5 - Words: Between script and screen

Summary

To me the writer is king. That’s the creative element in the film.

Ken Loach

There’s sometimes I’ve said to him [Loach] and he’s said, ‘No, I need you to say that.’ But nine times out of ten he’ll let you dae your ain thing as long as you stick to the guideline of the script.

Paul Brannigan

What matters who’s speaking?

Samuel Beckett

Greenock, 2001. I am on the set of Sweet Sixteen interviewing Ken Loach, asking him why he is returning to Scotland to make his third feature film in the country in five years. He responds: ‘If you go where the writer writes well, where he understands the idiom and where the language rings true, you tend to get the better work.’ Loach’s response is indicative of the importance he places on the central role of the writer in the creative process. In contrast to the notion of cinema as individual personal expression, throughout this book I have highlighted the collectivity involved in making the films under discussion, whilst fully cognisant of Loach’s leadership role within the process. In this chapter, I explore how examining the words spoken in The Angels’ Share interrogates conventional understanding of who is speaking in cinema, and, invoking the sentiment in Beckett’s words above, reflect on how it might matter. These concerns relate to Certain Tendencies in Loach’s Cinema (13) follow the writer and (14) screenplay as blueprint, and I start by sketching Loach’s involvement with vari-ous writers before detailing his long-standing partnership with Laverty. I then turn to The Angels’ Share, examining how the script is shaped during production through analysis of draft and published versions of the screenplay, the final film, and deleted scenes contained in the DVD. I draw on my participant observation to analyse the filming of specific scenes – the snooker hall confrontation, sentencing in Glasgow Sheriff Court, and the Balblair distillery whisky shop exchange – and I also utilise information gleaned from interviews with Loach, Laverty, Tony Garnett and the lead actors, and correspondence between Loach and Trevor Griffiths. Finally, I examine the use of the word ‘cunt’ in the filmmaking process and the film itself to illustrate how both actors and outside agents can influence what audiences see and hear.