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Jon Ayre

THEA-1023

July 28, 2017

Mike Leigh: Regarding Others

Mike Leigh is one of Britains greatest filmmakers and one of the most unrecognized

auteurs in contemporary cinema. His films and TV series are singular in the way they observe

life, identity, and relationships of people often overlooked or invisible. Leighs auteurship

consists of his themes, storytelling, and naturalist style, but is more often defined by his

resistance to the anti-realist visual style, content and point of view, often the defining

characteristics of Hollywood auteurs. Leighs style and content looks to fulfil the potential of

verisimilitude in cinema.

Leigh is known for working with and starting the careers of many great British character

actors. His philosophy revolves around character study. He starts 6 months to a year ahead of

shooting, building characters based off people the actors know. After months of establishing

character and their role in the cast, they begin improvising in places or responding to events

Leigh has scripted, letting the drama unfold organically. The actors will be sent out into the real

world in character to interact with each other or the public. Leigh distills hours of grueling

improve to the best lines or moments, building a script. The actors improve scenes over and over

until they are choreographed down to the finest detail, creating intricate scenes.

Leigh is the great orchestrator, frequently working with multiple actors separate from

each other controlling the flow of information between them, keeping character details and plot

points secret. Actors often know only as much as their characters do. In Secrets and Lies, the

actors meet just as their characters do. When the biological mother and adult daughter meet for
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the first time, its chaotic and flustered. We can feel the boundaries between the strangers as they

study each others faces, genuinely trying to get a read on each other.

All these individual actors working in one scene gives Leighs work a specific,

unmissable, rich texture. The opening of Meantime (1984) shows the families of two sisters

coming home from visiting their sickly Mother. We never see the Mother, only the reactions of

the sisters. The scene unfolds in static medium shots, allowing us, the audience, to observe each

person and the relationships between them. Every look and word feels loaded, serving only that

character in that moment. The film starts with this scene not to serve narrative, but as a means of

exploring the characters and the relationships between them. This establishes each characters

history and role in the family. This kind of complexity and authenticity can only be found in the

way Leigh works and his been improved upon in every film since.

In most mainstream Hollywood movies, characters are defined by their acts. If one does

something kind, they are kind. If they do something mean, they are mean. These characters are

always self-aware and self-actualizing. They will themselves into acting, therefore being. This is

effectively a Deus ex machina machine of character development. Leighs films analyze the

space between thought, feelings, and actions. Illustrating the dialectic between how characters

feel and behave is what generates drama or humor. In Abigails Party, we never leave the room.

We observe a party of individuals each with their own lived experiences and objectives, totally

self-absorbed, none of them what they think they are. Beverly sees herself as the kind gracious

host, all while intimidating and shaming her guests. In Life is Sweat, every character acts counter

to what they want or see themselves as being. The father sees himself as a trendy entrepreneur,

yet all his endeavors rust away in the front yard for every other character to see. Phil in All or

Nothing is caring and emotional but oblivious, absorbed in his romanticism making him
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ultimately despondent. Feeling are not actions, just because we will something to be does not

make it so. Leigh revels in this tension.

Leighs work is fundamentally different from Hollywood movies or all narrative driven

entertainment. He rejects formula, his films and often characters have no objectives. Resistance

or friction is almost entirely internal and obscured. As Ray Carney put it Behavior is event and

character is narrative. Action or spectacle is replaced by process. His films dont have passing

and failing, winning and losing. He looks after what people think and feel rather than achieve,

how people accept or cope rather than conquer. The plot is not exerted on the characters but

purely what is it to be a person trying to connect with others.

The biggest events or climaxes are when characters connect in response to a narrative

event. The events that do occur are almost always brought on by characters themselves.

However, the cinematic climax is in how they respond. Leigh maximizes cinema by never telling

us how characters feel but by showing. Even if characters never move, the camera observes

every facial expression as if its exposition, in silent close-ups. He uses parallel editing to show

his large cast of characters responding to the same event, at the same time. In Life is Sweat we

get to see individuals responses and interactions, every combination of characters reveals a

different aspect of the same individuals.

Leighs films are about connection. He uses families, co-workers, current, and old friends

to view how people connect or what happens when they are unable to. His films have been called

kitchen sink dramas as they frequently revolve around families living ordinary lives. However,

he has characters in every film that fit into his central theme of family drama as the exceptions

that prove the rule. Naked is about Jonny, an individual malformed by his inability to connect.

He rejects all relationships and indeed all things Leigh finds virtues. Jonny is a vacuum, a
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negative space only made clear by contrast of Louise, his ex-lover, who exemplifies everything

Jonny cant have and has lost. Just as in the less nuanced contrast in Happy-Go-Lucky, the ever

open and optimistic Poppy and her pessimistic, closed off driving instructor Scott. Leigh often

uses contrasting characters to set about the evolution of all his characters. This is rarely shown in

a shouting match or act of violence, but rather by challenging what theyve arrived at that scene

believing.

Much of what distinguishes a Mike Leigh film is where he puts the audience, as

voyeuristic, sometimes cold observers. We the audience get to watch but are never forced into

the characters. Cultural invisibility allows anyone to slip into the typical Hollywood characters,

their identity is their actions, actions we can picture ourselves doing. Tom Cruises characters

intentions are always known: be the good guy, do the right thing. We get to be Tom Cruise for

two hours, enjoy the power fantasy where good intentions are good actions. Leigh has no interest

in cultural invisibility, he relishes the otherness of his characters identity and the obscuring of

their intentions. His characters are made separate and independent of ourselves. We observe and

abandon our own lived experience unable to project them onto his characters. His films force the

audience to embrace otherness and ambiguity in the same way we interact with others in the real

world.

Leigh uses cinematic invisibility to immerse the audience in his characters world, not as

one of the characters but as oneself, disallowing cultural invisibly. Music orchestrates a scene,

not any individual or main character. The camera doesnt have an opinion of any one

character, it wont express how one person is feeling over any others. He seeks to put the

audience in the room, intact. In a review of Leighs work, Ray Carvey explains this experience

as, Contrary to the situation prevailing in most mainstream films, in Leighs work the
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conciseness of the main character or characters in not the organizing center. That is to say, the

drama is played out, not in the characters mind, but the viewers. We see the contrasts and

conflicts between individuals while they are unaware.

Leigh is often praised by those in England who have lived though some the sociopolitical

timeframes his characters are influenced by. I am mostly unable to speak to these events or

environments first hand. However, these larger themes can be felt as his worlds feel full of

individuals who have been disenfranchised or emboldened by social ideas or political

movements. You can feel the social pressures exerted on characters in where they live, what they

eat, their values, and how many cigarettes they burn through. In Naked we are shown what its

like to be one of the disposed of in a post-Thatcher England. Johnny is emblematic of the kind of

nihilist rage felt by those isolated in a time of foreboding doom. Its a universal feeling of those

that have been devalued, disconnected, and living without hope. We see different reactions to the

same social movements. The unemployed living on the dole (state welfare) is the reaction to

social problems faced in Meantime (1984) and the result is the defunct apartment complex in All

or Nothing (2002).

The fundamental ambition of Mike Leigh is to represent life in both content and form. In

the tradition of realism, he looks to observe people without camera tricks or manipulation. He

embraces the voyeuristic nature of film by watching established characters work and eat rather

than building a character through exposition. His cinematic style, at least in the films mentioned

here, are restrained to what the audience needs to know. Leigh honors ordinary people by

adhering to his idea of realism, not Bazins. He uses the full power of film to convey what feels

true. In Career Girls, the past is shot in hand-held, the edits are shorter, and the film is treated to

make the colors saturated. Its a way to show that these are memories of youth, more lively and
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full of color. The camera is always grounded, a simple tool to view a moment, establishing shot,

medium shot and close-up, the same way we experience the world. He doesnt break all the rules

established by old Hollywood, he just follows them to a different conclusion. He uses cinematic

invisibility to support and channel all attention to the performances.

Mike Leighs approach to film is wholly different from the cinematic values of

Hollywood. His style, though nuanced, is instantly recognizable and offers a depth of character

unlike any other. His films dont offer resolution but genuine experience. They are sincere about

truth and how subjective it is, an exercise in observation and compassion that are far more

rewarding than any spectacle.

References:

Carney, Ray. The Films of Mike Leigh. 2006.