Ken Loach: Food Banks Are Now an Institution
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Ken Loach said his 2016 film 'I, Daniel Blake' depicted a 'cruelty of the system' based on screenwriter Paul Laverty's research, which included a man who hadn't eaten in two to three days and whose flat contained only a fridge and mattress.
- The I, Daniel Blake food bank scene—where Katie pours cold baked beans into her hand and eats them—was based on a real story Laverty heard at a Glasgow food bank, kept secret from the cast except Hayley Squires, and used on the first take because 'the feelings are so intense.'
- Conservative minister Damian Green dismissed the film as 'a work of fiction' upon its 2016 release, with the filmmakers rejecting that characterization and saying the characters are fictional but 'all the stories are true.'
- Hayley Squires said she learned about the food bank scene four days beforehand, had been slightly cutting back on food, and visited a food bank before filming to speak with a 'very bright, very vulnerable lady' who was using it; she described the morning of the shoot as a 'shared secret' with Loach.
- Loach said the film originally asked whether food banks were 'tolerable,' but now describes them as 'an institution in society' and 'extraordinary that we accept that people will starve unless they get food from a charity'—a shift he says was 'simply unimaginable a year or two before we made the film.'
Why it matters: Loach's framing—food banks moving from 'unimaginable' before 2016 to 'an institution in society' now—documents the normalization of charity-based food provision in Britain, while his rejection of Conservative minister Damian Green's 'work of fiction' dismissal underscores that the political dispute the film provoked at release has only sharpened with the trend Loach describes.
Ask SkimNews
