Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh

Author: Mike Leigh

Publisher: Faber & Faber Film

Published: 2021-10-07

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 9780571353828

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This new edition updates Mike Leigh's career to his most recent films, Mister Turner and the epic masterpiece Peterloo. Five-time Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner, the only British director to have won the top prize at both Cannes (for Secrets & Lies) and Venice (for Vera Drake) - Mike Leigh is unquestionably one of world cinema's pre-eminent figures. Now, in this definitive career-length interview, he reflects on all that has gone into the making of his unique body of work. In their commingling of bleakness and humor, Leigh's films recreate the tragi-comic world of people whose everyday lives are far from glamorous: a world in which 'the done thing' usually prevails, contrary to our inner hopes, wants or needs. Leigh's work has always reflected its times and entered the vernacular, whether the harsh studies of Meantime and Naked or the humor of the now-legendary Abigail's Party and Nuts in May. Above all, Leigh is an accomplished storyteller, and these films deal with universal themes: births, marriages and deaths, parenthood and failed relationships, families and their secrets and lies. Within these pages Leigh speaks to Amy Raphael more openly than ever before of his life and inimitable working method, revealing himself as passionate, forthright, no sufferer of fools, but the owner of a dry and playful Mancunian wit.

Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh

Author: Mike Leigh

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 9781578060689

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Collected interviews with the British filmmaker of High Hopes, Life Is Sweet, and Secrets and Lies

Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh

Author: Sean O'Sullivan

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2011-08-01

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0252093402

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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.

The Films of Mike Leigh
The Films of Mike Leigh

Author: Raymond Carney

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2000-06-19

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780521485180

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Carney examines one of the most important directors of British independent filmmaking.

Devised and Directed by Mike Leigh
Devised and Directed by Mike Leigh

Author: Bryan Cardinale-Powell

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2013-07-22

Total Pages: 589

ISBN-13: 1623565642

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Renowned for making films that are at once sly domestic satires and heartbreaking 'social realist' dramas, British writer-director Mike Leigh confronts his viewers with an un-romanticized dramatization of modern-day society in the hopes of inspiring them to strive for greater self-awareness and compassion for others. This collection features new, interdisciplinary essays that cover all phases of the BAFTA-award-winner's film career, from his early made-for-television film work to his theatrical releases, including Life is Sweet (1990), Naked (1993), Secrets & Lies (1996), Career Girls (1997), Topsy-Turvy (1999), All or Nothing (2002), Vera Drake (2004), Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) and Another Year (2010). With contributions from international scholars from a variety of fields, the essays in this collection cover individual films and the recurring themes and motifs in several films, such as representations of class and gender, and overt social commentary and political subtexts. Also covered are Leigh's visual stylizations and storytelling techniques ranging from explorations of the costume design to set design to the music and camerawork and editing; the collaborative process of 'devising and directing' a Mike Leigh film that involves character-building, world-construction, plotting, improvisations and script-writing; the process of funding and marketing for these seemingly 'uncommercial' projects, and a survey of Leigh's critical reception and the existing writing on his work.

Two Thousand Years
Two Thousand Years

Author: Mike Leigh

Publisher:

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13:

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"In Two Thousand Years Mike Leigh explores, in a gentle tragi-comic way, a wide range of issues, including politics, religion, identity and the vexed question of Israel and the Middle East."--BOOK JACKET.

Grief
Grief

Author: Mike Leigh

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Published: 2012-04-03

Total Pages: 131

ISBN-13: 0571283039

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1957. War widow Dorothy lives in a London suburb with her 15-year-old daughter Victoria and her older bachelor brother Edwin. More and more isolated from her married friends with their successful children, Dorothy tries to cope with Victoria's increasingly hostile behaviour. But is she doing her best, as she thinks, or is she in fact responsible for what threatens to become an unendurable situation?'A exquisitely observed, profoundly quiet slice of 1950s suburban life.' The Sunday Times'Meticulously evocative' Independent'Manville is magnificent in this broodingly muted family drama.' Sunday Express'Leigh makes you laugh and laugh - until you cry.' Time Out'A haunting portrait of loss and loneliness, exquisitely acted throughout and led by a riveting performance by Manville.' Financial Times'Leigh's meticulous production potently captures the pain that lurked behind stiff upper lips in the England of the Fifties.' Daily Telegraph'Nobody gets more truthful performances from actors than Mike Leigh.' The Times'The acting is superb.' Guardian'Leigh directs with sensitivity.' Evening Standard'Extraordinarily poignant' Independent on Sunday

To the Kwai and Back
To the Kwai and Back

Author: Ronald Searle

Publisher: Souvenir Press

Published: 2019-05

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780285644205

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In 1941 Ronald Searle was made a prisoner of war by the Japanese, after 14 months in a POW camp he was sent to work on the Burma Railway until May 1944 when he was sent to the notorious Changi prison. Throughout his captivity Searle drew to record his experiences, hiding the drawings, and they have been become to be recognised as among the greatest, and most moving, record of WW2. Searle has described the book as "the grafitti of a condemned man... who found himself--to his surprise and delight -- among the reprieved."

Smelling a Rat
Smelling a Rat

Author: Mike Leigh

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 86

ISBN-13: 9781854593160

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Rex Weasel, owner of the Vermination Pest Control Company, has returned home from holiday unexpectedly and without his wife. Hoping to lay low, his plans are rudely interrupted when one of his employees, Vic Maggot and his wife, Charmaine, drop in to check on the apartment. They're not even supposed to be there as Vic is filling in for another of Rex's employees. To complicate matters further, the Weasels' estranged son, Rocky shows up with his girlfriend, Melanie-Jane.