Anyway, I watched it again this evening having found it on Amazon Prime. I do not believe that it has been available there for very long so I was delighted to locate it.
Of course I have been thinking about "Kes" a lot recently and in my conversations with Richard Hines and his wife Jackie, "Kes" has naturally featured as an on-going topic. Richard's more famous brother - Barry Hines - was the author of "A Kestrel for a Knave" upon which the film was based. However, it was Richard himself who inspired the idea that the central character would be a school write-off who trained a kestrel because that is exactly what he had done.
A couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to learn from Richard that Barry's principal motivation for the book had not really been to tell the story of a working class nobody who trained a kestrel but to "shake up the education system" in this country.
This evening, I re-engaged with what is one of my very favourite scenes in the film. In an English classroom, the teacher, Mr Farthing, is encouraging the class to grasp the difference between fact and fiction. Billy Casper, the main character, is urged to stand up and talk about his "hawk". Reluctant at first, he becomes more engaged and the rest of the class - including Mr Farthing listen with wrapt attention.
There are many different versions of what is England and indeed what is Yorkshire. "Kes" speaks for the downtrodden with kindness and anger as well as northern grittiness. This is testament to the team that made it - principally Barry Hines, the director Ken Loach and the producer Tony Garnett. Together, in spite of a very limited budget, they created a kind of magic.
"Kes" is admired to this day as a cinematic and cultural milestone. Just this morning, I listened to Mark Kermode and Jarvis Cocker discussing the film on BBC Radio 4. It means a lot to both of them just as it means a lot to me.
And who was the unseen falconry expert during the filming - never seen but just off camera? Why none other than Richard Hines himself. Those six weeks in the summer of 1968 changed Richard's life forever.
Chris Menges was the DOP and Roy Watts the editor.
ReplyDeleteMenges used long lenses and natural lighting, Cinema Verite.
David Bradley as Billy Caspar was outstanding as were the boys.
These moments in young lives pass so quickly and I was reminded of
Truffaut's The 400 Blows, The Red Balloon, The Spirit of the Beehive.
Kes belongs with those masterpieces. It may well rank the highest.
As a student I went back twice to the Friday evening debating society
in my comprehensive. Most of the children there were girls of 14-16.
I saw how quickly childhood passes. How children at that age are looking
for guidance, understanding, acceptance, meaning, creativity.
.
Then it passes and they go out to work and forget their dreams.
Very gripping. I find that at this age I don't get the English accent anymore so I miss most of it.
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