By Brandon Wilson
Daily Bruin Contributor
There are two things that British filmmaker Mike Leigh is
obviously tired of discussing with reporters.
First is his trademark method of creating screenplays with a set
of actors after months of intensive improv with the collective
group.
The other thing is the matter of his latest film "Secrets &
Lies," due out in the States this Friday, winning the coveted Palme
d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival last spring. These two areas,
which inevitably come up as Leigh does his press-tour duties for
"Secrets & Lies," don’t so much irritate the director as they
do bore him, leading to short, terse answers and not much
illumination.
But when the talk turns to a more in-depth consideration of his
style, the nature of cinema and his improv process, the terse
answers are put away, and the director’s passion for his craft
takes over.
Centering on a black woman given up for adoption 27 years ago
and the effect her return has on her white biological family,
"Secrets & Lies," like all Mike Leigh films, was the
co-creation of Leigh and the talented actors he assembled to engage
in a five-month period of improv and experimentation.
Here the actors get to actively participate in the formation of
their character, and under the direction of Leigh, the actors
generate much of what goes on in the film. But don’t think, as some
have charged in the past, that he simply lets his actors do all his
work for him; Leigh is always in complete control of the projects
he helms.
"The fact that it has to do with adoption derives from the fact
that there are people close to me in my life that have
adoption-related experiences, and so for a certain number of years
I’ve had the intention to make a film about that," says Leigh. "And
I kind of wanted to deal with the generation of young black people,
born in Britain, that are just moving on and getting on with it,
and moving away from that bollocks ghetto stereotype."
Besides finding a wealth of material within the emotional bonds
and gags of family, Leigh has also turned his camera time and again
onto the intense class stratification that dictates the terms of
life for people in his native Great Britain. In "High Hopes" (1988)
and "Life is Sweet" (1990) he told the stories of families
struggling with both the economics of post-Thatcher England as well
as the interpersonal politics of being related to one another. Both
films were successful in Britain and abroad, and brought a
prominence to Leigh’s work that his years writing and directing for
television and the stage had denied him.
In 1992, his film "Naked," a searing and disturbing look at
London through the eyes of an intellectually gifted and emotionally
sadistic young man from Manchester, garnered Leigh a slew of
awards, including Best Director at Cannes; it also launched the
career of David Thewlis, who played the lead role. With "Naked,"
Leigh was firmly established as one of England’s most formidable
directors.
With "Secrets & Lies" Leigh returns to the only slightly
less volatile type of film he was known for previous to "Naked."
Starring Timothy Spall (also in "Life is Sweet"), Brenda Blethyn
(who won the Best Actress award at Cannes this year) and Marianne
Jean-Baptiste, the film catalogues the disparate lives of a family
and all the things left unsaid. Leigh’s film features expert acting
and camera work (by cinematographer Dick Pope), and while it may be
far from "Trainspotting," don’t mistake Leigh’s naturalistic style
for no style at all.
"I would hope that what I do is stylized, just not
over-stylized," says the director. "I hope that I make films in a
stylish way, I think it’s certainly not the kind of filmmaking
which is random and curt. I think it’s very considered and
controlled. When talking about stylistic choices such as where to
put the camera, my filmmaking philosophy is that the camera needs
to be in a very precise place, but it never wants to be
intrusive.
"I don’t want the audience to be thinking about the camera. The
joy for me is to work with cinematographers who share that, the
worst is to work with the kind of cinematographer who wants to be
on display all the time, and that’s true of the actors as well. I
want star-quality, high-flying acting, but it’s got to work because
you feel you’re looking at a real person, not because you’re
looking at an actor being self-indulgent."
Part of Leigh’s sensitivity to actors and their needs stems from
the fact that he himself trained early on as an actor at the Royal
Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) where he cut his dramatic teeth in
theater before attending the Central Arts Schools at the London
Film School.
As a film student with roots in the stage, Leigh had to
carefully consider the differences between the two media, as well
as wrestle with the question of the cinematic: what makes certain
stories a film, while others are best served on stage?
"The point is not whether a thing should be a film, but how you
exploit film when you do it," says Leigh. "There’s always arguments
about what is cinematic. I’ve made films where people have said,
‘It’s not cinematic.’ Some have said ‘Secrets & Lies’ is not as
cinematic as ‘Naked’; well that’s just plain stupid.
"The fact that it may not have certain elements that have to do
with the content of ‘Naked’ which are more apparently active
doesn’t make it any less or more cinematic. I’ve made films where
the camera hardly moves at all. If that’s not cinematic, my
question is where does that leave Ozu? (Yasujiro Ozu, considered
one of Japan’s most traditional and masterful directors, was known
for his static camera and long takes.) But still, on your own terms
the question remains what do you do with it, how far do you push
it, are you telling a story in film terms.
"I think a lot of it has to do with the sort of artist you are,
not just what the subject matter is. If you’re disposed to think in
film terms, then whatever story you get you’ll find a way to tell
it in film terms. Take ‘Jules et Jim’ (by Francois Truffaut) for
example. A not-especially interesting or well-written novel was
turned into a cinematic masterpiece. It’s all in the way you tell
it."
The next story Leigh will tell has already completed shooting
and will be released next year. The as-yet untitled film (Leigh
leaves his films untitled until they are finished) will be shorter
than the two-and-a-half hour "Secrets & Lies" and will look at
friendship instead of family. "It’s basically about a couple of
women who are 30 and you see them now and in the ’80s when they
were students, it keeps flashing back. And that’s it."
One of the director’s more colorful recent statements was, that
given the choice between working in Hollywood or poking steel pins
in his eyes, he’d take the pins. Has his recent trip to the West
Coast and success at Cannes changed his opinion?
"People said to me immediately after the Palme d’Or, ‘Great! So
you’re going to Hollywood next, right?’ And my answer is, ‘Hold on,
I’m successful, I’m on a roll, why should I spoil it?’ I can’t
begin to imagine that Hollywood would be anything other than a
complete waste of time and a disaster for me. It would take a huge
amount to convince me otherwise, it really would. I don’t think I
need to explain that, do I?"