Mike Leigh: The Hollywood Interview

Filmmaker Mike Leigh.


MIKE LEIGH:
THE LORD HIGH EXECUTIONER SPEAKS OUT
By
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in the February, 2000 issue of Venice Magazine.

Mike Leigh was born February 20, 1943 in Salford, Manchester, England. The son of a doctor, Leigh went on to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Camberwell Art School, the London International School of Film Technique and Central School of Arts and Crafts. Moving from the stage, to TV and finally film, Leigh's distinctive film style—in which the commonplace is often tinged with the extraordinary—has been dubbed "social surrealism," or as Leigh prefers to call it, "heightened realism." He prefers to work without a script, writing the film as he rehearses with his cast, improvising and collaborating together.

A creative force in London's experimental fringe theater since the 1960s, Leigh earned critical acclaim for his numerous TV films investigating the vicissitudes of life among the "proles," notably the 1977 drama, Abigail's Party. After making his feature debut with Bleak Moments (1972), Leigh took a 17-year hiatus from theatrical films, working exclusively for British stage and TV. He returned to films, winning international attention with High Hopes (1988), a grim portrait of Thatcherite London. Leigh's low-key style and his knack for offbeat characterization and warm humor all enrich his surprisingly life-affirming 1991 comedy Life is Sweet, about a dysfunctional working class family. His next effort, Naked (1993), was a stark portrait of one man's (David Thewlis) journey into the bowels of his soul. Critically acclaimed in the US and at the Cannes Film Festival (where he was named Best Director and Thewlis Best Actor), the film was largely panned in England, with most reviewers citing what they saw as the story's misogynistic aspects. Secrets and Lies (1996) brought Leigh his first Oscar nomination as Best Director, for the acclaimed story of a simple, troubled woman (Brenda Blethyn) whose life becomes unraveled when the illegitimate daughter she gave up years before comes back into her life. Career Girls (1997) told the touching story of two college chums (Katrin Cartlidge, Lynda Steadman) reuniting after ten years with the story alternating between present reminiscing and flashbacks to their awkward time at university.

Leigh's latest might be his best film yet. Topsy-Turvy tells the story of Victorian-era composers William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, famous for operettas such as The Pirates of Penzance, and their strained personal and professional relationship. As they struggle to revive their sagging career, writing what would become their most famous work, The Mikado, we are treated to a blistering portrait of Victorian England in its waning days, when its grip on the world was slowly slipping away, like a dying buzz from a sloe gin fizz. Jim Broadbent and Allan Corduner lead a marvelous ensemble cast in the Sony Pictures Classics release.

Mike Leigh is an amiable gent with a dry, acerbic wit that one would expect based on his films. Here's a few of his thoughts on filmmaking, England, and the genius of Gilbert and Sullivan.

While this is true of all your films and how they capture a specific time and place, I came away from Topsy-Turvy with a feeling of what Victorian England tasted and smelled like. How do you bring this off?
Mike Leigh: Well, the key to it is research, really. We always do a lot of research. And what we don't do in my films is just research what is going to be on the screen. We research everything whether it's going to be on-screen or not, because we don't know what's going to be on the screen until the film is finished. With Topsy-Turvy, you name it, we researched it. We were in rehearsal for seven months, and I'd been reading on the subject for a good long time. But to answer your main question, it's partially the research, and partially the collaborative function of the way that we work on (my films). What's very important to realize is that it isn't just a matter of what the actors do, it's about what everybody does. That's why there's all those bits in the film about telephones and fountain pens, and all that. With the pen, for example, our production designer, Eve Stewart who is brilliant, got hold of an old fountain pen from the period and said "Could we work it in?" So that's kind of how it works.

How did you initially discover Gilbert and Sullivan?
I was taken to see their plays as a kid. The first was The Mikado in 1949. I was hooked from there! (laughs) What I like is that quite a lot of people have said "I hate Gilbert and Sullivan and I loved this film." That's about as nice a compliment as one could get, isn't it?


Jim Broadbent (L) and Allan Corduner (R) as the legendary Gilbert and Sullivan in Topsy-Turvy.

One of the wonderful things Topsy-Turvy shows is how theater was the one thing in that period which brought the classes together.
Yes, although on the whole theater was still a pretty middle class affair then. We talking about 1885, which was 15 years after the first Great Education Act. So on the whole, people in a theatrical company like that would have come from middle or lower middle class backgrounds. Working class would have been unlikely. In those days, working class people were hardly educated. So when you see the men in the chorus with their Northern accents, they were most likely lower middle class. Their dads wouldn't have been down in the pit working. They might have been the foreman, or clerks. It really wasn't until after the first World War that the class system was shaken up and working class people began to have a voice.

Let's talk about your background.
I was born and raised in Manchester. I have one sister. My father was a doctor in a very working class area. We lived over the surgery until I was 13. Manchester in the 40's and 50's was a very industrial city. This was before the clean air acts. My father spent a lot of time treating bronchial cases. I remember coming home from school and would go into the house through the surgery area. He was an old-fashioned doctor and didn't work with appointments. You just went and waited. I remember this room full of men all going (makes hacking cough sound). And that's what it was all about...Manchester now is a great buzzing, lively city and has been a center of the music scene in England, along with Newcastle. In the 50's, it was the deadest place in the world, just a complete bore. My generation couldn't get out quick enough.

You initially went away to RADA, right?
That's right. To be honest, though, my first love was always the cinema. At that time, in many provincial cities, there were huge numbers of local cinemas. Walking distance from where I lived, quite near Strangeways prison, there were probably 14 or 15 local picture palaces: little ones, big ones, with names like "The Empire," "The Capitol," "The Devonshire." The big one was called "The Rialto." They've all disappeared now. Now, the domination of Hollywood is such that every cinema in the world is showing the same films. In those days, it was much more diverse. Except that we only saw British and American movies, nothing else. Also, every program had two films on it: the A picture and the B picture. So if they'd let you, and if you could afford it, you could see movies all the time. I remember we used to wait outside the cinema where an 'A' film (adults only) was playing and beg people to buy our tickets for us and take us in. (laughs) So going off to be an actor at that time seemed a logical thing for a middle class kid, even though what I really wanted to do was make movies. I think it was the right decision, however. It gave me a terrific understanding of the craft. I went to RADA at a time when it was very old-fashioned and sterile and I rebelled against it, so it helped me find my own voice. Then I went to art school, and then to film school.

Did you get into films right away?
No, I started in the theater, sort of fringe, experimental theater. I also worked in the Royal Shakespeare Company, which was a great writing education as well as a theatrical education. Some great people were there with me: Ian Holm, Ian Richardson, Helen Mirren. It was exciting, but I wanted to make films.


A young Leigh, circa early '70s, lines up a shot.

Your first film was Bleak Moments.
Albert Finney backed the whole thing. Roger Ebert gave me one of the best reviews I've ever had for that film. Then I did a whole series of films for the BBC before I did High Hopes in 1988.

People tend to compare your work and Ken Loach's work (Raining Stones, Hidden Agenda) quite a bit. How do you feel about that?
I know Ken and like him and his work very much. We're both marginally bemused by the comparisons. I mean, yeah, we both sort of make films about the working class, but that's where the similarity ends. Our films are different stylistically, they're different politically. There is no question as to where Ken's objectives lie. My films tend to be more ambivalent and inconclusive, I think.

It's well-known that your films are virtually unscripted. Tell us about what the writing process is for you.
We do a great deal of improvisation and what we arrive at is very ordered and very disciplined, like a script would be. It's a combination of what is said, and what happens during rehearsal. We start out with a blank slate, really. Everyone takes part in the film not knowing what it's going to be. It's about doing everything you can to help make it come alive. And I begin by writing what's basically a very simple structure and taking it from there.

So for you, casting is 99.9%.
It's crucial. Very important. I always take my time when I'm casting. You've got to get it right.

What are some of the films that influenced you the most?
There are lots. Jules and Jim (1961) certainly. I saw that when I was about 20 and was in love with a woman who was in love with someone else, so it really hit home for me. Hobson's Choice (1954). Scrooge (1935). Various Ealing comedies: I'm All Right Jack (1959) and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). Spartacus (1960). I love westerns. I saw every western and love to watch one on the box every now and then. I've seen probably every John Ford film, but never really thought about it in terms of who directed it, because that just wasn't something you thought of in those days. The other thing is that there was another kind of cinema then that doesn't exist anymore: the news theater. They'd run a continuous program of newsreels, some Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Keystone Cops, that sort of thing. That was the big thing then, the essence of film...I remember thinking as a kid 'Wouldn't it be great if there could be a movie that showed people as they really were, or life as it really was?' Then all of the sudden, around 1959, there was this film: Room at the Top. And all of the sudden, there was the world of Lancashire and Yorkshire that I had grown up in, and it was very exciting to see the world of my street up there on the screen.

Since your films are so much about character, how do you feel about the a lot of the so-called "mainstream" films that aren't about character?
Well, I enjoy seeing a lot of different kinds of film. But I've sort of run out of steam with out-and-out commercial films that have nothing to say. There was a time when I'd happily sit through any film. But I think I've reached the stage where there are certain films I can do without. I feel a very clear distinction between what I see, and what I make. If I only saw films like the ones I make, then I'd either see no films at all, or only my own films. Every once in a while, I'll find a film that I feel is a soul mate, like The Straight Story (1999). It's not quite a film that I'd make, but it's close in its spirit and its soul. I really admire it, especially when those two old guys go to the bar and recall WW II. Then there are movies like The Truman Show (1998), a movie I'd never make in a million years, that I thought was very, very good and exciting to watch.

Any advice for first-time directors?
Don't compromise. Don't let anyone tell you what to do. Just get on with it.