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Tony - Guardian unlimited.txt
Aug 29, 1999
ÔA typical reaction was a snigger... I was making a film about the wrong kind
of birdÕ
And do you remember... ?
Play it again, pick a moment
ÔA typical reaction was a
snigger... I was making a film about the wrong kind of
birdÕ
In the Swinging Sixties, nobody
wanted to finance a gritty northern drama about a boy
and his kestrel. But the makers of Kes persisted and
the result was a British classic. Akin Ojumu discovers
the inside story
Sunday August 29, 1999
Tony Garnett: I had read Barry
HinesÕs first book, The Blinder, about a young footballer
and liked it. I was producing the Wednesday play at the
BBC and I asked him if he fancied doing one. He told
me that he had this book in his head and he had to go
away and write it. His response made me warm to him even
more. He was a teacher with a couple of young kids, a
mortgage and so on, but he didnÕt have much money. Literary
novels only earned a few hundred quid in those days.
He would have got a few thousand for a TV play so I said
the offer was still open, but when he finished the book
( A Kestrel for a Knave ) would he let me have a look
at it. As soon as I read it, I thought, letÕs do it.
Barry Hines: I had been a
teacher in several schools in south Yorkshire so it was
familiar ground. I had taught plenty of pupils like Billy
Casper - I knew boys like that - so it was no great feat
of imagination. I was just writing about something I
knew very well. I was just married at the time and my
brother, who was about 18, kept a young kestrel in the
shed at the bottom of the garden so I was able to assist
him in the rearing of it.
Tony Garnett: Ken and I had
been working together for a while for the BBC and we
thought so alike on almost everything. I think too many
of the films made at that time were too didactic and
wore their politics on their sleeve. The joy of working
on BarryÕs material was that the characters really lived
in their own right. Although they were embedded in historical
and political realities, they were always ambiguously
more than that.
Ken Loach: I was struck by
the simplicity of the storyÕs metaphor. It was not too
political. It was basically a story about one boy and
his bird but with plenty to say about working-class culture
and aspirations of that time. WeÕd all seen the social
realism films of the late Fifties and early Sixties and
we [Tony Garnett] both felt that there must be another
way forward from there.
Tony Garnett: We had a budget
of £165,000, but at the last minute the money (from US
distributors National General) fell out. We had a whole
unit standing by in Barnsley to start filming. I went
all round London trying to raise the money. Everybody
said no. A typical reaction was a snigger and I was told
we were making a film about the wrong kind of bird. Eventually
director Tony Richardson (Tom Jones) heard about our
situation. He was riding high at the time. He made one
call to United Artists in America and got us the money.
The studio didnÕt bother us until it was finished. I
donÕt think they even knew where Barnsley was.
David Bradley: Barry actually
used to teach at the school I went to. The film-makers
decided not to go to drama school but instead to secondary
moderns for the child actors. My only experience was
doing several pantos at school, which was great fun.
About 120 kids from local schools auditioned for various
roles. The film was the talk of the town.
Ken Loach: After we found
the school in which we wanted to film [Edward Sheerin
School in Attersley], we were anxious to use kids in
their natural environment. David was perfect for the
part but there were a lot of children there with undiscovered
talent that nobody knows about. Wherever I went for casting,
there were boys who were very imaginative and very inventive.
In retrospect there were other kids who could have done
the same role.
David Bradley: We filmed during
our summer holidays in 1968 and there was a great buzz
around the set. At 14, we were all a bit gawky, which
I think Ken liked. He didnÕt want someone who could speak
clearly or properly. So there would be the occasional
fluffed word or shifting movement from foot to foot during
a speech followed by an embarrassed look.
Colin Welland: I was the only
professional actor with a major role and initially I
felt inhibited by my formal experience. But IÕd been
a teacher for four years so I took to the role like a
duck to water. The classroom scenes were filmed in an
actual school so I spent a week beforehand teaching there
to get to know the boys. Ken wanted people to be as natural
as possible. He wouldnÕt have cast me if I hadnÕt been
a teacher.
Barry Hines: Brian Glover
who played the PE teacher was a friend of mine. We had
taught together. He was an English teacher and professional
wrestler. He used to get his pupils to read plays out
loud and he was very good at acting out the various parts.
I can remember him coming into the staff room after a
lesson, saying, ÔTheyÕve just applauded me out of the
classroom.Õ When he heard about the film, he asked if
there might be a part in it for him and I suggested the
PE teacher who was in charge of the football match.
David Bradley: They chose
the worst day of the summer for that scene. They had
a local fire engine come round and flood the field with
hundreds of gallons of water. Although it was August,
it was bloody cold and freezing.
Ken Loach: The football episode
in the novel was hilarious and like the rest of the film
it came directly from BarryÕs novel. But Brian Glover
was a real find and he made the scene so memorable.
David Bradley: I started work
about 8.30 in morning and finished about four in the
afternoon. Then IÕd go to the HinesesÕ house in Hoyland
and train the kestrel. We had three that were named after
the shoe-store chain Freeman, Hardy and Willis. Freeman
is the kestrel that flies fairly low to ground, whereas
Hardy flies from a fairly high vantage point and he would
swoop down at me. Willis, unfortunately, was completely
neurotic and psychotic and we couldnÕt use him. Hardy
was the one I trained.
Barry Hines: My brother Richard
trained the kestrels and he did wonders on a tight schedule.
ItÕs not like working with a trained dog. A kestrel has
to be the right weight. They only fly if theyÕre hungry
so we would weigh them before a scene and if they were
too heavy they had to wait to shoot the scene. It was
imperative that Billy had to appear able to fly the birds
but he wasnÕt a natural. There was something magical
about kestrels. They demanded an instant respect but
David had none of that. He wouldnÕt have known a sparrow
from an eagle. It took about a month of quite intensive
training, but in the end he pulled it off.
David Bradley: I grew quite
attached to the kestrels by the end of the shoot. I couldnÕt
believe it when they said they had to kill him for the
end sequence. I was really miffed when it came to do
that sequence and it was quite upsetting. In fact they
found a kestrel in Scotland that had died of natural
causes. So after we filmed those scenes I went back up
to Hoyland, apparently to train Freeman but Hardy was
there. I later realised that they were trying to create
an emotion for the scene and I wasnÕt upset with them
for the deception.
Colin Welland: Ken was always
trying to surprise the actors. In the school assembly
scene Ken had organised a real member of staff to pick
a particular boy who had been coughing and drag him out
of the room. At the last minute, Loach told the actor
playing the headmaster to pick a completely different
teacher who obviously chose the wrong child. So in the
finished film, the unlucky boy was really protesting
his innocence as heÕs dragged out into the hallway. There
was a tremendous freshness about that scene.
Ken Loach: There was a standard
way of making social-realist type films that involved
lots of hand-held camera which followed the characters
around and that sort of thing. I wanted to avoid all
that. Kes was a break from the whole style IÕd been using
since Up the Junction. I turned my back on trying to
make things look too cinematic.
Barry Hines: I was on set
every day and saw the rushes. I could tell it was going
to be good. I had seen the TV plays that Ken and Tony
had made and thought, ÔYes, thatÕs the real thing.Õ If
they couldnÕt make a good job of it, no one could.
Tony Garnett: After we had
edited the film, I showed it to a visiting United Artists
executive at a private viewing. He watched it in silence.
When it finished he didnÕt even break stride, he walked
past me and said, ÔI would have preferred it in Hungarian.Õ He
didnÕt understand a word of it so obviously they wouldnÕt
release it.
Colin Welland: They wouldnÕt
release the film in the States without dubbing it first,
which Ken refused. I also remember one of the American
studio guys wanted us to shoot another, happier ending,
where Mr Farthing gets Billy a job at the zoo.
Ken Loach: I donÕt remember
if anyone proposed changing the ending, but itÕs the
kind of crass thing we heard from the studio people.
Barry Hines: The thing that
delighted me the most was that Tony, Ken and I were on
the same wavelength. We made the film we wanted to without
any interference from Hollywood.
Tony Garnett: It took a year
to persuade anyone to release the film. In the end, ABC
bought the film but they were nervous. Fortunately we
got a bit of help from the press, who loved it. ABC opened
Kes in five cinemas around Yorkshire because they felt
it needed subtitles south of Nottingham. It was only
after it broke all the house records there that they
were persuaded to try it down south. We made the film
for the moment. All we tried to do was make an impact
on the politics of the day.
The main players
Ken Loach, director and co-screenwriter.
Acclaimed film-maker. Credits include: Raining Stones,
My Name is Joe.
Tony Garnett, producer and
co-screenwriter. TV producer. Credits include: This Life,
Cardiac Arrest and Between the Lines.
Barry Hines, novelist and
co-screenwriter. Still a respected novelist and TV screenwriter.
David Bradley, actor, Billy
Casper. Former child star, but adult career faltered.
Currently unemployed.
Colin Welland, actor, Mr Farthing.
Writer and actor. Won Best Screenplay Oscar for Chariots
of Fire.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian
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