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Naked (1993)
'Naked' was the first Mike Leigh film I saw and I don't think any film since has ever changed me quite as much. It's rather like when I read '1984' when I was a teenager - nothing was the same afterwards. For one thing it kick started my love of Leigh's work and instigated that thrill of excitement whenever I hear he has a new film coming out. But I also experienced once again that rare feeling that an artist is telling me the truth in a world of lies.
It's about Johnny, played by David Thewlis, who is a fucked up genius who wanders round London spitting sagacious venom at everyone he meets. It's difficult to describe this performance but he's rather like Jesus - he is Messianic and I suppose you could get deep here about Mike Leigh being Jewish and searching for a Messiah - I don't know... could you?
He is frightening, cowardly - the film opens with him apparently raping a woman - and yet we grow to feel deep affection for this character who is so vulnerable and so astonishing. He spends some time with an optimistic security guard and poisons his mind, we feel, with his thoughts about the end of the world - taken from the Bible, from the book of revelation.
'the BAR CODE Brian, the ubiquitous fucking BAR CODE'
I just can't explain it to you the way he does. You have to see him shout at Brian in a dark room, the two of them in shadow, the camera fixed there forever it seems. What is this obsession with the future Brian? There IS no future...
When asked how his mother is he says :
'she's dead actually. She's still a good fuck though. Course I get it at a cheaper rate being her son and all...'
His dark eyes probe mercilessly into the hearts of every other lost, lonely, abandoned character on the screen and into YOU as you watch. There is no escaping him - he will own you after you have seen this film - if you have a glimmer of imagination, he might just become someone you want in your life,
even though he smells and is covered in his own blood.
He asks : 'what's it like being you?' - without irony. He wants to know.
I'm not quite sure where 'Naked' came from - it bucks the trend of sweet and sour social observation - it's still intimate but on a grand scale, if that makes sense.
I borrowed it from Strood Library and the Librarian gazed at me with excited eyes as she handed it over and told me how good it was. She must have been another Mike Leigh type person.
Like Well Self - I saw him interviewing Leigh once and he did nothing but talk about 'Naked'. Is it any wonder?
This is Ballard. This is Joyce. This is Dante.
Don't get me wrong, kids, this isn't an easy film to watch. In fact, it's fucking harrowing and difficult and terrifying - but essential.
A true work of utter, utter, utter, utter fucking genius - ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mike Leigh's
'Was I bored? No, I wasn't fuckin' bored. I'm never bored. That's the trouble with everybody - you're all so bored. You've had nature explained to you and you're bored with it, you've had the living body explained to you and you're bored with it, you've had the universe explained to you and you're bored with it, so now you want cheap thrills and, like, plenty of them, and it doesn't matter how tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it's new as long as it's new as long as it flashes and fuckin' bleeps in forty fuckin' different colors. So whatever else you can say about me, I'm not fuckin' bored.'
...and so it goes on...
The Short and Curlies (1987)
This 'short' film is good fun - mainly because of Alison Steadman's performance as a wheezy hairdresser who says things like 'that's gorgeous Joy' a lot. In fact this is one of those instances where you have to do a MLFCI (Mike Leigh Film Character Impression) and say 'That's gorgeous Joy' at every available opportunity - much to the chagrin of your partner. Probably.
I used to have a video of 'Life is Sweet' and this film was on there too - I don't know where you'd get it now.
High Hopes (1988)
This film is pretty much about Socialism and how it's, well, 'high hopes' take a knock in the real world. In my mind it's kind of the last of the old school Mike Leigh films.
It's pretty good - the character of Valerie rather brings back memories of Beverley from Abigail's Party - another Mike Leigh monster who strides across a cringe inducing party scene. The couple at the centre of the story are sweet - these devoted couples surrounded by chaos and lunacy are rather a Mike Leigh motif - right up to 'Another Year' (2010)
Life is Sweet (1990)
This is where it all starts coming together. The social awkwardness, the sadness, the longing, the silliness, the sex, the dirt, the joy. For a long time this was not just my favourite Mike Leigh film but my favourite film per se.
The more stylised performances, like those of Timothy Spall and Jane Horrocks (pictured) serve the story well and are genuinely funny in a 'Nuts in May' kind of way. In fact everything about Aubrey (Spall) makes me laugh - he has just opened a restaurant called 'The Regret Rien' and intends to serve dishes such as 'prawns in jam' and 'duck in chocolate sauce'. He plays the drums badly. And he says things like 'I wanna fuck you, Wendy' when he's drunk.
But the film is basically about a family - a family with problems and secrets who argue and fight but basically love each other. There is another wonderful performance from Alison Steadman as Wendy - she makes you laugh and cry in this film. Oh - how do I love thee 'Life is Sweet' - shall I count the ways?
Certainly Leigh's best film to this point by a country mile the whole thing is a joy from start to finish and I think you should watch it, basically.
'Aubrey's in a coma, he doesn't want chips...'
Home Sweet Home (1982)
This film about the lives of some postmen is pretty forgettable to be honest. Nothing to write home about you might say. There you go, I've covered it.
Meantime (1983)
This is an example of 80s anti-Thatcher type film-making. Probably films like this are why Mike Leigh is often confused with Ken Loach. Seriously that shouldn't happen - Leigh is in a different league, I think.
Anyway, Meantime is a bit dreary - life for the losers on the dole, you know the kind of thing. Not exceptional. Actually, now I look at it, the 80s were not (in my opinion) a very good period for Mike Leigh. Then what happens in 1990? Life is Sweet. Perfection - and everything from there has been magnificent apart from Career Girls. So the 80s didn't seem to suit him that much.
Probably the anger - it siphoned the human condition down to its relation to one solitary thing : Thatcher.
One thing to note about Meantime is its roll call of quality actors : Alfred Molina, Tim Roth, Gary Oldman in his film debut. Leigh really knows how to spot talent - giving Gary Oldman a break into films was quite a coup for the bearded, northern one.
Four Days in July (1985)
This is the first departure for Leigh - from his usual subject matter and location I mean. It's Leigh 'does' the troubles in Northern Ireland. The ending is quite sweet - where a protestant and catholic woman both end up having babies at the same time in the hospital and sit there talking about stuff. Or is that a heavy handed metaphor?
It's OK. I'd watch something like 'The Crying Game' or 'In the Name of the Father' to be honest.
The end of a bit of an under whelmed Mike Leigh blog. And I claim to love this film director??? Ahh - the joys and raptures are yet to come really. I will soon be singing the praises of some of the greatest English films ever made.
The Kiss of Death (1977)
Ironic that one of my favourite Leigh films (Abigail's Party) should have been followed by one I absolutely can't stand. This film is boring and stupid in the extreme. If you hate Mike Leigh this should be exhibit 'A' in your case against him.
One of the criticisms levelled against him over the years is that if you give actors room to define their own characters, the characters naturally end up being too stylised - because it's more fun to play someone unique and cranky with easily identifiable tics and gestures than to be naturalistic.
I argue against this point because, quite frankly, I don't see how you can create characters who are more bizarre than people are in real life !!
BUT the character played by David Threlfall (who would later play Frank in 'Shameless') in this film is a good example of what can go wrong with Mike Leigh's method. The character, who works for an undertaker, is nothing but a collection of mannerisms - so that he just seems autistic, although there's nothing in the film to suggest this, or any other mental illness.
I would describe the story, but there isn't one. Which isn't necessarily a problem, but there's no characterisation either.
You just feel irritated - it doesn't work. Possibly I'm missing something but I don't think so. Horse-shit. Avoid. Sorry Mike.
Who's Who (1978)
Better. This is quite a funny little play about posh people for a change - or posh people and people who want to be like them. There are some nicely observed characters. Often you find Mike Leigh films kind of drift along and you don't know who to follow - who the protagonist is.
In a film like this there is no 'hero' (I mean in the dramatic sense) - it's a collection of scenes which leave you with an overall feeling. The one that sticks on in my mind is a dinner party held by some hoity-toity young people who have clearly just moved out of home for the first time. It's really sweet and silly - typical Mike Leigh.
Grown-ups (1980)
Into the 80s now - a period during which Mike Leigh arguably got sucked into the polemical film making style of the era. No bad thing, but some of it doesn't necessarily date that well - and anger alone does not a good film make. Usually.
Anyway, before that is 'Grown Ups' - a film about a sweet young working class couple in their first home. They are constantly visited by 'Gloria' - Brenda Blethyn in a performance which foreshadows her wonderful portrayal of Cynthia in 'Secrets and Lies'.
The set piece of the film is a long scene in which Gloria becomes hysterical and locks herself in the next door neighbour's bathroom. It is unbelievably embarrassing and cringe-worthy - funny and tragic.
I don't know how anyone can criticize Leigh's films for being unrealistic - this kind of thing seems to always be happening to and around me. Maybe that's just my life.. and maybe that's why I love his films so much!
I am a parent governor at my old school in Hoo - today I went round there to talk to the kids about what it was like when I went there. This is what I said :
My memories of Primary School
It’s funny to be standing here talking about this because it doesn’t really feel like that long ago. It’s strange when you become a mummy or daddy yourself and watch your children go to school. And when you meet the kids you went to school with and they’re all grown up with little kids too. But I still remember what it was like in the old days…
When I came to this school it was two schools : the Infant school and Primary school. The centre wasn’t there in those days.
They didn’t mix at all - one summer when I was in the Infant school the kids from the other school came up to play on the field up there next to the playground. I went and played with my cousin, who was in the other school and got into bad trouble for that. I remember I had to stand in the corridor facing the wall - which was horrible because the corridor was all dark and scary.
The whole school was much darker and less colourful in those days.
I would have started at the infant school in 1979 - so about 30 years ago.
I know that when you started at the school you came to look round it first and met your teacher and saw your classroom. They never did that when I started at the school - you saw your classroom and met your teacher on the first day you started - and it was very scary.
I remember doing times tables and getting into trouble for not understanding the difference between the add sign and the multiply sign - so I had to stay in at playtime till I understood it. That was horrible. That was a big mean teacher who did that - I can’t remember her name but she had a rubbery, angry looking face and a big shouty voice.
I also remember we had rubber stamps with clock faces on them and we had to stamp them on an ink pad and put about six on a piece of paper. Then the teacher would write times on the black board and we had to draw the hands in.
That was another thing - the blackboard. I don’t think they are used much now but in my day there was one in every classroom. The teacher used to write on them with chalk and teachers usually had chalk all over their trousers!
They used to rub the chalk off with blackboard rubbers which were made of wood. If you weren’t listening in a lesson some teachers used to throw the blackboard rubber at you!!
There were some things about school in my day which you might have preferred - like there was no uniform in this school, you just wore your own clothes.
The trouble with that was your clothes might have been a bit old - or you might have had hand-me-downs from your big sister or brother that were two big - so you might have got picked on for that. With uniform everyone looks the same so that’s good really.
Also on the last day of term before summer holidays you could bring in toys and games and you just played all day and didn’t have any lessons.
I wouldn’t try asking Miss Tricket if you can do that - I don’t think you’d get very far!
I remember that we all used to get free milk at break times - until the Prime Minister of them time who was called Margaret Thatcher decided children didn’t need free milk anymore and so she was called Margaret Thatcher - Milk Snatcher!
We didn’t have targets like you do and we didn’t get homework. No homework until you got to the big school. Expect you might get a book to read.
I don’t remember going on school trips or anything like that when I came to this school. My little boy Freddie went away with the school last year to Kingswood and you might be doing things like that yourselves soon. That would never have happened when I went to school - so it wasn’t as exciting.
We used to have assembly every morning and we used to sing hymns like ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. The words to the hymns would be on big sheets of cardboard and some children would have to stand at the front and hold up the sheets.
We used to sing ‘Give me oil in my lamp’ - which you might still sing now?
The music teacher who was called Miss Roberts used to divide us up and some of us would sing :
‘Sing Hosanna, Sing Hosanna, Sing Hosanna to the king of kings…’
And the rest of us would sing :
‘SING! SING! SING! SING!’
Then at the end it would go :
‘Sing Hosanna, Sing Hosanna, Sing Hosanna to the king’.
And at least one little kiddie would sing an extra ‘… of kings’ and get laughed at.
The last thing I remember was that when I went to school they were very keen on us having healthy teeth. So a dentist would actually come to the school and we’d have to have our teeth looked at.
Also, once a week a lady would come round with a trolley - and on the trolley were lots of plastic cups filled with pink mouthwash!
When she came into the classroom everyone would groan ‘oh no the mouthwash!’
Then we’d each be given a cup and a strange ritual would take place.
At a certain time we’d all have to drink the mouthwash and hold it in our mouths - expect one little kid would probably end up swallowing it and have to have another mouthwash. Probably the little kid who did the ‘of kings’.
Anyway, we’d all have to sit there with the mouthwash in our mouths for a few minutes - so the classroom went very quiet. And it tasted really horrible - no one thought of making it taste of strawberries… it was nasty.
First we’d make faces like this…
Then our faces would be like this…
Then towards the end of the time some kids would start whining and going like this…
THEN the teacher would tell us we could spit it out and we would all spit it back into the cups and the whole classroom would go : ‘URGH!!!’
And that’s the end of my school memories.
Abigail's Party (1977) is not just a play. It is a way of life. It is a cult. It is a phenomenon.
Alison Steadman gives the performance of her career as Beverly, the sexually supreme giantess who strides across the screen in her platform heels and maxi- dress. I suppose she isn't actually a giantess - but she seems huge and square, she holds herself in a certain way and fills the screen with a wonderful shimmering orange glow.
She is also, of course, a monster. A comedy monster as magnificent and memorable as Basil Fawlty or Alan Partridge.
The play is about a little 'soiree' which Beverley hosts - a glam cocktail party in her mind - while her neighbour Sue's daughter (the Abigail of the title, who we do not see) has a rowdy party. Also invited are the newbies to the street - Angela and Tony.
It's a play about social aspiration and awkwardness - absolutely cuttingly relevant as ever and oh so English.
Beverley is one of those women who work behind the makeup counter at a department store - the little lecture she gives Angela on how to put her lipstick on is so beautiful and precious. Just occasionally I do actually sit down in front of my mirror, relax, and say to myself 'I have very beautiful lips'. And you know what, I see the difference, because I apply the lipstick to every...corner...of.. my ... mouth.
It's a collection of these gorgeous little moments frozen in ice, moments in time played out for all eternity in a kind of eternal recurrence - a 'Huis Clos' torture chamber which threatens, or promises, to never end.
Except it does end in about as shocking and jarring a change of mood as you will ever see in any film. The discomfort increases until it becomes almost horror before your eyes. You are left almost shaken by it - almost scared.
It's a wonderful piece and right up there with the finest of Leigh's works - I urge you to see this. I really, really do urge you.
And buy the greatest hits of Demis Roussos too because I like Demis Roussos, Ange likes Demis Roussos and Sue would like to hear Demis Roussos so LAWRENCE...
would you put Demis Roussos on please?
Bleak Moments (1971)
Mike Leigh's first film. It's haunting, certain images stay with you : the lead character's inscrutable, moon-like face, a tree-lined street on a cold, crisp morning....
It's all about failure of communication and suffers from just the problem you'd expect - how do you make a film about lack of communication which isn't boring?
If you can, this isn't it. The film is unbelievably tedious and stubbornly, well, bleak to the point at which it just makes you mad.
As a fan, I was interested to see it - as I have been all Leigh's films - but you shouldn't start investigating Mike Leigh's oeuvre here. See the picture above - that's the whole film in a nutshell.
Hard Labour (1973)
This is the first of Leigh's TV plays - which vary in quality from the wonderful to the, well, not quite so good. Hard Labour is pretty good - not a bad place to start. It's like two weeks in the Bahamas compared to 'Bleak Moments'. Liz Smith is very good in it - a studied portrait of long suffering, stoic womanhood.
The Permissive Society (1975)
Little picture was all I could find - this was a 30 minute play rather than a whole film, from the days when the beeb would produce short one-off dramas that didn't necessarily have to be about all that much. A good way to introduce new talent.
It's just a sweet little vignette about a bloke and a bird really. Not going to change the world, just a little slice of normal life. The more I think about it, the more I like it.
Anyway I had to include it so I could include 'The Short and Curlies' later on...
Nuts in May (1976)
Another TV play - and possibly Leigh's downright funniest film. I love this so much, I think I could watch it every day and still wet myself.
You often find yourself wanting to impersonate characters in Leigh films - after watching 'Nuts in May' I will go around for several days talking in a 'Keith' voice or a 'Candice-Marie' voice. I suppose you just have to see it.
It's about this couple who are into the environment and being vegetarian and into hiking about healthily in a way which is fairly standard for the middle classes now but was perhaps still slightly wacky back then.
They are unbelievably self-righteous and silly - glorious comedy creations who create awkward moments everywhere they go. The cringe-making comedy of 'The Office' ? It started right here.
Just wonderful. Now THIS is a good place to start with Mike Leigh - although you might have to hire or buy the entire 'BBC' era box set to see it.
I think if I were to try to explain a funny bit it just wouldn't work - Leigh's humour doesn't work that way. It's gentle and rippling, but somehow devastating and genuinely sad. Sublime.
Now, you sing along, Ray : 'She wanted to go to the zoo she said, she wanted to go to the zoo...'
