ah, i'm african returns here we're going underground, amatory sleeves, allegations predicted stagflation and the new cold war you'd be forgiven for thinking politics had gone back to the 20th century. well, just in time, to remind us how little has changed. the british film institute new season featuring the complete works of oscar nominated palm door and back to winning director mike lee. along with ken loach, he's one of the great chroniclers of the working class experience in britain, his films, which explore issues from gentrification to fetch, right. alienation to the people who massacre resonate as much. now, as they did when they were made, his retrospective runs until the 30th of november, and he joins me now from land. mike, welcome to going underground to the british film institute, celebrating your entire career. they say your films bring stories of ordinary

working class people to screen with honesty and empathy. fair enough description may be missing out of playfulness. what do you think? well, i think it does, but it also is absolutely true that a lot of my films and characters are working class, but they're not all. i mean, i think for me it's all about humanity. and in fact, you'll find people of all shapes and sizes, including a middle class, lower middle class, and indeed upper middle class people. and even the occasional prosper. and my move is because i not really only concerned in a narrow way to tell stories about so called working class. i want to explore those issues of classa. chiefly, actually, in a moment, i don't know whether you've seen squid game really popular on netflix, the director, one gong york saying he should have negotiated a royalty deal with netflix rather than a deal which doesn't have royal is given. they made 3 quarters of

a 1000000000. i think people around the world knowing the amount of awards you of one for your work, little and your actors. are going to be shocked that you ever have struggle to finance your films. as i got easier now or is it more? no, actually, it's got actually got harder at the moment. i'm having a real battle trying to find any backing at all. so those people around the world who might have been shocked to hear what happened in the past will be double shocked. there was probably in the present. is it, is it not so much a lack of her so much about film funders, thinking they want their return or investment or a lack of comprehension of your work? well, i don't think it's a lack of comprehension of the work. actually, what it to, to some considerable extent is, is that as you may know, i don't work conventionally. i don't to present a script because there isn't one. and i don't say what the film is going to be

about because we embark on a journey on maturity of making the film to discover what the film is. and with the exception of my 3 historical topsy turvy, mr. turner and peter lew where i was able to say it's about this, but that's all i did is simply make that one line state. all of my films have been made on the basis of backers saying, well, we don't know what it's about, what we trust you and go off and make a trill. what i do with my, all my collaborators, both sides of the camera, is to do what painters are novelists and poets, and sculptors and musicians do, which is to create work and allow it to emerge from the investigation. that is the execution of the work. and so it's not so much to answer your question. it's not so much like compression about what my films are, because whatever else they are,

they're not is a terrific or obscure. it's more that people are cautious about putting money into things to the don't know what they're going to get and also not having some control over it, not interfering with it. not to him having their fingers all over it. peter big live, now that the most successful netflix film of all time or series of all time is centered on the issue of capitalism and class means it's a good time. for filmmakers who look at contradictions and the class a class, you're talking to the wrong person. you should be talking to netflix, not the base. they've turned me down. as a matter of fact, i know famous thea, you tell the story of how some fund is. ask you to abandon your whole model of a theatrical company style of recruitment within the, into your films, and try and get celebrities or you might want to remind us about the lead, the absurdity of it. and what you think?

because some people might say, orson welles couldn't get, he spent his entire life abandoning projects that he wanted to get on. we had all of a stone on here talking about how he had to abandon the my lai massacre film, which arguably would have been so important to a project. so, i mean, isn't this the tale of woe, by all great directors? well, it's certainly the tale of woe for many of us. i mean, i know you've had my friend and com. right. and colleague ken loach on your program . how can a smart he makes very low budget, phil and her does exactly what he wants. i tend to because it takes me time in a way they production values of more complex than perhaps his kind of films which are wonderful and it becomes more difficult. but you know, you're right. it is. the problem with move is, is there not paintings?

and then on novels they are complicated things, cost money involve a lot of stuff, you know. i mean, they're going to do you use room at the top. i know is mentioned in the mike lee or mike lee bush, but then you say your use your knowledge about what it is to be young and withdrawn from society, mentioning salinger's books and james, dean films, very important. the american idea alienated youth the somewhere in the background of all your films. no, certainly. i mean, you know, i was, i suppose, pretty much the age of its hero. when catcher in the rye was published more or less maybe slightly on a year or 2 younger. but look, here's the thing we who were born in the war and i was born in 1943. what teenagers and the 1950s that terribly repressive,

squeaky clean world, which only later did we understand was the way it was because our folks have been to hell and back in world war 2. and then of course, we all literally let our hair down in 900. 60 not world was a world where we were aware of the american culture, of course, apart from anything else, i watched movies. absolutely as much as anyone would like me. as much as you could afford throughout my childhood and teenage years, but i never saw in the whole of that time and i saw the film all the time. i never saw a film that wasn't in english. everything i saw was either hollywood movie or a british. and so for made that massive explosion, apart from other cultural things in terms of movies was when i went came to london in 1960 compared to study acting. i'm and of course i discovered well cinema

and it was a, it was a massive, massive explosion. of course. yeah, i mean there, but again and felina, he comes up with your name and many descriptions of things. i mean, i watch high hopes the the other day and they looked like a film are going to be made yesterday. we've had wars, obviously, since world war 2 that arranged all around the world inequality is higher than when you made some of your films. are back in the late eighties. i mean, also we now have, am the word socialism used by us politicians. and before scarce darma came in, we had a socialist leader, a labor body. do you find that her? your work is now. this is the time for all the stuff you her doing before is even more. and i think you have to unpack coin to sack. well, a lot of a lot of those foreign films, famously, i presume you're referring to the new well vog her film. now you want to be able to

see and you know, many associated with the communist party, obviously with john and got her. are you you followed and are associated with socialist frill films that attack thatcher. thatcher is in particular. do you find that now? is it even better time films like that to attack a privatization and the effects on the poor? i'm honest, i am. this is the question was no answer. i think you say here's the thing. i. if i understand the spirit of the question, you're asking me somewhere in the is the premise. but what i do is make socialist films or i make films that are in some way propagandist. now i don't, i don't, i, i've never made a film without a simple direct clear message. my films are implicitly political on the

whole. i would say you could describe my films. they political with a small pay. my last film play to live up retailer masika. in 1819 is the only film that is plainly about politics are such but my films are political in the sense that they are all concern with how we live, how we treat each other, how we survive, the economics that underpin how we live, etc, etc, etc. but they are nasa girls with simple messages and i defy anybody to declare a simple single singular message, any of my films. and so, in the complex and i leave you at the end of ritual, or it's not all where much to think about to do face to reflect on.

because my primary job is not to make propaganda. it's to put all the screen people in a real creed, dimensional way, with all the complexities and contradictions, with all of us, embodying as any good film would, would be arguably, people would say that i think ice, but, you know, i mean, it's interesting if you have a very interesting tendency which i, i respect to, as we talk about my let to keep or what have a need to refer back to all what, all the other film. i mean, what you just said is true for some guys, movies, but that also was great films which are very simple and direct in terms of what they are about, what the message is. i have not to make those kinds of yeah, i mean, i don't know with using our zoos. tell your story about age and i know that's it. that's a frequent element of your film work. the importance of age. and of course,

a big debate here with that old social care. now only on the agenda. no one's going to say that has one way or the other about age. as part of the retrospective of my films and london, i was also asked to choose, offered us another films, not by me, that i in some way or other regardless and inspirational interests. and one of them is in the story. i'm a guy was a great player inspired by zeus phil. i need the early. busy from carousel domestic but particularly also yeah, i mean, the great thing about those films, not least story, is that the deals implicitly when they, if you like, politics of how we let you know, why is it a pamphlet or piece of propaganda?

likely i'll stop you then more from the oscar nominated palm to a winning likely after this ah ah new york, it's really what america is about. ah! when our mayor took our place, he was elected because of his campaign on our city, being a tale of 2 cities, the house and i have none. and those who have not are usually the ones who weren't being buried on holiday. the city is always wanted to forget about how loud city is wanted to forget about the people who are buried there. wanted to forget about the fact that there is a potters field that there is a place where difficult stories are in the fact that we're using inmates to

maintain this active burial site. where 1000000 souls are buried. where so much of new york city history is buried is document of the quality that is existed in the city for centuries. ah, a welcome back. i'm still here with the oscar nominated palm door winning director mike lee. i wanted to ask you about the delux then, because around the world, people are not going to necessarily know about that mask a. why is it that i do the i was even taught about the beach lou massacre. i think you've said in the past, you weren't tell me about the air, was it but the, the air brushing off to be 2 months ago out of history that inspired you to make that film. well, actually it's a complex matter. this is gonna be. yeah, but i mean, it was very, very well, widely known about in some quarters and but whichever way you look at it,

it is and was an important event because it was about the franchise. i mean, 2 percent of the population had the vote and they were all along the male under time. and the real point is not what the patient must current sell me the pizza, the massacre in 1819 itself. but what it actually means for us in terms of democracy now, i mean, you yourself have been saying a few minutes ago about talking about the relevance of things. now, when we started to prepare in 2014, after we've made mr. colonel from a painter. in no time, our preparation proceeded. we found ourselves saying this is becoming increasingly relevant to increasingly high pressure. and indeed, i mean, you know, we know the things that have happened in the world since 2014,

2015 and continued to do so. it's about democracy about having that voice. i think people are going to be excited, sad to know them. i mean, i don't know where the butcher lou cheese nova chen to have any cuts, because he had to really find money and they actually remove all episodes. i understand you wanted to maybe have an element of the engine easy volcano explosion that change your time to blanket mode. you have to raise whole sections for people or? yes, i didn't. i don't think that's the same thing. what's not in peter lewis because we didn't come from money because peter lou, if anyone seen the more interested it contains $1.00 slight of hand cheat which is with it, starts with a bottle of waterloo in 1815. and it ends with the peculiar, muscular 1919. now within the space of the film,

the audience does not says i thinking 4 years ago and passed. and indeed, if we actually did log all the relevant things that happened in the world, including the, the great volcanic eruption and indonesia, which, which made meant that there was no summer anywhere in europe. and it affected everything, not least what people had to eat, including all events that happened between those 2 dates. the film would have lasted for about 9 weeks. it really doesn't come under the heading of the things we didn't happen cause we couldn't to for them. on the other hand, when we were about to make, we were talking about making for j. m w, turn it right pain. so i said, we have to have a sequence in venice. we have to go to venice, turn a painted, vanish. it's an important part of his work and his journey. we have to see vanish after experience. well, you've been to venice,

everybody listening who's been to venice knows you only not to walk across san marco punch. why a contract on it? cost you off your mortgage, basically, most expensive place in the world. my producers said look, either way, make the film. and we don't go to that, we don't make the film. and we made the film and we didn't go to venice. of course, once you get down to it, you know miss venice moved because we tell the story and would see available elements on it's not really lost, but it's illustration of what you told me is where the wood koren gene was 1st coined. and actually it was empty, empty because of the panoramic. i know as an ira, i mean i suppose it coming off there. i'm sure some of your fans would love to see films that you direct in foreign locations. when you mentioned ken loach earlier, he did get to do nicaragua and the spanish civil war film. i mean,

will you have future plans ever to because the style and the same company and provides ation and stuff in a different, more epic landscape of some kind. there are 2 things about this. one is that the important thing is that although my shows are very, very specific and that you know, cultural, melia, etc, etc. because i think all has to be specific in one way or not. the actual my films are about is not parochial, etc. and the universe will subjects, i'm not really too bothered about making films around the world sake of the landscapes. i'm more concerned with being able to explore. busy and investigate, i'm percent, and people in relationships and how we live in the as i've already said, i wasn't saying they were killed. but say, i mean you have

a passionate belief in the un resolutions on palestine. you never wanted to do anything about the middle east, for instance. well, no, i have, i actually dealt with in a stage play called 2000 years at the national theater. up to now haven't dealt with it in a film, but who knows what i might do? yeah, filming probably always a, always a difficult or easy. some people say it very difficult to get palestine films accepted by the oscars and funding and so on. you. well, that's not really relevant to what we're talking about. well, i mean, the most famous, certainly here in britain obviously is abigail's policy. i haven't followed this, but i remember the criticisms made about this that somehow it was patronized. very interesting how you took the criticism head on about whether your patronizing about working classes or explain that in a sense it's a double double trick and anyone who doesn't see that doesn't really understand

what abigail's policy is about. well, i mean, the famous a ton of appeals fuzzy was the late playwright dennis potter, and he simply said it was one long slayer. well, i mean that my main reaction to that in a nutshell is it's not about to play stage play, which we did on television, not actually. it's not a play about them. it's a play about us, not really sums up what i think about when i was in that that was showing people how they are. there was a film, a flash is a play about aspiration and superficial value and all of that. but that's not the snare that i mean, if you want to say it's a lemon. taishan of some kind of the same time is generally deemed by most people

to be extremely funding. you know, when i'm watching the retrospective, people are going to think a mobile phone or technology will change the plot points here in there because people know, having mobile phones. obviously that's a very, very good and interesting point. and i'm what i've been very aware of the last film i made, those contemporary film i made was called another. yeah, we made it 12 years ago. now i'm mobile. i was given that they weren't bad, but they didn't really and play any significant. since i've already made 2 phones, one second the i never had a 190. it had been, well, i thought you're absolutely right. i mean, i know i can't walk down the street without somebody bumping into mail. then i started in

a korean lunch time. things yesterday with my mom who both amused that there was a woman sitting that's an adjacent table simultaneously with her teenage son that was similar tenuously eating a boat launch both of noodle soup at the same time is play chess from each other on my mobile. which i think really robs a game of chess a bit. focus on it certainly takes the focus of the bowl of noodles. they're going to be exciting elements of new film. so although you can tell us about the next project i was see, i wasn't meaning to go down that technological deidra i was going to say that say in their home, sweet home, one of your films, or whether a postman. and you think many of your characters in these fields and recognize the levels of privatization that have happened since those dramas of occurred in terms of i mean the as their seeds with trains and so on. everything, whether it be royal male, british rail gas water buses is now privatized. well,

some wood, some wood, some wood, one to where the hell a were, and others would, would get it. i mean, that's all i can say. i mean, you don't think you don't think. i mean, i think you been self critical about the a caricature as of upper class people are yuppies or people say, and i, and i hope you don't think that it's just break in alienation. you're supposed to shock the audience when you talk about a certain classes versus other classes. oh yes, i mean that's exactly what it was. no question about that. and, and i mean, if you're talking about high hopes, i mean there are, in a way there are, there are 3 couples. and each of them is rendered it to put it as well crudely than it is of, in a sense, a trend in a different style. the central characters are the sort of heroes. like absolutely

real the people you're referring to who move in next door, a caricature, but they're still real on the stuff they are. was that even shop at just got it. they're all real, but there are but i'm not educators that you're absolutely. now you mentioned it would certainly relate to resonate with principles of a nation, but it's any way of looking at people who would be greatly inspired and influenced by the great caricature and cartoonists. and you look at those, you definitely see the real world, but there's no way that i don't like to use the word, but that's exaggeration. this still is the essence of. so that's what i'm concerned with and, and i'm very harsh edge against her power. clearly, when i know you were you very keenly on to say, you know, it's, it's a, maybe

a political filmmaking on the searches will make. but even, i mean, if you, if you look at your renoir, if you look at casa gav, receive all the great felina who are these high communist actors. i know you are famous around the world in the western world for very championing and changing the lives of so many actors around the world. no one would have seen, arguably, none of them ever did by karl marx's burial ground, where he's buried in highgate, in north london. the reality is that these guy, i mean this was couple and the guy took several character in the phil is seen himself in socialist. and it seemed very natural to them to go not very far from why we had them living in kings cross to visit karl marx is a great, i guess i'm a true that just seems a natural thing for them to do. and of course, it has a symbolism as a meaning anarchist. one of the things about that is that when i made the film,

i had not long before that. i spent a month by myself travelling through china, the people's republic of china, which is quite an experience which we could talk about on another occasion. so, and when i went to i get on the tree by way of thinking about the scene in the film on the search on 2 occasions. there were but gangs of tourists from the people's republic of china and hitting them getting the gray. so i thought let's have that in the film, so we actually got o gang of real ones. and then they came and took part in the scene and they knew exactly what to do because they know what he visited. i guess i'm a teacher. i how much co marks his grade and, you know, sometimes the meaning of things simply happens in due

course rather than something that we consciously propagating and certainly internationalize it. finally, just i have to ask you, given, i mean you can name maybe some of the actors who owe their careers to you all around the world that are household names for someone i think something have chat shows in the u. s. i don't know. tell me, tell me why they call it all, help them in this funding exercise so that you will be making, i don't know, films about space travel. oh, interesting thing is, until you mentioned it never occurred to me. what you're saying is, go and go to my rick, james cordon. gary oldman will help you out with. yes, i don't think not to the appropriate line of thought. really. i mean, nice guys. and why would i, you know, i think they should spend their resources on rec, chosen likely. thank you. i give you take care bye.

and my glee, a complete film season runs until the 30th of november to be f i in london, where you can also watch a newly for k remastered version of his film. naked that's over the show will be back on wednesday. you'll then keep in touch with us my role as social media and let us know if you think model cinema really reflects the lives of working people. ah, you and gail rose red hobbs over illegal immigration. guess what means catch the higher cards. also, washington is again increasing tensions within crane is the bike administration looking to score a foreign policy victory to reflect some crises, kaiser's financial survival guide. i don't buy a i guy on the futures. as of friday,

at the last time i buy it from the future cracker watch, kaiser replace ah, unwelcome and desperate sounds of margaret seems you are another freezing night before heavily corded polish border, apparently willing to take even greater risks to get into europe at least in the u . k. declare a taxi explosion outside the hospital in liverpool, on sunday, a terrorist and sort of fallen over arrested in connection with the blas which left one person dead and another injured and he looked on runny sweet europe with australia covering the 1st nation to impose a shut down only for the on racks and i did the to, to your decision has divided public opinion has been gave me when hundreds of thousands of people are forced to be.