Sixteen Films Ken Loach, right, with "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" Producer Rebecca O'Brien.

The Irish 'Troubles' have proved a powerful draw to filmmakers through the decades, and Ken Loach visits the conflict for a second time in his newest offering, "The Wind That Shakes the Barley." He talks to WGT about his views and his new movie, in this, the second of a two-part interview. (Don't forget to read Part 1).

Gerry Regan: Do you actually set about making a film that will be thought-provoking? It doesn't seem like making money is a real motivator for you.

Ken Loach: No, if only it were. I think that sometimes. But no, you've got to be driven by the material (in the film). Otherwise, it becomes very shallow. I don't know how you would make any judgments about anything if you're not driven by the material and by the stories, by the people you want to put on screen. That's got to be the defining criteria for all the judgments you make about the film, whether it's the script or whether it's the casting, or how it's shot. Everything has to refer back to what is the central core of the idea, and then you judge everything based on that.

That's the first and last obligation, isn't it, to just be as accurate and as truthful you can, to do the complexity of the story justice, as well, as far as possible.

GR: Do you feel, though, that, in that process, you're creating films that may be inaccessible to people who perhaps don't have the breadth of reading or even the interest?

Ken Loach: I hope not. I mean, all you want people to do is go in with an open mind. I hope you don't have to have read anything before you see one of the films we've done, particularly this film.

Photo by Joss Barratt Cillian Murphy, right, and other local actors portray Cork men who confront the oppressors of their people in Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley."

It's all there in the story, (the feel of that) time, the army of occupation, the oppression, the fight-back, ... the victory in getting the Brits out, and then the split, the same people, and why there's a split, you know, how that resolves itself.

I hope it's all there. The intention is that it's all there in an accessible, dramatic form, with people that you care about. ... I'm touching wood as I say it in the hope people weren't just being kind when they said it, but it seems to have been pretty accessible.

GR: I guess the box office would bear that out. It's been a fairly robust box office for a film that was relatively controversial and artsy.

Ken Loach: Considering that they gave us such a limited release in England and Britain, the box office was fantastic. The screen average was incredibly high. I mean, the problem was they just didn't give us enough prints. In Ireland, where we had a lot of prints, it was phenomenal. And just to give you an idea, in Britain, we had 40 prints, about just over 40 prints, I think. In France they had well over 300. I mean, it's crazy, and in Italy they had a lot. They had over 100.

And so, it's balmy that a film that is in the English language gets a small release in Britain. And I think we had nearly double the prints in Ireland that we had in Britain.

GR: When you say number of prints, that would determine how many theaters can show it at a given time?

Ken Loach: Yeah.

Kieron Punch: You say that the British have a problem confronting their imperialistic history, and you hoped that the film would be a little step along the road to challenging that.

It seems that certain aspects of British history can be challenged, (for example, with) films like Attenborough's "Gandhi." But, for some reason, it seems that Britain can't accept any criticism of its role in Ireland. Would you agree?

Ken Loach: It's complicated. ... Part of the fact is that there's still a big current issue about Ireland, and there are more British troops in Ireland now than there are in Iraq, still in the north of Ireland.

So, that island is still occupied in the North, so that makes it an open wound. So anything you say about Irish history, people interpret it according to what they think about Northern Ireland now.

And also, if you suggest that the British army is anything other than a charitable group of people distributing largesse out of the goodness of their heart, if you suggest the British army's got a long history of violence and oppression, or inflicting violence and oppression on behalf of its own ruling class, then the right wing gets very up in arms. They just can't stand that.

But a film like Attenborough's "Gandhi" ... is very definitely a respectable film, but it's the manner in which it's made. ... There are so many establishment voices in it, and I think it stays part of the establishment somehow. And it's the question of how the mood of the film influences what is its message. ... I hate the word "message," but it's what you take from (a film). And what you take ... is not only what it's saying on the surface. If it's full of people that the audience recognizes are safe and they're comfortable with, the message gets blunted.

And I think it's always a big question, how you say what you want to say and not simplify it ... how you say what you want to say but still get the knife between the ribs of the audience. ... Even though you're saying something which is subversive, the film itself (can feel) like a warm blanket.

GR: Can you cite an example in "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" of just that dilemma, or that challenge, if you will?

Photo by Joss Barratt The portrayal of the brutality evinced by British forces in Ireland in "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" is graphic, aided by casting actual British army veterans of the violence in the north of Ireland.

Ken Loach: Well, all the troops, the people who play British soldiers, are -- all the main parts are ex-soldiers, many of them who fought in Northern Ireland. And when we were doing the scenes, I said to them, "Look, I don't want you to behave in any other way except purely as professional soldiers dealing with a hostile civilian population. You show me the technique for doing it." ...

The consequence is there's a wall of sound that they (create) -- an aggression that they (portray) -- when they're capturing people. So, the people who are captured are completely disorientated. That's a military technique. It isn't individuals being violent. That's the technique.

And likewise, when (during the film) they go into the farmyard and everybody's rounded up, they're put against the wall, there again is a sort of constant barrage so that the people don't have time to think. They don't have time to organize any resistance. They're just completely obliterated. And it's a technique, really.

That's one way in which you don't have the friendly British Tommy. This is an occupying army doing what occupying armies do.

KP: That then would counter some of the criticism that I've read, even from some historians. They've said that your characters are very black and white, and all of the British are foul-mouthed English mercenaries kind of thing, whereas there's a variety. You pointed out that there were Auxiliaries there. There were (British) soldiers. There were (Black and) Tans. There were RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary).

Ken Loach: And also, you see, they haven't seen the film. An officer (in the film) cracks up and says, "I can't deal with this." He's traumatized by (his experience fighting in) the First World War. I mean, the people who said that obviously didn't watch that scene, and they didn't watch the scene of the (British) soldier who rescues (Damien, Teddy and others from their British jailers). It's a Scottish soldier. They choose not to see things that don't fit in with their preconception.

GR: Harking back to the film's relevance to modern-day politics in Ireland -- do you find (Sinn Fein leaders) Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness more reflective of what I might term, in the context of the film, a "Free State mentality," with (their promulgation) of the Good Friday Agreement? Or might they represent a more reasoned, nuanced maturation of the Irish people?

Ken Loach: It's a big question. I'm reluctant just to give a glib answer. There's a question of unity of Ireland. There's also the question of what kind of Ireland should be created.

And obviously, time has moved on from 80-odd years, and what was on the cards in the times of James Connolly and just afterwards was a socialist republic. It's going to be an even bigger struggle now to get that back on the agenda.

But, I think nevertheless, it still needs to be on the agenda because, although economics have moved on, they are now in the time of neo-liberalism, where foreign investors will own the industries and own this infrastructure.

And I think the issue of how you obtain social justice, equality of opportunity and economic democracy in the context of a world which is actually destroying its own resources is a huge question. I would like to hear Sinn Fein talk more about that. I'd like to hear them talk about a united Ireland that has a kind of socialist base.

And I'm sure they do say these things but, of course, (the news media would) never report it. We don't get a full report of what they're (saying), how their program is developing.

GR: Your character of Dan, is he intended to channel Ken Loach?

Ken Loach: No, but I think (there are) characters who say things that you agree with and some things that you don't agree with. But if you're a good dramatist or filmmaker, then you've got to give everybody equal weight, and sometimes give the devil the best tunes, as well.

But there were people like Peadar O'Donnell. There were people like Liam Mellows, the guys who took part in the Dublin lockout in 1913. ... The strand of organized labor, was very strong, as you know. And during the War of Independence, there was their slogan, "Labor Must Wait," wasn't there? They put their demands on the back-burner while (embracing the view) 'Everybody unite to get the British out.' There would be some people who wouldn't agree with that. Like, Connolly. He'd say the cause of Ireland is the cause of labor, and that the two are indivisible. And so there would have been a lot of guys around who thought like that. (The character of) Dan just has that history. That's his trajectory. But there are a lot of people, as the publications of the time show, a lot of people who attacked that idea that labor must wait. And Dan would be one of those.

GR: Thank you very much.

Photo by Joss Barratt The character of Sir John Hamilton, third from left, walks between his IRA captors amid the splendor of the hills of West Cork.

GR: Kieron, do you ...

KP: One final question, if I may, Ken. ... Sir John Hamilton, when he was being interrogated, was looking directly at Teddy, and he said, "God preserve Ireland if your kind ever gain control ... (Ireland will become) a priest-infested backwater." Do you feel that when Teddy's kind did take power, that is what Ireland got?

Ken Loach: I think that Teddy's character would not have been happy with what happened, but I think there are many Irish people who say that's what Ireland became. There was a rogue journalist and a filmmaker called Peter Lennon, who made (a documentary in the '60s titled "The Rocky Road to Dublin" about repression and moral corruption in the Catholic Church in Ireland). We saw it just before we made ours, and that's what it was indicating, really that (Ireland) had become a backwater. And what it demonstrated (was) that people continued to leave Ireland in the thousands, for decades at a time. WGT

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