Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this page
'The Wind That Shakes The Barley' set visit
Dave Calhoun catches up with Ken Loach on location in Ireland.
Jul 18 2005
'In your own time, and off you go,' says Ken Loach calmly to two of his actors as another scene rolls on his latest, Irish-set film 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley', ditching the traditional yell of 'Action!' for a gentler, more characteristic approach.
This is Loach's first period tale since 'Land and Freedom' (1995), and there are certainly parallels between this new film and that earlier story of internal struggle among freedom fighters during the Spanish Civil War.
This time, Loach's focus is the lead-up to the Irish Civil War of 1922 and the complexities of Ireland's struggle for independence at a grass-roots level. Once again, the director is showing concern for ordinary people who organise themselves to fight against foreign or oppressive rule.
The film has contemporary significance too. While 'Land and Freedom' reflected the problem of fascist resurgence in mid-'90s Europe, so the occupation of Iraq is surely not irrelevant to this new project.
We're in Bandon, a small town about half an hour outside Cork. Loach and two of his lead actors – Cillian Murphy ('28 Days Later', 'Batman Begins') and Liam Cunningham – are squeezed into a grey, windowless room in the basement of a former town hall.
Today, this dismal and cramped space represents an austere prison cell in County Cork in 1919. Dressed in period gear, Murphy and Cunningham are playing two captured members of Ireland's organised, armed resistance to British rule; they are members of one of the Irish Republican Army's 'flying columns'.
Neither character is a celebrated political figure or legendary military leader as this film is not a grand historical epic driven by well-known personalities and events.
Instead, Loach is exploring this tumultuous period in Irish history via fictional characters: two brothers, Damien (Murphy) and Teddy (Padraig Delaney), and their friend Dan (Cunningham). All three abandon their former lives to help execute a violent underground campaign against British rule.
'It's about the civil war in microcosm,' explains Loach's producer Rebecca O'Brien, a veteran of nine Loach films.
Several other key crew members – such as cinematographer Barry Ackroyd and sound mixer Ray Beckett – have also worked with Loach for years.
'It's not a story like 'Michael Collins', O'Brien continues. 'It's not seeking that sort of biographical accuracy, but rather will express the themes of the period. This is the core of the later Troubles, which is why it's so fascinating to make.'
Loach and his crew have been on location in Cork for five weeks now. Almost the entire cast are from the area, even Cillian Murphy the lead actor, who's better known, has a local pedigree.
The film has lingered long in Loach's mind. O'Brien explains that he first thought of telling the 'Irish story' when he made the inter-war drama series 'Days of Hope' for television in the mid-'70s.
Indeed his long-time screenwriter Jim Allen was working on a script (then titled 'The Stolen Republic') when he died in 1999. Two years ago, Loach's most recent writer, Paul Laverty ('Carla's Song', 'Ae Fond Kiss') took up the baton and has approached the story from scratch with a new script and an intense period of research in Ireland.
Later the same day, Loach fills a local hall with around 70 extras, old and young, all of whom are dressed up for a rousing ceilidh scene which takes place in that brief period of peace and optimism between the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 and the outbreak of civil war the next year.
A local band – including a singer with a fantastic bird's nest of a white beard – plays traditional Irish party songs and the crowd dances wildly. Photos of heroes of the 1916 Easter Rising – James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett, Padraig Pearse – line the wall and the Irish tricolour flag hangs behind the stage .
Loach gives a quick pep-talk to the crowd: 'It's the summer of 1921, and you're all either members of a flying column or at least Republicans, and so are very enthusiastic about Irish culture. There's a real bar, but please don't go too wild. Still, this is a big film, so we can afford a drink for all of you.'
O'Brien, the producer, rolls her eyes in mock-horror at the words 'big film'. 'It's costing the equivalent of about four-and-a-half Batmobiles,' she later jokes. She then explains how costly it is to ensure the accuracy of the period detail, pointing to a modern phone box that the crew obscured with a horse-and-cart for an earlier scene rather than pay £400 for its temporary removal.
Before the party scene kicks off, Loach comes over for a quick word. 'It's typical, you managed to be here this morning for the only scene in which the word 'socialism' is used,' he grins, referring to an earlier prison-cell conversation between Damien and Dan in which they quote a speech by James Connolly, one of the martyrs of the Easter Rising.
Loach is quite aware of those detractors who criticise him for banging the political drum. 'But why do we shy away from these issues?' asks O'Brien. 'People fear politics. But here we're always trying not to shy away, to lay out the facts in a grown-up way. We don't want to pander to the lowest common denominator. We want to raise discussion.'
To read Dave Calhoun's Cannes review of 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley', click here.
And to read news of the film's Palme d'Or win, click here.
User comments on this story
-
- co said...
- in reply tony, i was an extra aswell and i think all your going to get is 52 euro!!! Posted on Mar 31 2006 09:36
- Report as inappropriate
-
- Emer Linehan said...
- When is the flim out?? also, how do i get tickets for the opening night... Posted on Mar 21 2006 18:18
- Report as inappropriate
-
- tony nichol said...
- i was an extra in this film and still i am waitng for my payment of 75 euro for a days work Posted on Mar 18 2006 16:55
- Report as inappropriate
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your comment now