The Mike Leigh Poll

Still haven't gotten around to Happy Go-Lucky, but out of the eight I've seen it has to be Naked. Only one I'd go out of my way to see again.

That's the first one I saw, and it's a bit taxing.

It's definitely taxing, but Thewlis' performance...

Just thinking about it gives me uncomfortable shivers.

I love that movie. It sticks out a bit among Leigh's films I think. Its concerns are... harder to pin down, more esoteric, loftier, something like that.

Naked may be my favorite movie that I would never ever claim as my favorite movie. Because what is one to make of that information?

It's brilliant, though.

Thewlis' performance...

Somewhere up there with Brando in Streetcar, it's that good. No, I'm serious!

leigh is a miserable old bastard, no doubt but i would have to say Naked is amazing. Happy Go Lucky is really worth a watch too, almost 'feelgood' dare i say it. he's gotten some incredible performances from some actors/actresses.....jane horrocks in 'life is sweet'.

Have to say Secrets & Lies, though I'm not quite sure why.

It doesn't seem to be available on DVD, wonder why.

Naked

It doesn't seem to be available on DVD, wonder why.

I just watched it tonight.

i've seen the run from high hopes through topsy-turvy, i think naked had the biggest impact on me, but all of them are worthwhile except for career girls

Seen Meantime and then High Hopes on. Lots of good stuff here, but I think I'd need to re-watch some of these to confirm any sort of order (Life is Sweet I've not seen since it came for example--but I recall really liking it then.) Instinct says it's probably between Topsy-Turvy and Naked (which really couldn't be more different, could they?)

Secrets & Lies without question.

I can't think of a performance in recent memory that could so easily have been as awful as Brenda Blethyn's in Secrets & Lies.

I think the same could be said of Thewlis' role in Naked.

Leigh has lots of a good stuff (and a very consistent basic level of quality)
it's between Naked and the crazy-funny Life is Sweet for me. gonna vote for the latter, Naked will win anyway :)
High Hopes is one of his most depressing. Secrets & Lies has a couple of amazing magical moments.

"I can't think of a performance in recent memory that could so easily have been as awful as Brenda Blethyn's in Secrets & Lies."

Awfully realistic. I've met that woman.

One more reason to hate the iMdB! It made my favorite of his TV films, the hysterically funny Home Sweet Home, invisible to Alfred... because it's an "episode" (95 mins.) of an anthology series!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084082/

Anyway, Naked of course. Followed by HSH and Topsy-Turvy.

I got it from Wikipedia!

Naked was made for you, Morbs. What's HSH?

Voted Meantime, just ahead of Nuts in May. Much underated - in a perfect world it'd be quoted as much as Withnail & I ('have we got ants?', 'and one for Ron - later 'on' etc etc).

And, proof that for all his faults Leigh has an eye for the coming actor - Gary Oldman, Phil Daniels and Tim Roth all in their first big roles...

HSH = Home Sweet Home. Tim Spall plays a stupendously dense mailman. obv Wiki took it from iMdb.

yes, Johnny wd've been SB'd.

xxp uh pretty sure Phil Daniels had big roles prior to 1983 or 1981 (whichever Meantime actually came out in.)

I'm voting for the excruciating Grown-Ups though the first two are iconic bits of British TV. Blethyn is awful (almost but not quite)beyond belief in this (compliment).

Oh, and you're missing Bleak Moments too - his first feature from 1971 and with much richer photography than his later BBC productions. Apt title, mind. Filmed round where I live in SE London.

yes, Wiki sucks.

Happy-Go-Lucky was one of the most daring, moving films I've seen in ages, and it has an incredible lead performance by Sally Hawkins, so I gotta got for that. I'm probably exactly the kind of viewer it was targeted for, though, because the whole movie is a big anti-cynicist manifesto, and I'm a big anti-cynic.

I voted Nuts in May because it's funny as fuck and I never get tired of doing Candice Marie impressions and because it's the single best thing Leigh ever did so BOOM.

I do love

Oops. I do love Naked and it's probably his "best" film but Topsy-Turvy is just so much fun, so i voted for that.

You've also missed Hard Labour, another early 70s piece of Play for Today grimness. It was shown on BBC4 recently as past of a Liz Smith night.

Happy-Go-Lucky was one of the most daring, moving films I've seen in ages, and it has an incredible lead performance by Sally Hawkins, so I gotta got for that. I'm probably exactly the kind of viewer it was targeted for, though, because the whole movie is a big anti-cynicist manifesto, and I'm a big anti-cynic.

I wonder about this...There is a reading of this film that Sally Hawkins's 'happy go luckyness' is just as manic in its own way as David Thewlis in Naked. So in a sense it's a mirror image of Naked - the flip manic side to Naked's depressive side.

I am cynical about its alleged anti-cynicism manifesto - and don't think you should necessarily take what Mike Leigh says at face value. But then I'm a big cynic.

On another Mike Leigh thread, I'm still waiting for more views on this film - not enough people commented on it.

I posted a few herehere.

i vote for nuts in may! finally just saw it last month and i loved it. omg, the scene where they make that poor guy sing along to their song...words fail me.

Just thought of two more that are missing: Four Days In July (set in the Falls Road area of Belfast) and The Permissive Society. Neither of which were likely to garner any votes anyway.

re-poll

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a82/bobbysixer/cheerupmate.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Super hard to choose. Voted Life Is Sweet for partly sentimental reasons (it was my first Mike Leigh).

Also, RIP Katrin Cartlidge ;_;

Lots of good choices here, but I can think of few theatrical experiences equal to the first time I saw "Topsy-Turvy." Utterly enthralled.

little-known fact: I own a Career Girls t shirt

Soft spot for Abigail's Party. Would love to see it again... is there a quality difference between the us or uk dvd?

Haven't seen the last two yet for some reason.

"Life is Sweet" is the King of Mike Leigh movies. Next I would go for "Naked" and then for "Career Girls" as a distant third.
The only one that doesn't really fit into his works for me is Topsy-Turvy. It's sort of like his "Gosford Park," for me--the exception that proves the work.

Abigail's Party

everyone, just say what you think

Life is Sweet was the first Mike Leigh movie I saw, and I have more affection for it than his other movies even though some of them are technically "better" for one reason or another.

Don't know much Leigh but for me, 'Topsy Turvy' just beats out 'Naked', as fond as I am of that film.

Err... Nut in May I guess. Don't like this guy's output tbh. Naked is such a stupid, stupid film.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

yay bitter nihilist antihero!

topsy turvy is amazing. missed this poll.

Tsk emos.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x55y5q_nuts-in-may-part-1-of-5_shortfilms

I wonder about this...There is a reading of this film that Sally Hawkins's 'happy go luckyness' is just as manic in its own way as David Thewlis in Naked. So in a sense it's a mirror image of Naked - the flip manic side to Naked's depressive side.

Well yeah, it's pretty clear Hawkins's character isn't quite normal, a point which is brought up by the driving instructor (even though he's pretty fucked up himself). But I thought Leigh's point was, that despite her (often manic) perkyness and optimism she can still manage in the world, and she doesn't need to be "brought down" (which is something a cynical viewer would expect to happen). Even if she's not quite normal, her quirks are mostly benevolent, and there's no reason to think something is "wrong" with her.

Finally saw 'Happy-Go-Lucky'. Amazing performances. Still trying to figure out what I thought of it.

I think it's more nuanced than some of the critics have made it to be; certainly the scenes between Poppy and the taxi driver (especially the last one) make it into something more complex than just a optimist manifesto. But I think it still is anti-cynical in the way it suggests Poppy (no matter how manic or mental she is) and her views have no less validity in the world than any other viewpoints, even if her is not quite as popular as some of the more cynical alternatives.

Be sure to report back when you've figured it out.

(x-post)

would have voted 'nuts in may'. there are quite a few other tv films missing from the poll.

i think he's mostly terrible.

I think his rather odd technique, when it works well, is actually pretty amazing.

i still need to see many of these, but even though i liked naked a lot, i would've voted topsy turvy. 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.

Happy-Go-Lucky was one of the most daring, moving films I've seen in ages, and it has an incredible lead performance by Sally Hawkins, so I gotta got for that. I'm probably exactly the kind of viewer it was targeted for, though, because the whole movie is a big anti-cynicist manifesto, and I'm a big anti-cynic.

t-dawg idk how u feel about this but when i was watching this it was pretty much exact like how i picture your lyfe just less fighting for the rights of ppl on internet msg boards. also that driving instructor is how i picture ilx poster whiney g weingarten right down to assaulting attractive dark haired yung women

um that sd dope movie ~~ chilling on the balcony wearnin t shirts and underwear just u no glowing and shit ~~ thats real lyfe

watched happy go lucky last night - really enjoyed it and <3 mike leigh generally - ws all this wite girls def

i personally related to how poppys frustration w/the world manifested as passive aggressive discursive joking - its trying to make people relax and be natural w/o recognizing that this desire has control freak roots of its own

so yeah she was an optimist who believes in the goodness of people - and she was pretty good at connecting when shit got real - but she was also quite willfully personally unexamined - there was a whole lot of ignorance and projection going on

wouldve voted secrets and lies btw - the climatic scene is so raw - shows the cathartic power of the truth

How did I miss this poll? Would probably have voted Secrets and Lies, too. I have a lot of affection for Life Is Sweet, too, and even Career Girls, which few people seem to like.

we can do another one next year that actually has all his films on it.

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.

I find Topsy Turvy endlessly watchable.

xps My takeaway from all the drinking was that just about everyone portrayed was an alcoholic, they were more functional than Manville. I mean just how much drinking can still be considered casual at a certain point? It was just completely accepted by all of them

Didn't see Manville's performance as campy at all - I've just known enough older ladies who really act like this, I guess

Drinking before, during, and after dinner is not functional alcoholism: it's called socializing!

i never liked topsy turvy much. maybe i'd be capable of caring about it if i was into theater.

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

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 8, 2011 12:46 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

i sort of agree with this - i thought it was a very game performance, but i dont know if i always bought into the character.

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.

― jed_, Tuesday, June 7, 2011 6:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

this didnt hold true for me... maybe it would've if i'd seen more leigh movies?

The Rule Of Three: Its Mike Leigh

Drinking before, during, and after dinner is not functional alcoholism: it's called socializing!

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 8, 2011 5:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

hah, well, thats kinda how the *functional* part works...

that's not our fault -- it's our fucking culture's obsession with psychobabble

sounds like someone's rationalizing! *makes drinky drinky motion*

It's fairly clear that Tom and Gerri enjoy wine with dinner, and like to tipple with friends. Functional alcoholism is having a drink every couple of hours as if it were coffee and still being able to perform tasks.

They were constantly drinking in bed!

I remember them sipping wine or port on the couch.

I think the difference between Mary's drinking and the others' may not be the quantity as much as the way she drinks: desperately, greedily.

yep

i love topsy-turvy

the Criterion edition, which I watched recently, is gorgeous.

maybe i need to see it again idk

. 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.

― flying squid attack (tipsy mothra), Monday, September 28, 2009 7:00 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban

this is otm; that stuff about creativity is what i love about it...movies are usually so bad at this.

I've never seen TT. I'm sad that nobody voted for Career Girls. It's been a while but I remember really liking it.

I should watch it again as well -- after falling deeply for Secrets and Lies and Career Girls, I couldn't quite connect with it.

jim broadbent in topsy turvy is so <3

Yeah, Career Girls is mad underrated.

It is!

Also I was a huge Cure fan once upon a time so the all Cure sndtrk probably sucked me in some too. I'm gonna watch that again (and TT) this week.

The only "major" Leigh I don't care for is Naked, and I've watched it three times.

Yeah I'm not so big on Naked either tbh.

jed! i also thought the end of Happy-Go-Lucky was a nod to Celine and Julie, so glad it struck someone else the same way.

but i'm sort've surprised that ppl are reading the jim broadbent-ruth sheen cpl in AY as predictable 'good guys' - i felt the film took a more complex attitude towards them that, and by the end i wasn't sure how sympathetic or otherwise they were meant to be. you could easily present a reading of them as complacent, even cruel; i liked that ambiguity.

absolutely.

but i'm sort've surprised that ppl are reading the jim broadbent-ruth sheen cpl in AY as predictable 'good guys' - i felt the film took a more complex attitude towards them that, and by the end i wasn't sure how sympathetic or otherwise they were meant to be. you could easily present a reading of them as complacent, even cruel; i liked that ambiguity.

I agree! Said so upthread. Had the script and framing been different, their composure would have chilled me as much as Sally Hawkins'.

sorry alfred, sometimes it's difficult to read these threads as carefully as one should. i was reacting primarily to this:

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.

jim broadbent in topsy turvy is so <3 OTMF! Irrascible yet playful - his pitch, as it were, is perfect.

I rather liked 'Naked' when I saw it but I have very little desire to ever do so again.

career girls is awful imo. naked doesn't do anything for me but i may revisit it.

hello ward! i agree with you about tom and gerri not being unambiguous - they way gerri is so cold towards mary when she shows up at the house unexpectedly rang very true though and made me feel (re. the discussion upthread) that leigh was actually making characters very close to himself in that instance - warm and cuddly initially on the surface but surprisingly brutal.

although, actually, i don't think they are the same. Tom is, i think, the kinder one whereas Gerri treats her personal relationships like an extension of her work: she turns it on and off although she's not aware of it. Maybe this is a much better film than I thought it was.

i agree with you about tom and gerri not being unambiguous - they way gerri is so cold towards mary when she shows up at the house unexpectedly rang very true though and made me feel (re. the discussion upthread) that leigh was actually making characters very close to himself in that instance - warm and cuddly initially on the surface but surprisingly brutal.

I got the sense that Leigh used a dramatic lacuna: something happened in those months, perhaps involving Gerri's growing realization of Mary's feelings for her son.

they way gerri is so cold towards mary when she shows up at the house unexpectedly rang very true though and made me feel (re. the discussion upthread) that leigh was actually making characters very close to himself in that instance - warm and cuddly initially on the surface but surprisingly brutal.

See, I don't buy this at all. Tom and Gerri had been EXTREMELY accommodating to Mary. But is someone really brutal or even cold to get upset when someone (esp. a someone like Mary) shows up unexpectedly? It's really rude and annoying and it's perfectly within anyone's right to get snippy about it. And even at that, Gerri doesn't kick her out and instead invites her to stay for dinner (it was dinner, right?). So how brutal/Mike Leigh-esque is she?

Tom and Gerri are the film's fulcrum, a support mechanism which explains their composure. But that doesn't mean there's no nuance or depth to their characters. They're not doormats for Mary to wipe her shoes on, for instance. If that were the case, then Gerri would have been totally fine with Mary showing up unannounced.

And I suppose if you see Tom and Gerri as brutal then it'd be simple to see them as alcoholics. But I honestly think that's incorrect and there's little in the film to support such a reading.

the thing is that gerri and tom have each other and the gentle lull of drinking together "just one more"/"oh okay then" is superficially contrasted with mary's tragic/alcoholic drinking on her own but it's fairly clear that leigh is showing them as drinking on a similar level. is it not, in fact, one of the techniques he's using to make you differentiate the sets of characters of throw your attitude towards them into relief, as it were?

I didn't see the pair of them as brutal or alcoholic. I also had no idea why they were so happy, and as my editor wrote in his review, Leigh isn't telling.

also -- and I admit this is a caricature of a caricature -- it's another "single people are a mess" film.

"or throw..."

I also had no idea why they were so happy

but they didn't seem abnormally happy.

is it not, in fact, one of the techniques he's using to make you differentiate the sets of characters of throw your attitude towards them into relief, as it were?

Yes, but the technique shows me that Tom and Gerri drink responsibly and Mary does not.

Even if they were raging alcoholics, though, I still don't see Gerri's reaction to Mary showing up unannounced as brutal or cold in the least. In fact, I'm showing up to YOUR place unannounced sometime this week and see how YOU react. :)

it's another "single people are a mess" film.

Ah now see, that's a negative critique of the film that I could buy.

xpost try me ;)

if i do agree with you it's because i think there's a fault in lesley manville's performance (and of course by extension in leigh's direction) in making mary too much to bear/too annoying right from the kick off. as soon as she appears on screen you know she's a mess and she never develops from that.

No way. Look at her face in that closing shot. She's finally starting to get it!

Not only that her life is a horrible mess but that these people are kinda assholes. They weren't too subtle in mocking her at that point.

I thought Leslie Manville gave an incredible performance in this film. My sympathy was definitely with her character. I was also confused why Ruth Sheen's character was so cold to her all of a sudden--besides the showing up unannounced, I think some stuff was cut.

Mike Leigh is hilarious in person. Every question from the audience is either the most brilliant and insightful interpretation of his work, or the most dunderheaded claptrap that a human ever dared to speak. I would never ask him anything!

Virginia Plain, address please.

Ahaha. It took me a while to get that.

Dr. M., what are some other examples of the "single people are a mess" micro-genre?

I really love Another Year.

I don't think it's solely a "single people are a mess" film, or at least it's as simple as that.

Also Gerri was cold to Mary because of the way she acted when she met Joe's girlfriend. Gerri and Tom (and everyone) knew exactly what happened, and they commented on it afterwards.

I don't think Tom and Gerri are alcoholics in the slightest.

DAMN, finally saw Vera Drake this morning (finally noticed it's on Netflix instant). It takes me a long time to see movies these days, even ones by my favorite directors. There are Herzogs and Greenaways (and other Leighs) from the 2000s that I've still not seen, which would have been unthinkable to 1990s me.

Tremendous movie. The kind where I have to spend the entire end credits sequence just staring and breathing and listening to the music. Top 5 Leigh, easy. Damn.

Also-- Career Girls is great; I can see why no one might vote it as their FAVORITE but it has absofkinlutely nothing to apologize for at all.

I saw T-T the other night for the umpteenth time. There has never been a time when I haven't stumbled upon this movie (at whatever point in the plot) and not been half-transfixed and pleased, and I've seen it many times.

this happens to me with so many Mike Leigh films - Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake, Abigail's Party. Even Another Year. I've only seen T-T once but i will see it plenty of times, i bet.

just turned 70

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-mike-leigh-70

I've been meaning to revisit some of his films, and finally get around to watching the ones I haven't seen. Secrets and Lies I found especially affecting when I first saw it, but I don't know whether it would hold up as well now; I think I'd be more aware of, and averse to, Mike Leigh's emotional manipulation and tendency towards pathetic stereotypes. I'm also baffled as to how Career Girls didn't receive any votes. It's such a great film: funny and warm and awkward and poignant, a kind of balm for me. Katrin Cartlidge gives what is one of my favourite performances ever.

I just watched "Another Year" on TV. Did anyone else find Tom and Gerri quite smug? Especially in their early exchange with Mary. I'm kind of in agreement with the poster above that Mary comes to a sudden realisation that her friends (and her own life of course) are not as amazing as she thought. She's falling apart silently at the table as they all bang on about how great their lives are. Overall, I really liked it.

yep, one of the things I love about the film is its unblinking eye on Tom and Gerri. Tom and his son are outright cruel to Mary at various parts of the film! that ending scene really sums it all up so well.

nice little recent mini-doc about Secrets And Lies. a bloody miracle of a film IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awU3_elyQMI

i watched secrets & lies and life is sweet on nonconsecutive days recently --

secrets & lies i liked; feels a little perfunctory or predictable or something, honestly prefer all or nothing/another yr/happy-go-lucky

life is sweet i ultimately did not even watch all the way thru, felt oppressively quirky & unrelatable idk; tim spalls entrance w/ the pineapple is classic tho

Mr. Turner: Magnetic Spall performance, revelatory moments, great ensemble as usual. Not upper tier Leigh on first viewing maybe. Some scenes go on a bit (John Ruskin as a Pythonesque Twit of the Century), 149 mins mighta been tightened.

Def need a disc w/ subtitles for second look. (Turner: GRRRRAEHHHLLLOOO)

Nice.

At the q and a, Tim Spall looked so normal and diminutive.

I'm so used to seeing him as a freakishly large and awkward presence.

The camera adds freakishness.

Topsy-Turvy, of course, my (r)entree to the others

Dick Pope said they shot this one by putting '50s lenses (that went on an Everest expedition, and were used for Kubrick's Spartacus) on a digital camera, which I never thought about being a possible thing.

I'm pretty fucking down for a mike Leigh film about Turner and Ruskin at least on the face of it

Ruskin is comic relief... def more about Turner in and of his world rather than a Great Artist Life.

Spall had a painting teacher for two years, off and on.

Dick Pope said they shot this one by putting '50s lenses (that went on an Everest expedition, and were used for Kubrick's Spartacus) on a digital camera, which I never thought about being a possible thing.

It's very much a thing now actually. Many digital cameras can be set up to take vintage glass. Lenses are probably the most perennial constant in photography in that if you have a good collection it will carry you through many cameras and platform changes.

amazin'

I have a friend who is a Director of Photography and in theory I could ask him about this but in practice he is kind of always bragging about his latest hightech gear- motorcycle, racing bike, kayak, Blu-ray (this last not the most high-tech, just the latest) that I am reluctant to do so.

Sorry, is there a tag for the kind of post that provides no useful information to the discussion but is just the poster venting?

/Earl_Camembert

perhaps.

*shoots a Floyd Robertson glare*

Haha! Exactly.

btw i was unable to tell if a climactic line in Mr. Turner was "The sun is gone," or "The sun is God."

knowing Turner probably the latter?

That seems to be the case, but either works in context.

Leigh & company (audio) at NYFF:

http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2014/blog/listen-mike-leigh-and-the-crew-of-mr.-turner-uncover-the-world-of-j.-m.-w

more reviews, video interviews

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-mike-leighs-mr-turner

watched Life is Sweet for the first time since 1998. After twenty years of wonderful movies, it looks underwritten: Horrocks' misanthropy (a rough draft of Thewlis' Johnny a movie later) gets quasi-resolved after Steadman confronts her; and the restaurant stuff sputters after a scene.

A good reminder that Spall's always been good delineating Dickens-esque caricatures. The pineapple!

It's a shame that so much that is well observed in this gets overwhelmed by unbelievable grotesquerie. It's the same for many of his films though like High Hopes where the working class family life scenes get trumped by ridiculous scenarios with the yuppie neighbours.

And I finally saw Mr. Turner too which is hobbled for the same reasons. Is there any reason to make Ruskin such a ridiculous buffoon?

I didn't see evidence of grotesquerie in LIS. As for Ruskin, I accepted the caricature b/c so much of the movie is seen from Turner's pov.

Spall and Horrocks are broadly written and played but their characters made sense.

I just found the whole restaurant scenario and Spall's performance grotesque. Horrocks pulled it off against all the odds.

I'm thinking Another Year might be his best lately

Vera Drake is excellent.

I havent seen that one

Watched Mr Turner last night. Absolutely wonderful.

Just watched "Another Year". Not sure how to feel about seeing Lesley Mansville portrayed as histrionic again (as in "Secrets and Lies"). A fine performance, but there's something broad about contrasting her desperation with the more settled, liberal Tom and Jerri couple. Perhaps the point is that for some people things stay roughly the same, whether they're fuck ups or getting through life comfortably with a smug disposition. The final dinner scene where Tom is talking about travelling and Ronnie and Mary look bored at the apparent superficiality of it all is well pitched.

Lesley Mansville portrayed as histrionic again (as in "Secrets and Lies")

??

Shit, I think I got her confused with another actress. My mistake.

Saw "Nuts in May" at the cinema last week. Utterly classic.

http://68.media.tumblr.com/fa81b072d35c5669db90e01bd5337905/tumblr_ns3q19GGlg1ubegd2o1_400.gif

She's in Secrets and Lies but she's very low key in it. I agree with you though, the film is completely off balance. The whole character is virtually unbelievable.

I got Lesley confused with Brenda who also plays a similarly damaged and hopeless person.

Lesley plays the woman in the adoption agency who gives the mothers details to Hortense. She's only in a couple of brief scenes.

Unbelievable? Quite the contrary, I found her character chillingly real; seen parts of that woman in real life many times.

Meantime out on Criterion. Jarvis Cocker's fumbling interview with Leigh is a minor classic; he still dresses like it's 1983.

Jarvis or Leigh?

Naked is so amazing. Lesley Sharp is the best

so good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAo-43C2xnc

Turned 75 yesterday... revisting his London locations:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/mike-leigh-london-locations

Meantime out on Criterion. Jarvis Cocker's fumbling interview with Leigh is a minor classic; he still dresses like it's 1983.

OTM. I actually liked the interview more than the movie (which I thought was just ok).

(that said, the movie is already looking better to me in the rearview)

Life is Sweet wrecked me. Beautiful movie. god, that scene with Wendy and Nicola

the tim spall restaurant stuff ruins it imo. it's just so stupidly grotesque.

grotesque? i'd agree that it's kinda shoehorned in, the real meat of the movie is with the kids, but that scene isn't even that long, and idk i found it heartbreaking. but idk i am from the USA

i just didn't believe that person would exist so it made the rest of it weird. alison steadman is amazing as is jane horrocks who's virtually unrecognisable.

love life is sweet so much

Happy go lucky is my absolute fave

Peterloo is a bit of a dud, sadly. I really wanted to like it. It's full of very dubious expositional dialogue and wonkily old fashioned cartoonish acting, for e.g. men staggering like they'd learned a staggering-motion by watching a silent melodrama. Leigh is also tone-deaf, as usual, when presenting upper class characters. Caricature barely covers what he's doing here and it sits uneasily with everything else.

Re: the expositional dialogue you get lots of scenes with mill workers talking about the corn laws in ways that just don't convince (they are actually talking to the cinema audience rather than each other) and one bafflingly ill-judged scene where a magistrate reads a letter about northern insurrection to his maid who then wanders off saying "oh dear" /scene ends. It's actually funny how bad this scene is but there are lots of equivalent scenes that aren't quite as bad.

The scenes around and during the massacre itself are just badly directed, there's no other way to put it. They had barely any impact at all, badly conceived, badly directed. Leigh was just out of his depth here.

It looks absolutely beautiful, for the most part. The colours are wonderful. There's some bad cgi in there though.

There’s video review of this on the Times website where the two film critics are just incredulous at how bad this film is.

http://thequietus.com/articles/25608-mike-leigh-beyond-the-hits

for some reason I was thinking it was Loach who was making the Peterloo movie, which definitely would have contained lots of dubious expositional dialogue as well. I think think this type of movie needs a Peter Watkins type approach or - no pun intended - it will be more corny history drama, of which there is no shortage of.

It makes you years for that kind of invention or for what Bill Douglas brought to the Tolpuddle Martyrs story in Comrades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I91gVdG2_Q

this is how you do it

I’ve never even heard of that, thanks.

I’m also thoroughly sick of seeing that Vincent Franklin guy in everything.

Interesting Quietus article, and always keen to see thoughts on 'Another Year' . Find this a bit much to take however:

Gerri has professional satisfaction and has made a peace with her age; Mary is clinging to a kind of femininity and sexuality that isn’t really a possibility anymore, something that’s maybe already left.

Pedantry perhaps, but I feel like Another Year was definitely a 'hit' for Leigh

Yes, I really liked it as a film..I was very sympathetic to Mary and found Tom and Gerri a bit cold and self-satisfied.

for some reason I was thinking it was Loach who was making the Peterloo movie, which definitely would have contained lots of dubious expositional dialogue as well

Fwiw, I'd like to see a Loach take on this. His Spanish civil war film includes lots of exposition but is still very good and moving. I do think it owes a lot to Watkins though, in a very respectful way.

Something about the hand held camera in the debating scenes in Land and Freedom makes it feel very vital.

Also, Loach has a way of depicting the people in power as evil because they just are evil. Leigh's only way of depicting that is to make them catoonishly ridiculous. Although we love in a world where Jacob RM is taken seriously so you could say it's understandable.

Live*

that too though, sometimes

I sometimes think that the debating scenes in land and Freedom are some of the best stuff Loach has ever done. And that that whole sequence, the exciting and tragic liberation of the village, followed by the dull and frustrating debate, is one of the best depictions of politics in film.

what does everyone think of Topsy-Turvy? thinking of checking that one out this week...

I think it's my favorite of all of his films

it's top five

splendid!

my favorite is Life is Sweet... if only for that final scene between Nikola and her mom

Career Girls is still one of his best imo. It's the energy of Katrin Cartlidge, that believable dynamic with the timid Lynda Steadman character. It's just so endearing and appealingly modest, and probably best of all, the pathos isn't overplayed with Ricky, nor the eccentricity of the main characters. Ricky's still a wretched sod and could probably do with a more sympathetic, rounded characterisation than just being some hapless, handicapped foil, but he's someone you can imagine existing in their world, that people of their age might view as entertainment or be casually callous towards, or just misunderstand without it necessarily being an indictment on their character, because he's just kind of there and they're all awkward misfits. Leigh doesn't make him particularly likeable either, instead of patronising and treating Hannah and Annie didactically. The thing with Leigh too is that for all his on the nose caricatures and clumsy melodrama, and Jed massively otm upthread, when he gets it right he leaves the right sort of ambiguity with characterisation, such as with Sally Hawkins in Happy Go Lucky, and Mary, Gerri and Tom in Another Year. It's hard to know exactly where he stands in Another Year, but it's strongly hinted that Gerri and Tom and their son are quite smug and casually haughty, but just as easily Mary can be seen as pathetic, envious and resentful. Maybe Leigh doesn't see it that way, perhaps he's thinking simply that Mary is a misunderstood, downtrodden, mistreated friend whom sees the light at the end, but I doubt that.

yeah career girls is one that didn't impress me much upon release but when i watched it again a couple of years ago i was surprised how much i liked it.

I really like the Career Girls score too, which I've just discovered is by Marianne Jean-Baptiste

Topsy-Turvy is perfection. I can watch it again and again

I am not that keen on his historical ones, even Topsy-Turvy I don't really get, but Career Girls is probably the film of his that I've rewatched more than any other, it really captures a time and a place so well, and Katrin Cartlidge is just brilliant, never got why it was considered minor.

I didn't consider it minor so much as wretched when I saw it 20 years ago. I think I hated it because Katrin Cartlidge seemed a cartoon character. But I'm now super-interested to see it again given what you say and how I think about my 25-year/old self.

Wow, Winstanley is by one of the It Happened Here guys. Thanks!

From that Quietus article:

Arguably the most memorable of Leigh’s female collaborators, Alison Steadman, would meet Leigh during work on Grown Ups – beginning not only a marriage but a creative partnership that would spawn, amongst others, Abigail’s Party and Life is Sweet.

Am I missing something here, or is that a clunking mistake?

Yes, I think it must mean Hard Labour rather than Grown Ups.

I didn't consider it minor so much as wretched when I saw it 20 years ago. I think I hated it because Katrin Cartlidge seemed a cartoon character. But I'm now super-interested to see it again given what you say and how I think about my 25-year/old self.

― Alba, Tuesday, November 6, 2018 4:15 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember the criticism of the time being that he'd workshopped the characters until they had ridiculous amounts of ticks and quirks, but I knew people who behaved just like that in real life.

Wow, Winstanley is by one of the It Happened Here guys

by both of them. i only wish the Youtube was in slightly better quality.

There's a BFI Blu-Ray of it too (haven't seen it myself, but I imagine the picture quality is superior to the YouTube print)

yeah the BluRay's been on my wishlist for ages

Fopp currently have a BFI sale on the go - Blus at six quid a pop - but annoyingly Winstanley isn't part of the promotion

little-known fact: I own a Career Girls t shirt

― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius)

Still got it?

I was enthralled by Brenda Blethyn in Secrets & Lie, but no one else is at her level in this movie. Timothy Spall especially, who has a few very clunky "big," basically greek chorus lines - he even says "Secrets and lies!" at the end.

Another thing: after watching Secrets & Lies, I spent a while looking at clips of Naked on youtube. Lesley Sharp is extraordinary in that film, imo the best performance in a Leigh film besides Jane Horrocks in Life is Sweet. what else is Sharp in that's worth seeing? (I've seen Vera Drake)

Marianne Jean-Baptiste is marvelous opposite Blethyn.

She is. extraordinary composure without ever seeming overly stoic or aloof. Blethyn is amazing in S&L - that 7 minute shot of them in the diner is a tour de force - but like I said I think it really goes off the rails in the last act. against Timothy Spall basically spelling out the movie, Blethyn all of a sudden seems histrionic. still, as Josh said itt nearly a decade ago, I've met that woman.

Lesley Sharp is bob's wife in Rita, Sue and Bob too!

doesnt fit me anymore but it's probly somewhere

Rewatched Naked just the other day. Then randomly saw Wonder Woman (2017) and stupidly amused myself thinking of it as a sequel of sorts.

Or prequel, I guess.

I’ve made four period films. Vera Drake is in a slightly different department because it’s set during a time, and in a world, that I remember. And all of the other films are set around the nineteenth century, which is recent enough to sit in our received memory, if not our actual memory. If I were to make a film that was set in the ninth century, I would find it very difficult. The nature of how people would be talking and behaving would be a concoction. But while making Peterloo, Topsy-Turvy, or Mr. Turner there was a great deal to find out about, even how people talked and what language they used. Whatever film we make, whether it’s contemporary or not, the amount of research that goes on is always colossal. People research everything they can think of to make those characters three-dimensional....

All processes, creative and otherwise, involve laying foundations and doing all the donkeywork, which can be very tedious. Nothing beats the actual filmmaking or shooting and being on set. And the postproduction, which is a glorious thing always.

First of all, that’s where you make the film. Secondly, if you’ve been rehearsing for six months, then shooting for four months and getting up at four o’clock in the morning, it’s like a rest cure! It’s very exciting, and I go backward and forward between the editor and composer, and then we start. People say to me, “You must love the rehearsals best.” I don’t. I hate the rehearsals because it’s donkeywork and you haven’t got anything to show at the end of the day. You’re just preparing and preparing and sometimes it can be quite grueling. On all of my films, and Peterloo is no exception, all the preparation work has happened, but I can only construct each scene in the location. I can’t write it without seeing it. So we do that by improvising and then pinning it down and distilling it and then finally writing it through rehearsal. And the whole business of shooting and working with the cinematographer and all the rest—that’s marvelous. It’s a privilege.

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6275-a-sit-down-with-mike-leigh

Pinkerton diggin' Peterloo (opens in US today)

The characterizations throughout have more than a touch of Hogarth-like caricature to them, but Leigh reserves true grotesquerie for the ruling classes, whom he’s never made a secret of his feelings about—I direct you to his 1992 short A Sense of History, in which the fictional 23rd Earl of Leete (Jim Broadment) gives a guided tour of his splendid estate, gradually leaking details of his murder of his entire family along the way. Here, too, the gentry are found with blood on their hands. Significantly, it’s only when the film arrives at the fateful sixteenth of August that the speechifying stops, that words fail—Joseph’s family are unable to make out Hunt’s speech from the hustings; a magistrate’s reading of the riot act from a window over the square is lost to the wind; and when Yeomanry and cavalry advance suddenly with sabers drawn, actions speak louder. The carnage that follows is genuinely awful, as overwhelming in its way as the Battle of Shrewsbury is in Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight (1965)—a comparison not to be wielded lightly. Leigh isn’t shooting for you-are-there-“immersivity,” but rather for a clarified confusion; he doesn’t seek to do dubious honor to the dead by trying to approximate the firsthand experience of their final moments, only to show how these things might very well have happened, in all the panic and clumsiness. (Among other things, Leigh captures the very indignity, the awkwardness, of finding one’s self killed.) After a film so heavy with conference and conversation, the eruption of violence is as shocking as that abrupt cut to the pounding of the looms in the mill—a reign of savagery after so much talk, talk, talk attesting to high-minded civilization. And when the smoke has cleared, it remains only to coin still another word: “Peterloo.”

https://www.artforum.com/film/nick-pinkerton-on-mike-leigh-s-peterloo-2019-79196

so anyone seen it?

it's terrible. ludicrous.

well

Missed it when it played here for a week

Should've made the effort but "a lesser Topsy-Turvy" was all I heard

I loved it, y'all should watch it. I cried at the end.

Now on Amazon Prime (in the UK at least). I think it's fair to say that Jed's is the majority opinion.

Yeah, I saw the comments.

"a lesser Topsy-Turvy" was all I heard

uh, the tone is rather different....

I could've done with a little less hyperventilating by the villains (that one spitty guy in partic), but he delivered the goods with that climax (never thought I'd see that many extras in a Leigh picture). Also liked the vanity and ego of the Rory Kinnear reform star, and moments like the maid asking "Am I in the picture?" No, you are not.

I can't believe Amazon funded it.

when the two shrews in the doorway yelled "GO 'OME TO YER 'USBANDS!" one can't help but mutter "Trumpists"

i'm sure Amazon will get the National Guard to take care of their packers in a pinch.

one of my top five films of 2019

https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2020/02/01/the-best-films-of-2019/

I agree re: Rory Kinnear's performance/character is a wonderfully drawn and played classic melt poseur arsehole! The aftermath scenes are so hard hitting, it's quite a powerful finish. It really stayed with me did this.

it's terrible. full of people explaining what they are going to do, v. embarrassing exposition. Leigh at his worst when he's allowing the upper classes to be utterly ridiculous (as long as he's imagined/written the text) - I'm sure they were, fwiw. There was one scene that made me laugh out loud where one of the magistrate reads a letter to a maid and she says "oh dear" (or something) then walks offscreen, never to be seen again. She's only in the film to listen to the speech. also, the cgi is utter shit.

lol

you laughed at that scene as well?

no no I'm just startled we disagree so hard

me too man! I'm confused!

when he is good, he is very very good.
But when he is bad he is awful.

I'm not sure his good ones are not awful either, fwiw. Secrets and Lies and Vera Drake have some awful stuff about them. Abigail's Party does but it was written as a play so the too-big-stuff about it is excusable. Some people like Nuts in May, after al and I'll never understand that. Career Girls, same. I know Katrin Cartlidge died tragically young but still.

Didn't notice any bad CG, don't be such a fucking gearhead tosser.

I still own a Career Girls t shirt.

in life, people explain what they are going to do quite often

While okay and great Leigh is hard to distinguish, it's hard to think of awful in the last 20 years. Can you give me, jed, examples of awful writing or direction?

(Not an assignment, just genuinely curious!)

Career Girls and Nuts in May are two films I will never tire of.

when he is good, he is very very good.
But when he is bad he is awful.

Ken Loach

Career Girls and Nuts in May are two films I will never tire of.

Nuts in May is untouchable. I wonder why jed hates it – maybe because it's too broad a caricture too caricatured – but God it doesn't matter in this case. But talking of caricature, CG is bad ML imo.

As for Peterloo, for some reason I'm reminded of Americans liking Match Point. I haven't seen either!

Nuts in May should've had a Brexit remake

lol I can't stand Match Point. Someone should've clubbed Allen to death with a tennis racket.

Match Point is awful.

Can well imagine people disliking Nuts In May tbh. Not me though.

I get why some people don't like Career Girls, it has the conspicuously affective performance ramped up to 11, but it's all-time for me, really captures a place and a time in a unique way, and has so many brilliant moments - I kind of see it as a companion piece to Naked.

I apologise for tarring Alfred and Eric with the Match Point-appreciating brush.

I was reading this thread on my phone and thinking have I gone through some wormhole where Mike Leigh directed the godawful Match Point. Was very relieved after a frantic IMDB check.

Ha ha. Sorry fo polluting the whole thread.

jed otm itt. Watched this last night and it was sortof enjoyable in a deadeyed bbc way with loads of semi-recognisable actors hamming it up but was complete antithesis of everything I like about topsy turvy (its baggy improvisatory feel, its digressary construction).

worst things:
the score! twee and saccharine and overbearing.
maxine peake and her exposition-spouting family (I usually like maxine peake, although I'm starting to get sick of her playing the exact same character and wearing the exact same hat). There are a number of these 2-dimensional 'noble' characters (such as the guardian journalists excitedly founding theguardian.com at the end) prattling on flatly throughout. They sortof appear every now and then, as if Leigh has been reminded that he needs to connect the plot more explicitly to historical context and often results in tritely presented scenes like the egg bartering at the beginning (we do not remain interested in the household accounts of the maxine peakes, this single egg-buying experience is supposed to account for quite a bit here.). The film seems as bored of these characters as I was but prefers to snigger at the hammy 'characters' in a way I found pretty repulsive and boring.
casual mysogyny: unless you are a saintly pragmatic female main character, you are likely to be an imbecile or a shrew. I find this to be the single most damning thing in leigh's films, and doubly weird that he made such a complex film about the politics of abortion (vera drake) considering how frequently his characterisations of women are so hateful. in this one the 'dimwit maid' character really stood out. How can someone insert characters like that and still be considered (a) interested in realism and (b) to be some sort of figurehead of progressivism in britain*?

Its disappointing because the historical events are interesting, and the contemporary resonances many (the spying on progressive movements, the authoritarianism and paranoia of the british ruling class etc) and at the very least the film seems to have somewhat restored the events to more mainstream knowledge in the uk (hopefully somewhat durably).

*don't answer this one

Fascinating, and I couldn't disagree more strongly.

I suspect that some of the things I find most egregious about Leigh might not be so legible if you haven't spent much time in the UK (especially England), although I think his weird women issues would be obvious to an alien.

Just watched Career Girls for the first time, having seen most of his other films. This seem quite poor. The student year scenes I found excruciatingly bad and the mature years were ok - but not just enough chemistry between Hannah and Annie to make it interesting. The 'coincidences' or meeting former college acquaintances just seemed to be mostly a mess (or a miss).

The acting in the "young" scenes in Career Girls must be some of the worst (or most misguided) ever done by talented actors. I literally could not understand why they were talking and gesturing in such contrived ways. 20 years later, I'm no wiser. Was it meant to show how precocious they were? Were the viewers meant to hate the characters as much as I did?

Didn't expect to read Mr. Turner as an idiosyncratic exegesis on creativity, depression and the anguish that runs through them but by the end I was kinda wrecked by it.

Really need a supercut of Spall's variety of grunts - whether as exclamation, criticism, joy, sadness, or all the nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and conjunctions.

Topsy Turvy was playing on Criterion 247. First time I've seen it since 2000. I forgot how good it is on a scene by scene basis. I need to rewatch some other favorites as it was my best movie experience in months.

haven't seen Career Girls since it was in theaters, still sticks out in my mind as the one real misfire in his filmography( i haven't seen them all) but might be worth a ~rescreen. i adore Katrin Cartlidge so the fail seems even more out of character, maybe i missed something first time around?

i've seen the run from high hopes through topsy-turvy, i think naked had the biggest impact on me, but all of them are worthwhile except for career girls

one of my favorite things about my 20+ year history on this board is i very often will dip into a long running thread to drop a random thought and then i'll scroll back and see me saying a very similar but completely forgotten take 15 years ago.

Career Girls is one of my favourites, think it was the first Mike Leigh film I saw and it has really stuck with me. I can appreciate that it's more cartoonish than his other films but it really captures something about student life in 80s London and how the adult world flattens out your emotions.

yeah i can see if you were in that moment that it depicts it hits harder, to me it just seemed like he worked up a lot of the scenarios with the 2 main actresses and at the end it just wasn't that compelling but i will take another look

I haven't seen CG since I saw it in the theatre the summer it came out but I really liked it. Of course that could be because of the Cure soundtrack but I remember it fondly.

Wonder what it'd be like watching Career Girls and The Souvenir back to back.

Topsy-Turvy felt so very not 1999 when it came out that its warm reception felt a little counterintuitive to the overwhelming "1999: the year that changed movies" hype out there at the time. Glad to see time has more than vindicated it (and Eyes Wide Shut, to cite another example).

Speak for yerself.

At the time of their release, I loved Career Girls and struggled to connect with Topsy Turvy, but I think the period setting of the latter may have been a barrier for college-aged me. The fact that I adored Mr. Turner 15 years later has made me want to revisit TT.

I wish more people had watched Peterloo. If it's his last film, what a bow.

I keep putting it off. Need to rectify that.

xp he's already finished another (though a few years ago he admitted he was having a lot of difficulty finding funding for another project):

https://variety.com/2024/film/global/mike-leigh-hard-truths-marianne-jean-baptiste-first-look-1235910527/

Just saw Nuts in May on Criterion or somewhere, and really enjoyed it... you could see he was already on his path

Mr. Turner has been added to the canon since the poll, what say ye?

Y'all should listen to this This Had Oscar Buzz episode on PETERLOO, a movie I was 100% correct about in 2019:

https://fightinginthewarroom.com/THOB/2024/08/19/305-peterloo-with-fran-hoepfner/

one of his best imo

I thought it was riveting. His period movies are all great imo, but Peterloo has added heft.

I was thinking of starting a thread for misleading trailers but I've got a feeling this is not a genuine trailer and is some kind of spoof.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llcgzs1jNOM

I'd never seen Meantime before but it was on Talking Pictures, of all channels, on Saturday (straight after Budgie, which seemed appropriate). Tim Roth's entire career has basically been all downhill since and Phil Daniels is absolutely incredible in this film.

A career with The Hit, Vincent & Theo, Reservoir Dogs, Rob Roy, and Bergman Island?

Roth was also ok in Altman's Van Gogh movie, but definitely the most mediocre actor of that generation.

When young people see the dole office scenes in Meantime and Boys From Black Stuff, where the characters are giving backchat and hurling wisecracks + insults at the dhss staff it will seem like another world. Especially now as you can get sanctioned for being a few minutes late for a job centre interview.

sorry, you did mention the Altman one.

unfortunately you also mentioned Reservoir Dogs!

(xxp) OTM tbf though everyone was on the dole in the 80s if they'd sanctioned everyone the whole thing would have ground to halt.

Anyone seen Hard Truths yet?

seeing it on Thursday!

RIP Dick Pope, his cinematographer on every film from Life Is Sweet to Hard Truths

https://variety.com/2024/film/obituaries-people-news/dick-pope-dead-mike-leigh-mr-turner-1236186620/

I saw a production of Abigail’s Party a couple of weeks ago - it was great!

Hard Truths apparently fantastic according to work colleague who saw a preview

Jonathan Rosenbaum sitting a few rows in front of me at this screening (starts in 15 min)

.

Last time I crossed paths with him he was introducing an obscure Rivette short.

Also always find it interesting that his family owned a movie theater the premises of which were instrumental in the formation of the Muscle Shoals Sound.

It's good. A dynamite performance from Marianne Jean Baptiste, but Michele Austin as her sister is just as strong. Feel like it loses some steam toward the end after a climactic emotional scene, but I was happy with it overall.