Looks and Smiles | |
---|---|
Directed by | Ken Loach |
Written by | Barry Hines |
Produced by | Raymond Day Irving Teitelbaum |
Starring | Graham Green Carolyn Nicholson |
Cinematography | Chris Menges |
Edited by | Stephen Singleton |
Music by | Marc Wilkinson |
Production companies | Black Lion Films Kestrel Films |
Distributed by | ITC Entertainment |
Release date |
|
Running time | 104 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Looks and Smiles is a 1981 British drama film directed by Ken Loach. It is based on the novel of the same name, written by Barry Hines. The film was entered into the 1981 Cannes Film Festival, where Loach won the Young Cinema Award. [1]
In an interview for the book Loach on Loach, the director said that the title of the film is taken from a line from Anton Chekhov: "How did girls attract boys when they were young? In the usual way - with looks and smiles." [2]
A disadvantaged young man tries to get by in Margaret Thatcher's England. Writing in his book The Cinema of Ken Loach, Jacob Leigh comments: "Looks and Smiles reveals the depression people felt in the industrial North of England in the 1980s; but it is as depressing as Mick's life. ... Loach's characteristic attention to detail renders the film a period piece." [3]
The film was shot in black-and-white entirely on location in Sheffield. [3] There is some Yorkshire dialect in the film, although not as much as in previous Loach-Hines collaborations such as Kes and The Price of Coal .
A review in The New York Times gave the film a positive review and praised the acting, but complained about Loach's policy of using the actors' natural accents on the grounds that that "a great deal of the dialogue remains unintelligible to the American ear." [4]
A 2016 Guardian article wrote, "Even the most devoted fan found 1981’s Looks & Smiles painfully miserable". [5]
When asked why he was unhappy with the film in an interview for Loach on Loach, Ken Loach said, "It's too lethargic and gently-paced and when I think about it now I want to give it a kick up the arse." [6]
Ken Loach considered the film a failure and turned to making documentaries for several years afterwards, [7] saying that the film failed to "create the outrage in the audience that should have been there". [8] He also considered it "the end of an era" as he avoided long camera shots in subsequent films. [8] In support of the film, it has been held up as one of Ken Loach's film that does not propagate one political view heavily, as opposed to Fatherland [9] or Land and Freedom [10]
The Wednesday Play is an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 for six seasons from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually original works written for television, although dramatic adaptations of fiction also featured. The series gained a reputation for presenting contemporary social dramas, and for bringing issues to the attention of a mass audience that would not otherwise have been discussed on screen.
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Melvin Barry Hines, FRSL was an English author, playwright and screenwriter. His novels and screenplays explore the political and economic struggles of working-class Northern England, particularly in his native West Riding/South Yorkshire.
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Robert William Bowes was a British actor and teacher whose only film role was as headmaster Mr Gryce in the 1969 adaptation of Barry Hines' book "A Kestrel for a Knave".
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The Gamekeeper is a 1980 British drama film directed by Ken Loach. It is based on a novel of the same name by Barry Hines. It competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. As with Barry Hines's other scripts, most of the dialogue is in Yorkshire dialect.
The 63rd Cannes Film Festival took place from 12 to 23 May 2010. American filmmaker Tim Burton served as jury president for the main competition. Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul won the Palme d'Or, the festival's top prize, for the drama film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.
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"In Two Minds" is a television play by David Mercer commissioned for The Wednesday Play anthology drama series. First transmitted on 1 March 1967, it was directed by Ken Loach and produced by Tony Garnett and features Anna Cropper in the lead role.
Kenneth Charles Loach is an English filmmaker. His socially critical directing style and socialist views are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty, homelessness, and labour rights.
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