Quotes from Ken Loach

As a medium, film has great potential, but its use is dominated by big capital.

The job of the director is to make certain that the film has one voice and a sense of a single vision, even though it's produced by a large number of people making contributions - to turn all those contributions from individual voices into one coherent one.

Well, I think by and large, certainly in terms of cinema, American culture dominates our cinema, mainly in the films that are shown in the multiplexes but also in the way that it has a magnetic effect on British films.

When I was young, you were told that if you had a skill, you would find a job for life and you could bring up a family on the wage.

If we believe in the free market, then that leads to the big corporations taking power, that leads to this competition to lower wages, and that leads to precarious work.

Iain Duncan Smith and his regime, they wanted to make the poor suffer and then humiliated them by telling them that their poverty was their own fault and, to demonstrate that, if you're not up to mark then you're sanctioned and the money stops.

Those in power always try to distort reality, to suit their needs and keep things safe.

I don't think films about working class people are sad at all; I think they're funny and lively and invigorating and warm and generous and full of good things.

People who are deaf or hard of hearing need all the support we can give them.

Surprise is something that's very difficult to act.

If you think back to the great French directors it's difficult to think of British film-makers who are comparable.

The BBC is very aware of its role in shaping people's consciousness... it's manipulative and deeply political.

It seems to me the big weakness in most films is the writing. You can learn directing, but you can't learn writing.

The thing is, it's much easier to be a rightwing populist than a leftwing one, because the left always have to explain why things are the way they are. The right can just blame the foreigners.

Film can do lots of things: It can produce alternative ideas, ask questions, just record the reality of what's happening, it can analyze what's happening. Of course, most commercial films are controlled by big corporations who have an interest in not doing those films.

If you're a politician, you can see there might be times when, to secure the greater good, you have to take a backwards step. That is a matter of tactics.

I wasn't from a political family. Nobody talked politics.

Preparation is really important for actors; they need to know who they are, where they're from, and the experiences up to the point that we make the film.

I think people think of auteurs as being a dictator shouting over everyone about his vision. That's not the way I think of auteurs or the way I work.

Every four or five films we've made a film that has gone on TV first. It's quite nice to tap into the TV audience, but it is nice to see it on the big screen too.

I think that's one of the things that sport teaches you. You are only as good as the team around you.

It's a great privilege to make a film, to have it shown, and for people to see it.

If you have a society where a large section believe they are not part of the political discourse, that is a situation for trouble.

My father worked in a factory and as a child it felt very secure. It felt very secure because everybody had work, the schools were free, so there was a security of knowing that the war had finished and families would come together again.