all the different versions that we see as you you see different varieties you see her
22:41screaming you see her in a more pensive mode so it it feels like we're witness to a character in all
22:48its manifestations yes that's right uh and that's something that tom twicker does very skillfully i'm
22:54trying to remember the name of uh his film it's heaven isn't it the one about the helicopters and
23:00so on yes that's another film with kate blanchard i think in that yes yes yes he's getting bigger
23:05budgets then i always think that's a very powerful film uh and worth watching i think this is his best
23:12film of the ones i've seen but yes he does have this way of capturing people and shining a lens on
23:19them from all points of view and then sort of make a kaleidoscope of it if you like uh yeah i think
23:25that's brilliantly put yeah well i'm afraid that's all the time we have for today but before we go if
23:31you live in kent and want the chance to share four films of your choice reach out to us at km tv and you
23:37might be invited in to be my next guest but for now many thanks to peter taylor gooby for joining us and
23:42being such a brilliant guest and many thanks to you all for tuning in until then that's all from us goodbye
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