My Name Is Joe (1998) :: Synopsis

Synopsis

The film is set in the G15 postal district of Glasgow in the summer of 1997. We first meet Joe telling his tale to his local Alcoholics Anonymous. He's been on the wagon for a year and he's beginning to feel optimistic about conquering the drink. He's put together a motley football team of rejects from his housing scheme and they're on their way to thrash (or at least survive against) another team when Sarah drives into their path and nearly causes an accident. Joe and Sarah tussle over Liam - key player in the football team but whose presence is simultaneously required by health visitor Sarah who is doing her pre-school check on his little boy, Scott. Joe wins and Sarah storms off to visit Liam's frail junkie partner, Sabine, alone. Joe and Liam are pretty close - Joe keeps an eye on the struggling lad and his family.

On his way home Joe sees Sarah struggling with some rolls of wallpaper and, to make up for his earlier cheek, offers to do the papering for her. While Joe and his friend Shanks are round at Sarah's doing the job, he's spotted at work through the window by a Social Security inspector. In a fury, Joe chases the inspector and paints his car with the paint brush. Later Joe and Sarah share a laugh and a pizza together - he finds himself opening up to her more than he'd expected - there's something very direct and special about her.

We see Joe down at the Social Security office being interviewed about the decorating incident - Sarah has sent a letter saying he was a friend doing a favour. To thank her, Joe invites Sarah to go bowling where they have a great evening. She's just saying goodnight to Joe at her flat when she finds she's locked out. Joe takes her back and they end up having a real heart to heart. Joe confesses to the disastrous alcoholic ending to his previous relationship. Later they just hug and hug - two lonely souls coming together.

Another football game: Liam is attacked on the pitch by men working for McGowan, a drug dealer. The team come to Liam's rescue and later Liam tells Joe it was nothing, just McGowan playing the macho man.

Sabine is thrown out oof the Health Centre for refusing to put out her cigarette. Her doctor refuses to give her any more prescriptions. Later we see her on the streets in the red light district. Joe waits for Sarah after work and together they go round to see if Sabine is all right. They discover Sabine in the bath trying to find a vein to inject. Liam has been taken by McGowan's men because of a debt. Joe confronts McGowan in a snooker hall. Liam, miserable in a corner, reveals to Joe that he's unable to pay McGowan back. McGowan offers Joe a choice "do a wee job for me up north... wipe out Liam's debt" or Liam will have his legs broken.

Joe and Sarah look out on the city from Ruchill Park - Sarah feels able to let off steam with him. Back at Sarah's they make love.

Joe goes to a small harbour to the north of Glasgow to collect a car with - he assumes - drugs hidden, and puts it out of his mind. He buys Sarah a pair of earrings and rather sheepishly presents them to her. Later we see her confiding to Maggie, her Health Centre friend, that she's pregnant. On her way home Sarah sees Sabine watching Liam and Scott playing on the swings - Sabine tells her that Joe is involved in paying off their debt. Sarah confronts Joe and when she sees Liam coming round to warn him she realises there are lies between them. She leaves in a fury, weeping.

Joe runs round to Liam to tell him to go - he, Joe, will not do the second run. He finds McGowan and begs him to let him off the second run. Desperate, he sets about McGowan, his hangers-on and finally his car. He goes home to get drunk. That is where Liam finds him. Together they wait for retribution. As Joe slumps, drunk once more, Sabine phones to Liam not to return home - the gang have been there to find him. It is the final blow. Before McGowan's men can get him, Liam hangs himself from Joe's third floor window.

Joe and the rest of the team stand round Liam's graveside. A little way away, Sarah waits for Joe.

The Underside of a Divided City

The Making of "My Name is Joe"

A love story full of humour, passion and danger, "My Name is Joe" was filmed in the heart of one of the poorest and most neglected neighbourhoods of Scotland's biggest city. Two street-wise but vulnerable people struggle to overcome the harsh conditions that press in upon them, leaving few choices in their lives.

The details of their story reflect the reality of today's Glasgow, a divided society where options are so limited that the hair's-breadth frontier between survival and disaster is often just a matter of luck. Can these two people, from different walks of Glasgow life, emotionally hampered as they are, succeed in building a relationship in these circumstances?

The film explores the emotional struggles of Joe and Sarah amidst the drugs, prostitution and violence that condition their lives. No longer young, the couple bring baggage from the past so that tenderness is laced with the wariness of those bearing scars of previous emotional battles.

Like all Loach's films, "My Name is Joe" portrays its setting with unsentimental honesty, and celebrates the power of the human spirit to overcome apparently insuperable obstacles.

The background of the film was meticulously researched with the aid of Glasgow community workers, ex-drug addicts and former prostitutes who made invaluable contributions to both plot and detail. The screenwriter Paul Laverty says: "I spent three months just walking the streets of Glasgow, talking to people, hearing their stories, before I started to write a word. The characters came first, then I spent months working out the story they would tell."

A pair of important secondary characters soon emerged: Joe's young friend Liam, a good hearted lad all but crushed by his personal circumstances who tries to steer clear of the drug culture after serving a jail sentence, and his girlfriend Sabine, fighting a heroin habit fed by prostitution, and trying to keep their little boy from being taken into care.

What struck Laverty about his home city was the grotesque disparity between neighbourhoods, often separated by only a street, or a canal. In a crucial scene in the film, Sarah tells Joe that the life expectancy in the poor area of Ruchill, is ten years less than in a nearby smarter quarter, because of poverty and inequality. With the swift humour that shafts through the film like a spear, Joe responds "That does it then. I'm moving!"

Loach says what he admires about Laverty is "his refusal to accept anything second-hand: he goes to the source." The reality is that in one of Europe's most advanced and dynamic cities, conditions within a short walk of its most fashionable areas could be plucked from a 19th century novel by Dickens or Zola.

Loach's radical political vision remains clear and unrepentant in "My Name Is Joe". "All this would vanish if only there were jobs," he says. "The only jobs that exist are those servicing the evils of poverty: drug rehabilitation, community schemes and counselling." But, as in all his films, the emotional lives of the characters take centre stage, and this is what draws you in.

Even when the script was complete in summer 1997, further discussions with local people produced substantial changes in the scenes portraying Alcoholics Anonymous, prostitution and drug-taking, right up until shooting started in September 1997, to make them truly authentic. John Hamill, who chaired the AA meeting in the film, is a local community worker who has spent his adult life helping people with addictions of all kinds.

AA's principles of anonymity initially made it difficult to approach individual members, so researchers contacted a range of local rehabilitation groups to learn at first hand the problems and experiences of Glasgow's "walking wounded" - those recovering from substance dependence. Several of those who told their tale became members of the football team, a group of apparent no-hopers fighting to regain their confidence and sense of identity.

Stef McBride was a heroin addict for six years who slept rough before entering a methadone rehabilitation project and then freed himself from drugs 8 months ago. Loach contacted him through Glasgow's City Centre Initiative, a community project for the homeless and rough sleepers.

"I advised them on where on her body Sabine would make a hit and what kind of gear she would use, what the track-marks would look like." Stef says. "I advised the props department on what they should prepare, the size of needles, the size of the bags of smack, etc. It was the first time I'd picked up a set of tools in 17 months. My hands were shaking."

Another key link with the world shown in the film was Linda Tiffney, a former prostitute who advised Sabine on what to wear when she goes on to the street. "Forget fishnet tights and pink rubber suits, normal gear is the thing", she suggested. She also gave the crew tips on where to film. "It's got to be on the corner of a dark, narrow street away from a residential area. Obviously you've got to face the ongoing traffic..."

Linda took the actors who played Liam and Sabine to Glasgow's red light district of Anderson, where she had worked for some six years, and then put herself forward to play the prostitute who accompanies Sabine. She described the experience as "exciting but quite strange." She says "I felt quite nervous about filming, it was like returning to my past. I'm not ashamed of it, but I've been lucky. I've moved away from it and proved something to myself."

Her main concern, and that of all the local people who co-operated on the film was to move away from stereotypes and present the conditions of drug-taking, prostitution and drug-related violence as experienced by those with first-hand knowledge.

Linda is typical of those who said they would never have touched the film project but for Loach's reputation as a filmmaker and the straightforward and sympathetic treatment she received from the crew. "It was good that he took time to find out the facts. Filmmakers often forget to talk to real people and not many films about the drug culture bother to get it right." she says. She predicts with a laugh that Glasgow's powerful gangsters and money lenders "will be quite impressed."

Both Linda and Stef, and others working with the film who had undergone or were undergoing rehabilitation, stressed that their recovery depended crucially on the constant support and encouragement from friends and dedicated community workers - emphasising the theme of human kindness and solidarity that is fundamental to the film.

The intimate bond which Loach established between the making of the film and its social context was made clear in a number of incidents that occurred during the six-week shoot. In the first week, several thousand pounds' worth of camera equipment was stolen from a van while the crew were filming in the street. Most of it was recovered within hours by Eddie, a burly security guard from Ruchill hired by the crew, who knew whom to approach to stop the goods being passed on.

One local youngster subsequently confessed to the film's location manager: "You can't blame us. We saw an opportunity and we took it." Eddie, who appears briefly in the film, works as a security guard and is paid less than the dog who accompanies him.

Some of the most hilarious moments in a film spiked with humour are created by the city's worst football team, mostly non-actors who in many cases were known to local police for drug abuse and burglary offences. In one scene, where they steal a batch of football shirts from a sports depot, the acting was so convincing and the crew so unobtrusive that a passing couple took it for real and called the police.

Gordon, one of the lads in the team left behind after this scene was shot, was picked up by the plain clothes drug squad for running "suspiciously" down the street. "I'm in a film," he protested unconvincingly, in the absence of cameras, as the police interrogated him in the back of their van. Only the arrival of an assistant director in search of a missing member of the cast ended an uncomfortable episode.

Loach resists the suggestion that, after his international epics Land And Freedom and Carla's Song, "Joe" marks a retreat to a smaller, more intimate format. "It's smaller in terms of logistics, with one main location and a smaller cast, but that doesn't mean it has less emotional impact or resonance than a bigger more ambitious project."

"It is just another film," he says. What matters is "the lives and emotions of ordinary people coping with an impossible situation, who, when given a voice, show unsuspected talents, spiritual energy and superhuman strength."

Loach was inspired by Glasgow during the making of Carla's Song, whose first half is set in the city, and has long enjoyed working with Scottish actors. "Joe" offers him an opportunity to explore Glasgow's social problems in close-up and to collaborate once again with actors he had come to respect on his previous films.

Production Crew Notes »