Mike Leigh at the BBC (six-disc box set DVD)
Brilliant social commentator
Jamie Moloney reviews Mike Leigh at the BBC (six-disc box set DVD), 2009, £43.95
Mike Leigh, like Ken Loach (Kes, The wind that shakes the barley) and Shane Meadows (Dead man’s shoes, This is England), is part of a progressive force within British cinema.
His unorthodox method of building the script in collaboration with the actors has given depth to both the narratives and characters found within his work. Not much is known of Leigh’s esoteric methods, predominantly because he keeps them a close-guarded secret – even the actors are sworn to secrecy. What is known, however, is that it is somewhat a holistic process – one which sees each chosen actor being made aware only of what the character would naturally know within the remit of the story; Leigh is the only one who knows the overarching narrative which, eventually, through improvisation workshops with the actors, progresses into the format of a written script, being realised in what arty types refer to as an ‘ensemble’ performance by the cast.
Nonetheless, Leigh’s ability to place a critical mirror in front of society is one to be celebrated. Throughout his work there is a constant will to lay bare both societal inequities – class, gender or race-related – as well as the social norms which seem to determine how we as social beings perceive, and hence interact with, one another.
Growing up in working class Salford as a doctor’s son left Leigh with a sense of social fragmentation that is a common theme throughout his work for both TV and the big screen. In fact, in his formative teenage years, Leigh followed in the footsteps of his parents to become a member of Habonim – a socialist Zionist youth movement that has spawned such characters as David Baddiel and Sacha Baron Cohen. Leigh then left the group for fear of becoming a ‘kibbutznik’, but has retained a somewhat mildly radical perception of societal relations ever since – one that resonates throughout his work.
Mike Leigh at the BBC covers the work he did for the BBC during the 17-year period – from Bleak moments (1971) to High hopes (1988) – in which he had to wait for enough funding before he could take on another feature-length film (Ken Loach was apparently in the same boat following his 1969 Kes), though this is to take nothing away from Leigh’s achievements on the small screen. Throughout this box set, Leigh poses a number of important questions about the normative rules of our social practices – norms of politeness, behaviour, social expectation – and places them within various common social contexts, from a camping trip to a cocktail party.
While he manages to lace the awkwardness of social relationships with a sense of humour (though some elements may be considered to induce a prolonged, cringing agony), common in all of his work is an underlying tension ready to explode in a cathartic expression of emotion. In what follows, I attempt to cast Mike Leigh’s TV work for the BBC in a fair light. However, it is impossible to cover all of the subtle nuances that are to be found within this 17-year period.
Hard labour (1973, 70 minutes): Following a few days in the life of Mrs Thornley, Hard labour tackles the issues surrounding the gender roles of a working class family, generational divergences and racial tensions. Mrs Thornley works as a part-time maid for Mrs Stone (an unsavoury character with a propensity for pedantry) and full-time as a housewife for her husband and daughter. Unappreciated, overworked and unhappy in her marriage, Mrs Thornley carries a constant sombre expression, but gets on with her lot with little resistance, even to the patriarchal repression from her husband – a security guard who respects his boss more than his wife.
The generational differences come out in the sexual promiscuity of Mrs Thornley’s daughter and her friend, with the tensions being evident in the mild racism expressed towards a driver and the difficulty of communicating with foreign residents, as we see in a laundrette scene. The martyrdom of Mrs Thornley by Leigh is wholly justified.
The permissive society (1975, 30 minutes): Here, Leigh gives a humorous insight into the awkwardness and emotional ups and downs of sexual relationships – the title, I believe, is intended to be taken with a certain amount of irony, in that the generation of the 1970s had more sexual freedom, but this did not mean that that they were in fact free of the discomforts of sex.
There are elements of class difference between Les, a working class lad, and Carol, more lower-middle, but the main focus is on their inability to communicate sexually. There is also a promiscuous elder sister thrown in, whose misfortune seems to inform us that it does not get any easier. Good working class sense of humour, particularly the comment that Les’s mum was so ugly that she “could turn milk off”.
The five-minute films (1975, five x five minutes): In each of these short films, Leigh tackles separate issues surrounding not just the emotional side of human relationships, but also the ways in which these are determined by the social contexts within which we find ourselves.
The first, Birth of the goalie, follows the aspirations of a working class couple to have a child despite the increased the financial burden incurred. Second, we have an impatient character who cannot try hard enough to cut the conversation short with an old friend. Leigh is essentially portraying the awkwardness between people who, although they have long stopped being friends, still attempt to engage in polite, platitudinous conversations.
The third offering, Probation, demonstrates the mildness of institutionalised racism in the police force and subsequent probation services; one is left with a sense of indignation at the treatment of a black youth whose only crime was to turn down a bad cup of tea. In the fourth instalment of these short films, A light snack, Leigh tackles work-based relationships, particularly their element of forcing conflicting personalities to get on and the difficulties of communication inherent in such contexts.
The fifth and final film, Afternoon, shows a couple of disenchanted housewives getting casually drunk in the middle of the day, with Leigh introducing the optimism of a recently married woman into the scene to juxtapose the two perceptions of marriage and, I assume, to highlight the bitterness of the drunken housewives.
Nuts in May (1976, 84 minutes): Taken and adopted from Leigh’s Wholesome glory production for the theatre, Nuts in May tells the story of a lower-middle class couple’s camping trip to the Dorset countryside. The two main characters, Keith, a social worker, and Candice-Marie, a toy store operative played by Leigh’s now ex-wife, Alison Steadman, are purposefully tarred with a moralistic, almost evangelical, brush, which sees them pass judgements on those around them.
First, it is the lack of non-pasteurised milk (Leigh is probably one of the earliest satirists of the organic propagation moralists), and they (well, Keith at Candice-Marie’s goading) then turn their attention to the loudness of the radio coming from the tent next door. The catharsis comes when Keith attempts to make a citizen’s arrest upon another neighbour for making a fire out of tree branches. This culminates in a childish swinging of branches before Keith breaks down like a schoolboy.
Leigh gives a successful account of how social intolerance can lead to conflict, but he could have done it with less film and in a less agonisingly cringing way.
The kiss of death (1977, 73 minutes): Leigh himself describes his work as infusing the humorous with the tragic – the only element of his films which he sees as emanating from his Jewish background – and nowhere is this more clear than in The kiss of death.
The story follows a troubled and introspective Trevor, who works at a funeral parlour and who finds it difficult to communicate with others, particularly girls. Leigh manages to maintain a level of tension throughout the film in the form of both the sexual and social relationships between the characters, and, just when the humour begins to take over the picture, he introduces the tragedy of a baby’s death.
This is one of Leigh’s less entertaining pieces, but is nonetheless compelling in the issues it tackles.
Abigail’s party (1977, 102 minutes): One of Leigh’s more well-known productions, Abigail’s party is essentially a play put on screen, with all the action taking place in one static environment. Even so, Leigh manages to get a lot out of his characters, using them to illuminate social norms of behaviour and the pretensions inherent in social interaction.
While Sue’s daughter, Abigail, has a party next door, Beverley throws a cocktail party of her own. In what ensues, social taboos are broken – the asking of invasive personal questions, for instance – and social norms of behaviour are discarded. Raging domestic arguments in front of guests are common throughout, though all the while people are trying their best to abide by such norms. All of this may make for an uncomfortable watch, but the film provides an insightful reflection of the silliness of human interaction, as well as the pressures to conform.
Who’s who (1979, 82 minutes): Focusing on class differences, Who’s who sees Leigh run amok with upper class culture and the shallowness of those who wish to promote themselves into the supposed upper echelons of British society.
By setting the story within the context of a stockbroking firm, Leigh is able to juxtapose working, lower-middle and upper class figures in the same office, which makes for interesting cross-cultural perceptions. However, the real insights of the film are made outside the office – Leigh uses the context of a dinner party to accentuate the absurdity of upper class cultural and social norms of ‘who’s who’ and ‘what are they doing these days?’, before dealing with the emptiness of those who wish to climb the social ladder by painting his lower-middle class character as a pathetic wannabe.
There’s a moralistic hint of how we are not all so different, but Leigh does manage to maintain a decent sense of humour throughout, particularly in the form of Kevin – the only working class character in the film, played by one of Leigh’s favoured actors, Phillip Davies.
Grown-ups (1980, 95 minutes): In Grown-ups Leigh develops a critique of societal inequalities and their perpetuation through the education system; he then accentuates the point by allowing the characters to have tantrums and act like children, implying a lack of mental progression. He achieves this through the medium of the main characters’ old teacher, who still works at the same school and is now presiding over the next generation of unfortunates.
A number of other storylines, such as the economic cost of having a baby and the monotony of an unfulfilling job, run through the main narrative with surprising ease.
Home sweet home (1982, 95 minutes): Home sweet home follows the lives of three postal sorting office workers, particularly their domestic lives. Interestingly, we see both the introduction of the instrument which sets the mood in the majority of Leigh’s later works, the cello, as well as the first appearance of another mainstay, Timothy Spall.
The underlying message seems to be the effects that an unstable home life can have on people – not only are there a number of unappreciated, adulterous housewives: there is also emphasis placed on what impact the lack of a stable home life can have on a child – Leigh’s critique of the alienating nature of the social services being of particular interest here.
Four days in July (1985, 96 minutes): Four days in July sees Leigh move away from his main focus on the working class culture of Britain to the destructive nationalism of Ireland.
He follows two families on either side of the northern divide – that of an Ulster Defence Regiment man and a republican whose experiences as a victim of an Ulster Volunteer Force bomb and deflected British bullets have left him disabled. Leigh places the story in the run-up to the July 12 Orange march in order to emphasise the tensions between loyalist and republican, but he also illuminates the similarities by having the mothers of these two opposing families go into labour on the morning of the big day – though their interactions in the hospital again emphasise the intransigence of those on either side of the divide.
Bonus disc: There has, for once, been good use made of the bonus disc in this boxset. Not only does it contain a relatively in-depth documentary of Leigh and his work, though it does date back to 1982 and so misses out on his later stuff: it also contains a moving interview on the subject of his late father, The long goodbye.
The best part of the bonus material, however, has to be The conversation – a 40-minute interview with Leigh by Will Self. Surprisingly, Self is not full of his usual verbiage and is actually quite deferent towards Leigh. This makes for a relatively relaxed conversation that actually gets to the root of Leigh’s work, with the suggestion that the motivation is to lay bare the pretensions of life so as to allow a focus upon the fundamentals.
In other words, his films are a reflection of the battle between the inner self and the social self. As Leigh himself puts it, “It’s about masks … the thing that we are forced to be, that society expects us to be, the behaviour that we’re supposed to conform with, and the tension between that and what’s behind the mask.”
It is evident from Mike Leigh at the BBC that Leigh is a brilliant social commentator and discerning critic of the normative issues which constrain us as social beings. He must be considered as one of the greatest British directors of our generation. Although, it must be said, this is more evident in his feature films than in his work for the BBC.
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