|
|
 |
| |
Director Ken Loach with Eric Cantona |
The seagull has landed
Eric Cantona and Ken Loach discuss films, football and philosophy with Dan Carrier
THE voice on the other end of the line was thickly Gallic, and when it announced itself as that of Eric Cantona and said “I have an idea for a film”, Kentish Town-based film director Ken Loach thought it was a friend playing a joke.
Loach, known for his passion for non-leaguers Bath City, was waiting for the punchline: Cantona offering to come out of retirement to play for Bath.
But it actually was the former Manchester United number seven turned actor, and the result of the conversation is the director’s latest film, Looking For Eric.
A tragi-comedy, the film tells the story of Eric (Steve Evets) a Red Devils fan whose life has fallen to pieces: two ex-wives, a pair of delinquent stepsons, and unable to afford the price of a ticket to Old Trafford each week – life for Eric has little meaning.
That is until Cantona appears as a vision in his bedroom to offer friendship and advice to help steer him out of the troubled waters he finds himself in.
The film is out tomorrow (Friday) and, as Loach reveals, the idea came straight from the former footballer.
“When I heard that Eric wanted to speak to me, I thought some one was pulling my leg,” he recalls.
“Eric’s thought was to make a film about his connection with the fans and the reality was I would have swam the Channel just to meet him.”
Cantona told the New Journal that when he hit on the idea of making a film about football, he had to use an English director who would understand the terrace mentality and the relationship between players and fans. And there was only one director for him. As he puts it, his favoured position away from the pitch is “on the left wing”, and Loach’s overtly political films had touched a chord with him in the past.
Loach was instantly drawn to the idea of Eric The King, as those on the Stretford end of Old Trafford still call him, appearing in visions to a fan down on his luck.
“Eric wanted to laugh at himself,” says Loach. “He wanted to help puncture the idea of celebrity culture.”
While Big Eric, as he is known in the film, offers Little Eric advice, the ex-footballer is quick to deflate the image of himself as a quirky, cerebral sportsman, a cross between Zidane and Proust.
“I am not a philosopher and I certainly do not read self-help books,” he says, referring to a scene in the film were Little Eric’s work colleagues try to help him by studying a positive thinking manual.
“I find it funny when people try to analyse what I said about seagulls.” (Referring to constant media attention, Cantona told a press conference in 1995: “When the seagulls follow a trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.”)
Cantona added that he felt a special affinity with the football-mad character whose life he enters. “When I was a child I had a dream to be a footballer, playing with a smile,” he said.
“And when I played I always wanted to play like that. I did not want to be a professional, I just wanted to play, play, play. I would have paid good money to do so. I mean, how much would you pay to play in the FA Cup Final?”
Loach and Cantona went to Old Trafford in secret and heard the old Cantona songs still being sung by the fans. Chaos broke out when someone spotted him on the terraces, and according to Loach grown men approached him, weeping, to shake his hand.
“There is a lot of solidarity and humanity in Ken’s films,” says Cantona. “There is a frailty and a humanity. People are not bigger than others. It is about friendship.”
And there was, as always with a Loach film, a chance for a telling social comment on what was once the People’s Game. Loach notes how English football has changed as the Premiership gravy train steams forward.
“There are many football fans alienated by the fact they can no longer afford to go and see their club play,” he says.
This was an important aspect of the film – it is not just about one man attempting to help his stepsons out of trouble and build a relationship with his ex-wife. As you would expect in a Loach film, it has a strong message of comradeship running through it.
Loach says he loves Premiership football, enjoys watching the games, but recognises the cost, and has a natural political aversion to the big business aspect of today’s game.
“It is important to separate the football from the ownership of the club,” he says. “Alex Ferguson has produced some great teams but you can still question the ownership and the business model behind them.”
The high cost of attending matches nowadays is a theme in the film, as is the way this has taken away a key social event for working class people.
“I only know it as a spectator but to go to a game is very social: you meet the same, quite large group of people and what you have in common is support for the team,” Loach says. “It’s nothing to do with work, it’s nothing to do with anything except the game and that wide selection of disparate people.
“The game is like a gymnasium for your emotions. You experience everything. Hope, sorrow, joy, grief, suspense, anguish and delirious ecstasy when a goal is scored. It is all those things but they’re all contained in a safe framework that – I can’t say it doesn’t matter – but in the end it is only a game, and in the end real life carries on.”
?Looking for a lead
?Ken Loach is known for
casting unknowns in his films, and his unorthodox ways of getting performances from actors. The making of Looking For Eric is no exception: lead Steve Evets was not told Cantona was actually going to play a starring role alongside him.
Loach put in place an elaborate scheme to ensure when Cantona arrives on screen, Steve’s character is genuinely shocked to see his idol standing in his bedroom.
“Surprise is the hardest thing to act and Steve had no idea Eric was going to actually be in the film,” says Loach.
“On the day Eric Cantona was going to be in it we brought him into the house and into the bedroom [where the scene was being shot]. I said to Steve, ‘Right, the light is not quite right; we’re going to put up a bit of black cloth to minimise the reflection. Give us 10 minutes’.
“Steve went outside for a smoke, Cantona hid behind a drape and then we played the scene. Steve was looking towards the life-size Cantona poster and Eric slipped out and stood behind him, and then spoke. He thought it was a Belgian person we had working as a camera assistant.”
|
|
|
Your comments:
|
|
|
|
