Mike Leigh (Contemporary Film Directors)
Sean O'Sullivan
Language: English
Pages: 184
ISBN: 0252078195
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In this much needed examination of Mike Leigh, Sean O'Sullivan reclaims the British director as a practicing theorist--a filmmaker deeply invested in cinema's formal, conceptual, and narrative dimensions. In contrast with Leigh's prevailing reputation as a straightforward crafter of social realist movies, O'Sullivan illuminates the visual tropes and storytelling investigations that position Leigh as an experimental filmmaker who uses the art and artifice of cinema to frame tales of the everyday and the extraordinary alike.
O'Sullivan challenges the prevailing characterizations of Leigh’s cinema by detailing the complicated constructions of his realism, positing his films not as transparent records of life but as aesthetic transformations of it. Concentrating on the most recent two decades of Leigh’s career, the study examines how Naked, Secrets and Lies, Topsy-Turvy, Vera Drake, and other films engage narrative convergence and narrative diffusion, the tension between character and plot, the interplay of coincidence and design, cinema’s relationship to other systems of representation, and the filmic rendering of the human figure. The book also spotlights such earlier, less-discussed works as Four Days in July and The Short and Curlies, illustrating the recurring visual and storytelling concerns of Leigh’s cinema. With a detailed filmography, this volume also includes key selections from O'Sullivan's several interviews with Leigh.
Chris Marker: Memories of the Future
Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film Movement
Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film Movement
The Heist Film: Stealing with Style (Short Cuts)
The South Korean Film Renaissance: Local Hitmakers, Global Provocateurs (Wesleyan Film)
into each other, or who don’t run into each other until some delayed point in the evolving narrative, in order to imitate life, which is full of unplanned encounters; so much of life is accident and improvisation, or at least a significant chunk of life that Leigh wants to explore. The most publicized examples of artistic intervention are the ones I cited in the introduction: the galvanizing party scenes in Secrets and Lies and Vera Drake, where in rehearsal certain actors were shocked to
i-xii_1-196_O'Sul.indd 85 The Nature of Contrivance | 85 6/24/11 8:33 AM camera then tilts down to reveal the dermatitis-scarred face of a young redhead jotting down an address and follows her as she walks shakily down a hallway peopled with extras. Now, if we choose to consider Career Girls as in effect two films running simultaneously, then this image serves as the opening shot of the other film, and this image reminds us of the opening shots of several other Leigh films, from Bleak
years.” But this number, because its significance is merely personal and not evidentiary, does not matter. Vera slowly slides off the ring and then winces, gripping the finger with her handkerchief after it is gone, as if to staunch a wound; this procedure—the application of pressure and resultant pain—parallels the removal of the personal from the body entailed by Vera’s abortions. Her ring finger might represent the human being as a collection of memories and associations, as the accumulated
by and motivated by as much as anything else. Normally I get asked the question, “Were you influenced by the Free Cinema?” And the answer to that is, “No.” Because the truth of the matter is that as far as the Free Cinema was concerned, that is to say, the documentaries they were making, when that was happening I had no idea about it, because I was still tucked away in Manchester, ignorant of everything except what was on at the local picture house—i.e., commercial British and American movies.
Judd), Michael Simkins (Frederick Bovill), Louise Gold (Rosina Brandram), Sukie Smith (Clothilde), Mia Soteriou (Mrs. Russell), Alison Steadman (Madame Leon), Adam Searle (Shrimp), Katrin Cartlidge (Madame), Heather Craney (Miss Russell), Bríd Brennan (Mad Woman) 160 min. All or Nothing (2002) United Kingdom Production Company: Studio Canal, Alain Sarde, Thin Man Distributor: United Artists (U.S.) Written and Directed by: Mike Leigh Producers: Simon Channing Williams, Alain Sarde Cinematography:
