The Associated Press
CANNES, France (AP) — Ken Loach isn’t done yet.
The 77-year-old British director said he has “enough petrol in the tank” to probably make a “little one more.” While making his latest film, “Jimmy’s Hall,” Loach suggested it would be his last fictional feature.
But at the Cannes Film Festival, where “Jimmy’s Hall” premiered Thursday, Loach said his retirement announcement was uttered in “a moment of maximum pressure” during production.
“It’s a hard job to give up, really,” said Loach.
“Jimmy’s Hall,” which Sony Pictures Classics acquired for distribution ahead of its debut, is a kind of real-life Irish “Footloose” about the Irish 1930s communist leader James Gralton (Barry Ward) and the dance and schooling hall he opens to the anger of the local conservatives. It’s Loach’s record 12th film in competition at Cannes.
Loach said one of the dispiriting trends in movies he’s witnessed has been the phasing out of film in favor of digital. Loach not only still shoots on film, but he edits on film, too — which is particularly unusual these days.
“You can check on the cricket score, you can get a cup of coffee,” said Loach. “It’s a much more human way of working.”
But while cutting the film Loach and his editors ran out of an out-of-production edge-numbering tape. They sent out “an SOS to all lovers of film” and were rescued by an unlikely savior: Pixar. The digital animation company sent the tape, along with a cartoon of Loach and his team.
— Jake Coyle, AP Film Writer, http://twitter.com/jake_coyle
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