Author: Andy Furlong
This week HeyUGuys caught up with talented screenwriter Paul Laverty, the man who gave life to so many memorable characters and stories. In an extremely fascinating interview Paul talks about the latest film he wrote, The Olive Tree, directed by Icíar Bollaín. He also talks in depth about his creative process, what it is like working with Ken Loach, and Irish History.
One of things I have always appreciated about your writing is that it often has undertones of very socially relevant themes, such as the environment, poverty and recession – as indeed we see in The Olive Tree – but your characters never feel like just mouth pieces for these issues but rather fully fleshed out, real people that, through the audiences observation, become a window into these problems. How do you strike a balance between the themes you want to talk about in an overarching sense, without...
This week HeyUGuys caught up with talented screenwriter Paul Laverty, the man who gave life to so many memorable characters and stories. In an extremely fascinating interview Paul talks about the latest film he wrote, The Olive Tree, directed by Icíar Bollaín. He also talks in depth about his creative process, what it is like working with Ken Loach, and Irish History.
One of things I have always appreciated about your writing is that it often has undertones of very socially relevant themes, such as the environment, poverty and recession – as indeed we see in The Olive Tree – but your characters never feel like just mouth pieces for these issues but rather fully fleshed out, real people that, through the audiences observation, become a window into these problems. How do you strike a balance between the themes you want to talk about in an overarching sense, without...
- 3/14/2017
- by Andy Furlong
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
by Paul Montgomery
Yesterday we reported on Ed Brubaker's latest comments with regard to a "Gotham Central" television series, a project long sought by fans, studio execs and the book's creators. Despite all that interest and the heap of gauntlets tossed down by Disney and Marvel, the project has also been deferred for just as long thanks to Batman's loftier exploits in Hollywood and Christopher Nolan's desire to stay on message. With Nolan's trilogy on the shelf and "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." launching this evening, fervor for a potential DC procedural has crested higher than ever.
Though Zack Snyder's fast-tracked "Superman vs. Batman" could put yet another damper on that "Gotham Central" green light, the hope of seeing Montoya, Allen, Sawyer and Driver on screen begs for speculation, especially in the afterglow of the Emmy Awards gala and the reminder that we bask in a golden age of television.
Yesterday we reported on Ed Brubaker's latest comments with regard to a "Gotham Central" television series, a project long sought by fans, studio execs and the book's creators. Despite all that interest and the heap of gauntlets tossed down by Disney and Marvel, the project has also been deferred for just as long thanks to Batman's loftier exploits in Hollywood and Christopher Nolan's desire to stay on message. With Nolan's trilogy on the shelf and "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." launching this evening, fervor for a potential DC procedural has crested higher than ever.
Though Zack Snyder's fast-tracked "Superman vs. Batman" could put yet another damper on that "Gotham Central" green light, the hope of seeing Montoya, Allen, Sawyer and Driver on screen begs for speculation, especially in the afterglow of the Emmy Awards gala and the reminder that we bask in a golden age of television.
- 9/24/2013
- by Splash Page Team
- MTV Splash Page
Exclusive: Jimmy’s Hall, which has begun shooting in Ireland, is likely to be Ken Loach’s last narrative feature - but he will continue to direct documentaries.
Ken Loach’s upcoming drama, Jimmy’s Hall, will likely be his last, according to regular producer Rebecca O’Brien.
“This is probably the last narrative feature for Ken,” O’Brien told ScreenDaily. “There are a few documentary ideas kicking around, and that will probably be the way to go, but this is a serious period-drama with a lot of moving parts so it’s a big thing to put together. I think we should go out while we’re on top.”
O’Brien, who has produced more than a dozen features with Loach since 1990, said that the 77 year-old director is likely to continue to make documentaries and TV work but that he is “unlikely” to make another narrative feature.
“It’s such a huge operation and Ken doesn...
Ken Loach’s upcoming drama, Jimmy’s Hall, will likely be his last, according to regular producer Rebecca O’Brien.
“This is probably the last narrative feature for Ken,” O’Brien told ScreenDaily. “There are a few documentary ideas kicking around, and that will probably be the way to go, but this is a serious period-drama with a lot of moving parts so it’s a big thing to put together. I think we should go out while we’re on top.”
O’Brien, who has produced more than a dozen features with Loach since 1990, said that the 77 year-old director is likely to continue to make documentaries and TV work but that he is “unlikely” to make another narrative feature.
“It’s such a huge operation and Ken doesn...
- 8/8/2013
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Jimmy’s Hall, which has begun shooting in Ireland, is likely to be Ken Loach’s last narrative feature - but he will continue to direct documentaries.
Ken Loach’s upcoming drama, Jimmy’s Hall, will likely be his last, according to regular producer Rebecca O’Brien.
“This is probably the last narrative feature for Ken,” O’Brien told ScreenDaily. “There are a few documentary ideas kicking around, and that will probably be the way to go, but this is a serious period-drama with a lot of interconnecting elements so it’s a big thing to put together. I think we should go out while we’re on top.”
O’Brien, who has produced more than a dozen features with Loach since 1990, said that the 77 year-old director is likely to continue to make documentaries and TV work but that he is “unlikely” to make another narrative feature.
“It’s such a huge operation and Ken doesn...
Ken Loach’s upcoming drama, Jimmy’s Hall, will likely be his last, according to regular producer Rebecca O’Brien.
“This is probably the last narrative feature for Ken,” O’Brien told ScreenDaily. “There are a few documentary ideas kicking around, and that will probably be the way to go, but this is a serious period-drama with a lot of interconnecting elements so it’s a big thing to put together. I think we should go out while we’re on top.”
O’Brien, who has produced more than a dozen features with Loach since 1990, said that the 77 year-old director is likely to continue to make documentaries and TV work but that he is “unlikely” to make another narrative feature.
“It’s such a huge operation and Ken doesn...
- 8/8/2013
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
A secret? Eric Cantona is a giggler
Ken Loach, 75, was born in Warwickshire. After grammar school, he went to Oxford University where he read law. He started his career in the theatre and went on to become a BBC television director in 1963. He worked on Z Cars and then the Wednesday Play, where he directed the classic Cathy Come Home. In 1969, Loach made the award-winning film Kes. His other movies include Land And Freedom, Sweet Sixteen, The Wind That Shakes The Barley and Looking For Eric. The Angels' Share, his new film, is out now.
What is your greatest fear?
I would have said relegation for Bath City, the football club I support, but we've just been relegated.
What is your earliest memory?
Getting my fingers trapped in a deckchair when I was three or four.
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Tony Benn, for moving to...
Ken Loach, 75, was born in Warwickshire. After grammar school, he went to Oxford University where he read law. He started his career in the theatre and went on to become a BBC television director in 1963. He worked on Z Cars and then the Wednesday Play, where he directed the classic Cathy Come Home. In 1969, Loach made the award-winning film Kes. His other movies include Land And Freedom, Sweet Sixteen, The Wind That Shakes The Barley and Looking For Eric. The Angels' Share, his new film, is out now.
What is your greatest fear?
I would have said relegation for Bath City, the football club I support, but we've just been relegated.
What is your earliest memory?
Getting my fingers trapped in a deckchair when I was three or four.
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Tony Benn, for moving to...
- 6/1/2012
- by Rosanna Greenstreet
- The Guardian - Film News
Back on the big screen in a new print that serves well the excellent naturalistic photography by Chris Menges (whose first feature film this was), the 75-year-old Loach's 1969 masterpiece of social criticism and humanist cinema is at the centre of the current well-deserved celebration of his 50 years as a film-maker. David Bradley is wonderful as the semi-literate Yorkshire schoolboy from a sink estate who shows up the inadequacy of the educational system by mastering a complex book on falconry to train a kestrel that becomes a symbol of freedom and spiritual affirmation in a world of cruelty and willed indifference. The bird's destruction and burial are as tragic, affecting and socially meaningful as anything in 20th-century art. I note new riches every time I see this film (for example, the noble kestrel is found nesting high in an old ruin from pre-industrial days), as well as happily revisiting such familiar ones as the contrasted teachers,...
- 9/10/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
The leftwing film director talks about the riots, his early work on television and the documentary he made for Save the Children 40 years ago that is about to be screened for the first time
About halfway through our interview, I call Ken Loach a sadist. The mild-mannered, faintly mole-like film director blinks hard, chuckles, and carries on. We are discussing a key aspect of his film-making: the element of surprise. Loach has spent his career depicting ordinary people, telling working-class stories as truthfully as possible, and he works distinctively – filming each scene in order, often using non-professional actors, encouraging improvisation.
They don't tend to see a full script in advance, and move through his films as confused as the audience about what lurks around the next corner. I ask Loach which surprise was most memorable, and he laughs incongruously through a few examples. He talks about an incident when an actor walked through a door,...
About halfway through our interview, I call Ken Loach a sadist. The mild-mannered, faintly mole-like film director blinks hard, chuckles, and carries on. We are discussing a key aspect of his film-making: the element of surprise. Loach has spent his career depicting ordinary people, telling working-class stories as truthfully as possible, and he works distinctively – filming each scene in order, often using non-professional actors, encouraging improvisation.
They don't tend to see a full script in advance, and move through his films as confused as the audience about what lurks around the next corner. I ask Loach which surprise was most memorable, and he laughs incongruously through a few examples. He talks about an incident when an actor walked through a door,...
- 8/29/2011
- by Kira Cochrane
- The Guardian - Film News
Ken Loach brings the horrors of the war in Iraq back home to Liverpool in this gripping conspiracy thriller
All films are political, though most unconsciously so. Along with a handful of others (one thinks of the great Soviet directors of the 1920s, of the Italians Francesco Rosi and Gillo Pontecorvo, of the American John Sayles), Ken Loach is that relatively rare figure, the consciously political film-maker. Only the occasional Loach film lacks some well-considered left-wing agenda, and Route Irish, his response to the war in Iraq, takes up themes he has pursued on several occasions, including crimes committed in the name of the state, the brutalisation of militarism, the exploitation of the demoralised unemployed and the thoughtless ill-treatment of native populations.
Scripted by his regular screenwriter Paul Laverty, Route Irish is a characteristic Loach film, a gripping conspiracy thriller not unlike Hidden Agenda, his film on the Troubles. Quite...
All films are political, though most unconsciously so. Along with a handful of others (one thinks of the great Soviet directors of the 1920s, of the Italians Francesco Rosi and Gillo Pontecorvo, of the American John Sayles), Ken Loach is that relatively rare figure, the consciously political film-maker. Only the occasional Loach film lacks some well-considered left-wing agenda, and Route Irish, his response to the war in Iraq, takes up themes he has pursued on several occasions, including crimes committed in the name of the state, the brutalisation of militarism, the exploitation of the demoralised unemployed and the thoughtless ill-treatment of native populations.
Scripted by his regular screenwriter Paul Laverty, Route Irish is a characteristic Loach film, a gripping conspiracy thriller not unlike Hidden Agenda, his film on the Troubles. Quite...
- 3/20/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
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