My Name is Joe
| My Name Is Joe | |
|---|---|
dvd cover
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| Directed by | Ken Loach |
| Produced by |
Ulrich Felsberg Rebecca O'Brien |
| Written by | Paul Laverty |
| Starring |
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| Music by | George Fenton |
| Cinematography | Barry Ackroyd |
| Edited by | Jonathan Morris |
| Distributed by |
Channel Four Films Artisan Entertainment (US) |
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Release date
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20 November 1998 |
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Running time
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105 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
My Name Is Joe is a 1998 British film directed by Ken Loach. The film stars Peter Mullan as Joe Kavanagh, an unemployed recovering alcoholic in Glasgow who meets and falls in love with a health visitor. David McKay plays his troubled friend Liam. The film's title is a reference to the ritualised greeting performed in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, as portrayed in the film's opening scene.
The movie was mainly filmed in the council estates of Glasgow and filling small roles with local residents, many of whom had drug and criminal pasts. The Scottish accents of some of the actors are unintelligible to many of the American audience and therefore the film is often shown subtitled there. (Ken Loach has a policy that actors should speak in their natural accent on film, and his early film Kes faced a similar problem with the South Yorkshire dialect that restricted its distribution even within England).
The film won awards in many film festivals, including Best Actor for Mullan at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.
The film begins with Joe Kavanagh at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, relaying an experience from his past. He states the ritualised greeting: 'My name is Joe and I'm an alcoholic.' He feels that he is not in a position to drink any more with safety. He tells the group that he copes by praying and states that he is grateful to be at the meeting.
He then goes round to his friend's place, bangs on the door and pretends to be the police. They then travel in Joe's van where they examine stolen sporting merchandise which is of low quality. Joe and his friends stop at another person's house to pick up more people. A car cuts off the van. Joe later encounters the driver, whom Joe later describes as being 'the woman who tried to kill us all.' He exits his van and asks the woman if she lost her guide dog. The woman, Sarah, states that she is a health visitor. She wants to see Liam and his child, but Joe explains that Liam has an important football game to attend.
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Wikipedia