The Mike Leigh Poll

Wish I caught this poll before - I really love Leigh's films. I missed an opportunity to catch a lot of his shorts at a film fest about 10 years ago. I haven't seen them on dvd.
Torn between several of his films. Life is Sweet has been a go to recommend because it's the first I'd seen. But Naked and the performance by Thewlis are amazing. And Eddy Marsan's Scott the driving instructor is equally amazing. Great, great stuff...

I was looking at this thread in the library about 3 weeks ago ... the woman sitting next to me sees Leigh's head at the top, and says "He's my neighbor!" (London)

missed the thread too, the top 3 probably line up with my picks, haven't seen most of the older ones. i barely remember life is sweet but according to imdb i liked it less than those others anyway

Missed this poll, but "Nuts in May" would have got my vote. It's up there with "This Is Spinal Tap" for me.

Yeah can't help but feel that the Tap guyz knew their Mike Leigh. I like Nuts in May more, partly because when it's not doing its big "lol scratch a hippie" set pieces it's great at changing your perceptions of its characters, rounding them out and making each sympathetic/unsympathetic in turn. Also Finger's blithely optimistic support of Birmingham City.

Odd, missed this whole thread. Reviving due to the film in 1999 poll thread, meaning the inclusion of Topsy-Turvy. Above from Tipsy a couple of months back:

i really love that movie. for a while there it seemed like it was on one of the cable movie channels every week or so, and i never got tired of it. i think it's maybe the best movie ever made about creative people creating -- everything about the process seemed deeply understood and felt. so many good performances all the way through the cast. and the period stuff is perfect but unobtrusive, it just completely puts you in that world.

Agreed -- I just mumbled on the other thread that this film manages the neat trick of being the antithesis of a Merchant-Ivory production while looking like one, and while I'm overstating I don't think I'm far off from that. Providing a dramatic shape to a story that as presented has no start and no end is always a trick but it's handled well, and the frayed endings of the film, the digressions and details throughout, suggest so much contextually without having to dwell on them. A couple of clunky expositional moments like the mention of 'young Winston' (ie Churchill) and all but given the social circles all the various characters are meant to move through, forgivable. (Comes to mind that a comparison of the societal assumptions/actions at play in this and something like Mad Men could be instructive but I'll leave that to fans of said series to pursue further.)

My favorite scene, which I think Tipsy's point illustrates very well, is the extended rehearsal scene where Gilbert, his assistant and three of the ensemble are working in what looks like a somewhat dreary, cold room in the theatre to get the staging and delivery and etc. of a particular scene down to Gilbert's specific standards. The undercurrents, reactions, jokes, the very immediate DYNAMIC of such a crosscutting situation is so very well done.

i probably should have said "creative people collaborating," because obviously it's a different thing than a movie about a painter or writer or something. but the mutual dependence of all the parties, starting with gilbert and sullivan's carefully modulated partnership and then down through the cast and crew and so on, the hierarchies and tensions, the mini-revolt when gilbert cuts a song, the coaxing and coddling of the drug-addled actor -- it seems to me what really attracted leigh to the story was that whole web of relationships that are necessary to any serious collaboration, but are also its greatest obstacle. (and then the contrast between gilbert's fertile professional life on the one hand and his literally barren personal life on the other.)

even the aha moment, if I remember correctly, in which Inspiration Hits Gilbert is staged so that it's perfectly natural that a man of the theater would become inspired by casual fripperies he happens to notice.

Said aha moment is supposed to have actually happened, though apparently there's a question as to whether or not he already had a general idea in his head before the sword dropped from the wall of his study. I did a bunch of scrounging on Gilbert and Sullivan after the film came out and was surprised at how closely many of the details matched to what really happened, such as the revolt of the chorus against Gilbert's decision to cut the Mikado song. (Though there were obviously a few changes -- the play they pulled out as a stopgap revival pre Mikado in the movie, The Sorcerer, wasn't the one used in reality, but I suspect Leigh had a fondness for it and wanted to show it. I'm impressed at the way H.M.S. Pinafore is what hangs over everyone in the movie, as IT'S the career-defining success they know about -- The Mikado is just a hope and might turn out as indifferently as Princess Ida.)

http://www.movieline.com/2010/05/at-cannes-mike-leighs-another-year-critics-favorite.php

mike leigh is such a dick

everyone i've ever spoken to who "knows" says so, and tbh journalists/crix are pretty open about it

james cameron is abrasive but sorta amusingly so

who cares who's a dick? I saw him bristle at a dumb question at the NYFF once.

who cares who's a dick?

ehh it sorta interests me

richard port0n made the point abt 'happy go lucky' that leigh himself does not exactly live up to the credo he's selling there.

kinda like Frank Capra eh

Good stage version of Abigail's Party running in Chicago now.

For those of us who have encountered Leigh in press conferences and one-on-one interviews over the years, perhaps the most grating aspect of Happy-Go-Lucky is the fact that he is temperamentally much closer to the irascible Scott than to the sunny Poppy. In Amy Raphael’s recently published Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh, the enormously defensive Leigh (who interprets even the mildest criticism of his work as monumentally insulting) strenuously denies that he’s even slightly defensive. In this light, despite the dangers of ad hoc psychological analysis, it is difficult not to conclude that Poppy’s escapades constitute an extended wish-fulfillment fantasy for the dyspeptic director. (The charitable explanation for Leigh’s behaviour is that he does not “suffer fools gladly.” But since Raphael’s book chronicles Leigh’s tendency to inveigh against all of his critics as “stupid,” the man’s overweening insecurity is all too glaring.) Acerbity is not by nature superior to sweetness and generosity. Nevertheless, since Leigh appears to have more affinities with his gloomier protagonists than with inveterate optimist Poppy, Happy-Go-Lucky, is, good intentions notwithstanding, a rather fraudulent and half-hearted enterprise.

—Richard Porton

that was a fucking shit film

For those of us who have encountered Leigh in press conferences and one-on-one interviews over the years, perhaps the most grating aspect of Happy-Go-Lucky is the fact that he is temperamentally much closer to the irascible Scott than to the sunny Poppy.

This is supposed to be criticism?

it's an illuminating observaish

Illuminating to know that artists are jerks?

well, the specificities, yes

why wouldn't it be pertinent?

Guy who has to marshal dozens of actors every year for his strenuous rehearsal process, and has done so for decades, is a harsh dick? Shocker.

well, the specificities, yes

why wouldn't it be pertinent?

For the purposes of a ILE thread, a little. Otherwise who gives a damn.

it's not the sole criterion of judgement of anything, just interesting

so i think Another Year is my favorite film of the year. pretty surprised

thought I'd seen enough depressing character studies where nothing really happens in my lifetime, but i guess not

Saw Another Year tonight. I think it might be only my second Mike Leigh film, along with Naked--there may have been a third one I've forgotten. On the whole, I had mixed feelings. I felt like I understood perfectly what it was after--a study in everydayness, or also how the previous post describes the film--and sometimes I thought it got there, and other times I felt like I'd seen other films that did it better. My biggest problem was that the conversations often followed what seemed to me to be a very mechanical shot-reaction shot-shot-reaction shot structure, and it sometimes felt like it was people trading off lines, rather than actually conversing.

Anyway, what I really came to post about was the ending. Unbelievably good. Pantheon. Whatever misgivings I had, I would gladly watch it all again for the ending alone.

It looks to me like the kind of film where I'll think it's good and not really want to be watching it at the same time, which was sort of how I felt about All or Nothing (a film we picked to see on my BIRTHDAY - lol). Actually sort of felt that way about Naked too. I did like Happy Go Lucky a lot though.

that ending IS really great. I love the whole set-up in the last act between Mary and Ronnie, too. Lesley Manville's performance in particular is just so soul-crushingly real, without being dramatically contrived... much like the casual suburban alcoholism of everyone in this film

Through most of the film, I assumed it was going to end by going full circle back to the beginning. But as everyone was talking, and I realized that wait, it's going to end right here, I wondered if he'd be able to pull it off (i.e., I sensed where it was going by who you weren't seeing). And sure enough, he nailed it. (Not trying to speak in riddles here, just don't want to reveal too much for anyone who hasn't seen it.)

Not enough discussion about Another Year. Morbs? amateurist?

i think there was some discussion on the detrius thread

i loved it, wanted more of the imelda staunton character though

i should give this guy another shot. i remember loving 'meantime' but being kinda ambivalent about both 'naked' and 'happy go lucky.'

apparently 'naked' was one of the two videos richey edwards left behind in his hotel room when he vanished. (the other, weirdly enough, was 'equus.')

I wonder if he took all his other videos with him.

My problem with Another Year was that you know everything you need to know about a character as soon as they appear on screen and Leigh doesn't take them anywhere even mildly surprising - tricky to pull off with a believable character (Tom and Gerri), impossible to pull off with a caricature (Tom's brother Ronnie, Mary) and downright depressing in the case of a typical Leigh character like Ken.

The prologue with Imelda Staunton was the best thing in the film.

Secrets And Lies is the sort of film that justifies the entire British film industry all on it's own. also has one of the best final scenes and last lines i've ever seen. just a fantastic bit of work in every respect. didn't even consider myself much of a fan until i saw it.

yes, it's truly incredible.

i watched Topsy Turvy last night and loved it. Its pretty unique the way he lets the songs play out at full length so that towards the end of the film they actually take up at least half of the running time. It seems like something Rivette would do. I wonder if he's a Rivette fan? the last shot of Happy go Lucky seemed like an explicit ref to Celine et Julie... too.

jed mostly otm on AY. Condescending, sad to say.

How was it condescending?

It seems like something Rivette would do.

He sorta did do that with Haut bas fragile.

I guess I didn't find Lesley Manville's performance soul-crushingly real, but a bit o' vaudeville.

Leigh's closeups lingered on Manville's wrinkled face and dugs too often for my taste, and making her a quasi-alcoholic (white wine, of course) was facile. But Jim Broadbent didn't get enough credit for making his Good Guy credible. We've all known guys like this: we look for the traces of condescension and can't find them.

I wish he'd spent more time on the widower brother, present to demonstrate how the ol' Stiff Upper Lip ethos used to function – and rot. OTM about Imelda Staunton, who almost belted me out of the room.

I haven't seen Haut Bas Fragile but that makes sense. I thought the film seemed Rivettian without being able to pinpoint a specific example.

xxpost yes i didn't believe in the Manville performance at all which is sad because i think i could have believed the character. The conversation (/not-conversation) between Ronnie and Mary is totally unbelievable.

No, I believed that scene, but I was tired of her by then.

Overall I don't fault her performance so much as the conception of the character.

oh right, i feel the opposite way. i think.

Happiness as a subject is explored so rarely that I'm glad Leigh is giving it a try; but he didn't need secondary characters to foil Broadbent and Sheen so completely. Both give such lived-in performances that giving them more space would have left the job to the audience of deciding whether their happiness is creepy. For example, I only needed two Manville scenes: the ones with the son and widower.

I was tired of her by then

Wasn't that the point, though? Or one of many?

I loved it btw. I loved the unequal attention paid to certain characters, a devastating instantiation of the film's theme.

Also, I don't think "everyone" in the film was an alcoholic any more than the eternally wine-guzzling countryside chatterers in Rohmer's films.

But that's my point – she's depicted as such. I got the impression that Leigh wanted me to think Manville was an alky while Broadbent and Sheen weren't.

I mean, I recoiled when apparently I was supposed to think of Annette Bening as an alcoholic in The Kids are All Right.

No, my comment was referring to nhex's comment above:

"Lesley Manville's performance in particular is just so soul-crushingly real, without being dramatically contrived... much like the casual suburban alcoholism of everyone in this film"

Certainly Manville's character had a problem with it. But Broadbent/Sheen were casual drinkers, not alcoholics.

I recoiled when apparently I was supposed to think of Annette Bening as an alcoholic in The Kids are All Right.

We were supposed to think that? I didn't get that at all.