Mike Leigh
An astute chronicler of British life and class, both past and present, writerdirector Mike Leigh’s body of work balances humour and pathos as it details
lives lived on an emotional and economic precipice. Over the last four
decades Leigh, along with his peers Ken Loach and Stephen Frears, has
come to dominate contemporary British cinema around the world. Loved by
audiences and praised by critics, his films are a regular presence on the
international festival circuit and have won the top awards at both Cannes and
Venice.
Leigh’s work is deeply ingrained within the fabric of British culture and life.
The landscapes upon which his dramas unfold, from the small allotment in his
recent Another Year (2012) and the decaying metropolis in Naked (1993), to
the featureless streets of Bleak Moments (1971), are as important as his
nuanced characterisations in evoking an emotional and physical state of
being. His work has justly been compared to that of the Japanese filmmaker
Yasijuro Ozu. Both excel at dissecting family life and locating it within the
framework of society at large. Moreover, they employ a beguiling simplicity in
shooting scenes, often through the use of static shots in transient spaces
such as hallways, corridors and stairwells. Through their intimate portraits
personal issues are exploded, reflecting a greater malaise within a
community, class or national psyche.
Beginnings
Leigh began his career in theatre with ‘The Box Play’, which premiered at
Birmingham’s Midlands Arts Centre in 1965. The production was developed
through improvisation and collaboration with his cast, an approach he has
carried through all his work – creating fully rounded characters with his actors
before writing the dialogue that will eventually be performed. Though some
have mistaken such naturalism for improvisation, his dialogue is far more
precise and Leigh regards his work not as naturalism, but as realism.
Leigh has continued to write plays alongside his film work, with the occasional
overlap. Both ‘Bleak Moments’ and ‘Abigail’s Party’ were adapted for the
screen. His most recent production, ‘Grief’, a drama set in 1950s London –
the same era as Vera Drake (2004) – premiered at London’s Royal National
Theatre in 2012.
A Very British Satire
Although he is best known for his feature films, the majority of Leigh’s earlier
career was based in television. After his impressive and confident feature
debut Bleak Moments – a moving portrait of a working woman coping with a
difficult home life, the demands of a banal job and hoping for some happiness,
no matter how brief – Leigh worked on a number of TV drama series such as
‘Scene’, ‘Second City Firsts’, ‘BBC2 Playhouse’ and ‘Play for Today’. It was
with this latter series that he produced some of his most enduringly popular
work, including Nuts in May (1976) and Abigail’s Party (1977). Set,
respectively, on a young couples’ camping holiday and a dinner party, these
comedies of bad manners explore the social mores of their characters through
astringent satire, with particular vehemence reserved for what Leigh identified
as the emergent middle class aspirations of that period.
Class difference and conflict permeates all of Leigh’s work, but these early
television dramas and later films such as Life is Sweet (1990), Career Girls
(1997), All or Nothing (2002) and Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) punctuate darker
elements of their narrative – whether it is domestic abuse, a sense of loss or
economic hardship – with moments of humour. There narratives also display
an affection and warmth towards those characters deserving of it.
Family is central to many of Leigh’s dramas. His dissection of it reached its
apotheosis with Secrets & Lies (1996), in which a black woman (Marianne
Jean-Baptiste) who was given up for adoption discovers the identity of her
mother (Brenda Blethyn) and slowly insinuates herself within this new, very
different family. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, it is
one of the finest examples of Leigh’s social comedies, highlighting his
remarkable gift as a writer, his skill in directing actors and the humanity with
which he details the lives of his characters.
The cast of Secrets and Lies features a number of actors who have become
regular faces in a Mike Leigh film. Over the years he has attracted a large
company of immensely talented actors, who return time and again to work
with him. They include Phil Davis, Lesley Manville, Alison Steadman, Timothy
Spall and Ruth Sheen. Alongside them Leigh’s rich characterisation and
dialogue has attracted numerous other actors, whose performances for Leigh
are rarely bettered elsewhere; from Katrin Cartlidge and David Thewlis in
Naked and Imelda Staunton in Vera Drake and Sally Hawkins and Eddie
Marsan in Happy-Go-Lucky. [Ed: Jane Horrocks has been removed]
Bleak Times
Even in Leigh’s most light-hearted dramas, there is always concern over the
pitfalls of social and economic inequality. However, with a small number of
films, roughly spanning the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, his rancour at
the state of Britain and the treatment of its people by an uncaring government,
is central to the drama. The early 1980s, which critics saw as a period when
the social fabric of communities was torn apart, leaving many people in a
state of near-poverty and despair, is reflected in the plight of the characters in
Meantime (1983). The first of what the filmmaker has referred to as his
“Thatcher-motivated” trilogy (the other two being 1985’s Four Days in July and
1988’s High Hopes), it is a film “specifically motivated by the huge rise in
unemployment and the superficial, palliative, gestural schemes the
government was introducing to deal with the problem”. Leigh employs
landscape to stunning effect, with the opening pastoral scene presenting a
stark juxtaposition to the environment the characters are forced to live in – a
run-down estate – and in which they suffer the indignities of a failed society
and the humiliation of a bureaucracy whose practices degrade more than
help. Yet through this suffering, Leigh’s affection for his characters draws out
a warmth and humanity amidst the anger. (The film is also notable for the
presence of Tim Roth and Gary Oldman in early screen appearances.)
High Hopes is arguably more pointed in its critique of the failings of Margaret
Thatcher’s decade in power, focussing on an extended family with divergent
political views. Their clashes over the state of the country provide the film’s
humorous undercurrent, whilst never losing the satirical bite that underpins
Leigh’s despondency over the way the country has turned out. (Leigh has
spoken about the film’s premiere in Poland in 1989, just prior to the election of
Lech Walesa, which resulted in a surprising audience response. As he told
the journalist Amy Raphael, “Some of the audience were passionately moved
by the film, but many others were deeply offended and thought it was obscene
to see the good guys go to Highgate Cemetery and genuflect at the shrine of
Karl Marx. They thought it was absolutely filthy… This was serious: these
people had lived through it. They were on the front line.”)
The darkest of Leigh’s more overtly political dramas, and regarded by many
as his best film, is Naked. David Thewlis plays Johnny, a highly intelligent and
articulate misanthrope who wanders the streets of London, encountering
people on the fringes of society. He rails against everything and everyone,
and is at his most cruel with those he believes are beneath him. The
experience is deeply unsettling. Leigh describes it “in terms of the apocalypse,
the end of the century and impending doom, all of which are absolutely part of
the very essence of film”. This dark vision of the world is matched by
cinematographer Dick Pope’s evocative portrait of London. The result is the
filmmaker’s most piercing state of the nation critique.
Approaching the Past
Although he is best known for his dissection of contemporary British life,
Leigh’s few forays into the past are no less impressive. Topsy-Turvy (1999) is
an account of the working relationship between Arthur Sullivan (Allan
Corduner) and W.S. Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) over the course of two years in
the mid-1880s, as they prepare to unveil their latest opera, ‘The Mikado’. The
film is an examination of the creative drive and a portrait of Victorian life.
Leigh’s most opulent film to date, it is no less trenchant in its analysis of class,
albeit interspersed with musical numbers.
The gaiety of the D'Oyly Carte theatre company, where Gilbert and Sullivan’s
comic operas were performed, stands in stark contrast to life in 1950s London
in Vera Drake. Leigh’s consummate drama details the life of a woman
burdened with the demands of her family. Living in dire financial straits, she
ekes out a living any way she can, yet is never negligent in her charity
towards others. This includes an act that eventually finds her running into
trouble with the law. Even though her only desire is to help others. Like Sally
Hawkins’ Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky, Vera – brilliantly played by Imelda
Staunton – is one of Leigh’s most compassionate characters, whose
charitable deeds are met with hypocrisy, the cruelty of an unjust legal system
and a family that doesn’t deserve her.
After spending four seasons with a middle class couple in Another Year, Leigh
is returning to the past for his next feature. A biopic of the English painter
J.M.W. Turner, played by Timothy Spall, it is, like so many of Leigh’s films,
much anticipated. In a press release following the announcement of his next
project he stated, “What fascinates me most is the drama that lies in the
tension between this driven eccentric and the epic, timeless world he evoked
in his masterpieces”. An ambitious project, it may tell a story rooted in the
past, but as with all of Leigh’s work its themes will likely transcend the
locations and times in which the drama unfolds, to speak to us all of the
human condition.
Ian Haydn Smith
(Quotes taken from ‘Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh’, by Amy Raphael. Published by Faber &
Faber)
Mike Leigh Filmography
1971
1973
1975
1976
1977
1979
1980
1982
1984
1985
1988
1990
1992
1993
1996
1997
1999
2002
2004
2008
2010
2012
Bleak Moments
A Mug’s Game (TV)
Hard Labour (TV)
The Permissive Society (TV)
Knock for Knock (TV)
Nuts in May (TV)
Kiss of Death (TV)
Abigail’s Party (TV)
Who’s Who (TV)
Grown-Ups (TV)
Home Sweet Home (TV)
Afternoon (TV, short)
A Light Snack (TV, short)
Probation (TV, short)
Old Chums (TV, short)
The Birth of the Goalie of the 2001 F.A. Cup Final (TV, short)
Meantime (TV)
Four Days in July (TV)
High Hopes
Short & Curlies (TV, short)
Life is Sweet
A Sense of History (TV, short)
Naked
Secrets and Lies
Career Girls
Topsy-Turvy
All or Nothing
Vera Drake
Happy-Go-Lucky
Another Year
A Running Jump (Short)