Riffraff: A Blue-Collar Comedy by Ken Loach - A Working Class Tale of Stevie, Prove d'esame di Lingua Inglese

Scarica Riffraff: A Blue-Collar Comedy by Ken Loach - A Working Class Tale of Stevie e più Prove d'esame in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! Reviews/film; a Blue-Collar Comedy in English, subtitled by Vincent Canby This journalist talks about "Riffraff," Ken Loach's comedy about a nonunion construction worker in London. He says that this is the kind of English movie that could never be made in America, because of the social structure: Britain still has a working class. The film is written by Bill Jesse, with English subtitles to translate the argot and the often impenetrable regional accents, "Riffraff" is about a couple of months in the life of Stevie (Robert Carlyle), a skinny, taciturn young man who has come to London from Scotland to find work. Stevie is not his real name but, having a prison record, he is trying to start fresh. Stevie goes to a construction site where the old Princess of Wales Hospital building is being renovated as a luxury apartment block and he says he's looking for a job. The foreman is not being friendly. Stevie is hired and quickly accepted by his new mates: white, black, English, Irish, Scottish and Caribbean. The dialogue is often hilarious, even with the subtitles. Characters emerge as individuals, not types. With the help of Larry (Ricky Tomlinson), an older construction worker who functions as the film's social conscience, Stevie finds a rat-infested "squat" in an abandoned apartment block. After his friends help clean up the place and reconnect the gas line, Stevie has surprisingly adequate housing. He begins an affair with Susan (Emer McCourt), a pretty, emotionally wan young woman who wants to be a singer. Unfortunately, Susan has a terrible voice and no great drive, which Stevie refuses to recognize at first. The difference between them is that Stevie learns in the course of this summer, and Susan never does. She has moods. She gets depressed. "Depression is for the middle class" says Stevie. Jobs being as scarce as they are in London today, no great efforts are wasted on safety at Stevie's site. There are accidents. The men beef, but they express their dissatisfactions at the risk of being fired. By the end of "Riffraff," Stevie has been radicalized. Mr. Loach has been turning out socially and politically committed films and documentaries since 1967, when he made his feature-film debut with "Poor Cow," a movie whose sincerity seemed artfully contrived. His biggest popular success remains "Kes" (1969). Of his later films, "The Gamekeeper" (1980) and "Singing the Blues in Red" (1986) have been the most interesting and now comes "Riffraff," a movie full of an exuberance that has not been apparent before.