The Mike Leigh Poll

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Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Super hard to choose. Voted Life Is Sweet for partly sentimental reasons (it was my first Mike Leigh).

Also, RIP Katrin Cartlidge ;_;

Lots of good choices here, but I can think of few theatrical experiences equal to the first time I saw "Topsy-Turvy." Utterly enthralled.

little-known fact: I own a Career Girls t shirt

Soft spot for Abigail's Party. Would love to see it again... is there a quality difference between the us or uk dvd?

Haven't seen the last two yet for some reason.

"Life is Sweet" is the King of Mike Leigh movies. Next I would go for "Naked" and then for "Career Girls" as a distant third.
The only one that doesn't really fit into his works for me is Topsy-Turvy. It's sort of like his "Gosford Park," for me--the exception that proves the work.

Abigail's Party

everyone, just say what you think

Life is Sweet was the first Mike Leigh movie I saw, and I have more affection for it than his other movies even though some of them are technically "better" for one reason or another.

Don't know much Leigh but for me, 'Topsy Turvy' just beats out 'Naked', as fond as I am of that film.

Err... Nut in May I guess. Don't like this guy's output tbh. Naked is such a stupid, stupid film.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

yay bitter nihilist antihero!

topsy turvy is amazing. missed this poll.

Tsk emos.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x55y5q_nuts-in-may-part-1-of-5_shortfilms

I wonder about this...There is a reading of this film that Sally Hawkins's 'happy go luckyness' is just as manic in its own way as David Thewlis in Naked. So in a sense it's a mirror image of Naked - the flip manic side to Naked's depressive side.

Well yeah, it's pretty clear Hawkins's character isn't quite normal, a point which is brought up by the driving instructor (even though he's pretty fucked up himself). But I thought Leigh's point was, that despite her (often manic) perkyness and optimism she can still manage in the world, and she doesn't need to be "brought down" (which is something a cynical viewer would expect to happen). Even if she's not quite normal, her quirks are mostly benevolent, and there's no reason to think something is "wrong" with her.

Finally saw 'Happy-Go-Lucky'. Amazing performances. Still trying to figure out what I thought of it.

I think it's more nuanced than some of the critics have made it to be; certainly the scenes between Poppy and the taxi driver (especially the last one) make it into something more complex than just a optimist manifesto. But I think it still is anti-cynical in the way it suggests Poppy (no matter how manic or mental she is) and her views have no less validity in the world than any other viewpoints, even if her is not quite as popular as some of the more cynical alternatives.

Be sure to report back when you've figured it out.

(x-post)

would have voted 'nuts in may'. there are quite a few other tv films missing from the poll.

i think he's mostly terrible.

I think his rather odd technique, when it works well, is actually pretty amazing.

i still need to see many of these, but even though i liked naked a lot, i would've voted topsy turvy. i really love that movie. for a while there it seemed like it was on one of the cable movie channels every week or so, and i never got tired of it. i think it's maybe the best movie ever made about creative people creating -- everything about the process seemed deeply understood and felt. so many good performances all the way through the cast. and the period stuff is perfect but unobtrusive, it just completely puts you in that world.

Happy-Go-Lucky was one of the most daring, moving films I've seen in ages, and it has an incredible lead performance by Sally Hawkins, so I gotta got for that. I'm probably exactly the kind of viewer it was targeted for, though, because the whole movie is a big anti-cynicist manifesto, and I'm a big anti-cynic.

t-dawg idk how u feel about this but when i was watching this it was pretty much exact like how i picture your lyfe just less fighting for the rights of ppl on internet msg boards. also that driving instructor is how i picture ilx poster whiney g weingarten right down to assaulting attractive dark haired yung women

um that sd dope movie ~~ chilling on the balcony wearnin t shirts and underwear just u no glowing and shit ~~ thats real lyfe

watched happy go lucky last night - really enjoyed it and <3 mike leigh generally - ws all this wite girls def

i personally related to how poppys frustration w/the world manifested as passive aggressive discursive joking - its trying to make people relax and be natural w/o recognizing that this desire has control freak roots of its own

so yeah she was an optimist who believes in the goodness of people - and she was pretty good at connecting when shit got real - but she was also quite willfully personally unexamined - there was a whole lot of ignorance and projection going on

wouldve voted secrets and lies btw - the climatic scene is so raw - shows the cathartic power of the truth

How did I miss this poll? Would probably have voted Secrets and Lies, too. I have a lot of affection for Life Is Sweet, too, and even Career Girls, which few people seem to like.

we can do another one next year that actually has all his films on it.

Wish I caught this poll before - I really love Leigh's films. I missed an opportunity to catch a lot of his shorts at a film fest about 10 years ago. I haven't seen them on dvd.
Torn between several of his films. Life is Sweet has been a go to recommend because it's the first I'd seen. But Naked and the performance by Thewlis are amazing. And Eddy Marsan's Scott the driving instructor is equally amazing. Great, great stuff...

I was looking at this thread in the library about 3 weeks ago ... the woman sitting next to me sees Leigh's head at the top, and says "He's my neighbor!" (London)

missed the thread too, the top 3 probably line up with my picks, haven't seen most of the older ones. i barely remember life is sweet but according to imdb i liked it less than those others anyway

Missed this poll, but "Nuts in May" would have got my vote. It's up there with "This Is Spinal Tap" for me.

Yeah can't help but feel that the Tap guyz knew their Mike Leigh. I like Nuts in May more, partly because when it's not doing its big "lol scratch a hippie" set pieces it's great at changing your perceptions of its characters, rounding them out and making each sympathetic/unsympathetic in turn. Also Finger's blithely optimistic support of Birmingham City.

Odd, missed this whole thread. Reviving due to the film in 1999 poll thread, meaning the inclusion of Topsy-Turvy. Above from Tipsy a couple of months back:

i really love that movie. for a while there it seemed like it was on one of the cable movie channels every week or so, and i never got tired of it. i think it's maybe the best movie ever made about creative people creating -- everything about the process seemed deeply understood and felt. so many good performances all the way through the cast. and the period stuff is perfect but unobtrusive, it just completely puts you in that world.

Agreed -- I just mumbled on the other thread that this film manages the neat trick of being the antithesis of a Merchant-Ivory production while looking like one, and while I'm overstating I don't think I'm far off from that. Providing a dramatic shape to a story that as presented has no start and no end is always a trick but it's handled well, and the frayed endings of the film, the digressions and details throughout, suggest so much contextually without having to dwell on them. A couple of clunky expositional moments like the mention of 'young Winston' (ie Churchill) and all but given the social circles all the various characters are meant to move through, forgivable. (Comes to mind that a comparison of the societal assumptions/actions at play in this and something like Mad Men could be instructive but I'll leave that to fans of said series to pursue further.)

My favorite scene, which I think Tipsy's point illustrates very well, is the extended rehearsal scene where Gilbert, his assistant and three of the ensemble are working in what looks like a somewhat dreary, cold room in the theatre to get the staging and delivery and etc. of a particular scene down to Gilbert's specific standards. The undercurrents, reactions, jokes, the very immediate DYNAMIC of such a crosscutting situation is so very well done.

i probably should have said "creative people collaborating," because obviously it's a different thing than a movie about a painter or writer or something. but the mutual dependence of all the parties, starting with gilbert and sullivan's carefully modulated partnership and then down through the cast and crew and so on, the hierarchies and tensions, the mini-revolt when gilbert cuts a song, the coaxing and coddling of the drug-addled actor -- it seems to me what really attracted leigh to the story was that whole web of relationships that are necessary to any serious collaboration, but are also its greatest obstacle. (and then the contrast between gilbert's fertile professional life on the one hand and his literally barren personal life on the other.)

even the aha moment, if I remember correctly, in which Inspiration Hits Gilbert is staged so that it's perfectly natural that a man of the theater would become inspired by casual fripperies he happens to notice.

Said aha moment is supposed to have actually happened, though apparently there's a question as to whether or not he already had a general idea in his head before the sword dropped from the wall of his study. I did a bunch of scrounging on Gilbert and Sullivan after the film came out and was surprised at how closely many of the details matched to what really happened, such as the revolt of the chorus against Gilbert's decision to cut the Mikado song. (Though there were obviously a few changes -- the play they pulled out as a stopgap revival pre Mikado in the movie, The Sorcerer, wasn't the one used in reality, but I suspect Leigh had a fondness for it and wanted to show it. I'm impressed at the way H.M.S. Pinafore is what hangs over everyone in the movie, as IT'S the career-defining success they know about -- The Mikado is just a hope and might turn out as indifferently as Princess Ida.)

http://www.movieline.com/2010/05/at-cannes-mike-leighs-another-year-critics-favorite.php

mike leigh is such a dick

everyone i've ever spoken to who "knows" says so, and tbh journalists/crix are pretty open about it

james cameron is abrasive but sorta amusingly so

who cares who's a dick? I saw him bristle at a dumb question at the NYFF once.

who cares who's a dick?

ehh it sorta interests me

richard port0n made the point abt 'happy go lucky' that leigh himself does not exactly live up to the credo he's selling there.

kinda like Frank Capra eh

Good stage version of Abigail's Party running in Chicago now.

For those of us who have encountered Leigh in press conferences and one-on-one interviews over the years, perhaps the most grating aspect of Happy-Go-Lucky is the fact that he is temperamentally much closer to the irascible Scott than to the sunny Poppy. In Amy Raphael’s recently published Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh, the enormously defensive Leigh (who interprets even the mildest criticism of his work as monumentally insulting) strenuously denies that he’s even slightly defensive. In this light, despite the dangers of ad hoc psychological analysis, it is difficult not to conclude that Poppy’s escapades constitute an extended wish-fulfillment fantasy for the dyspeptic director. (The charitable explanation for Leigh’s behaviour is that he does not “suffer fools gladly.” But since Raphael’s book chronicles Leigh’s tendency to inveigh against all of his critics as “stupid,” the man’s overweening insecurity is all too glaring.) Acerbity is not by nature superior to sweetness and generosity. Nevertheless, since Leigh appears to have more affinities with his gloomier protagonists than with inveterate optimist Poppy, Happy-Go-Lucky, is, good intentions notwithstanding, a rather fraudulent and half-hearted enterprise.

—Richard Porton

that was a fucking shit film

For those of us who have encountered Leigh in press conferences and one-on-one interviews over the years, perhaps the most grating aspect of Happy-Go-Lucky is the fact that he is temperamentally much closer to the irascible Scott than to the sunny Poppy.

This is supposed to be criticism?

it's an illuminating observaish

Illuminating to know that artists are jerks?

well, the specificities, yes

why wouldn't it be pertinent?

Guy who has to marshal dozens of actors every year for his strenuous rehearsal process, and has done so for decades, is a harsh dick? Shocker.

well, the specificities, yes

why wouldn't it be pertinent?

For the purposes of a ILE thread, a little. Otherwise who gives a damn.

it's not the sole criterion of judgement of anything, just interesting

so i think Another Year is my favorite film of the year. pretty surprised

thought I'd seen enough depressing character studies where nothing really happens in my lifetime, but i guess not

lol I can't stand Match Point. Someone should've clubbed Allen to death with a tennis racket.

Match Point is awful.

Can well imagine people disliking Nuts In May tbh. Not me though.

I get why some people don't like Career Girls, it has the conspicuously affective performance ramped up to 11, but it's all-time for me, really captures a place and a time in a unique way, and has so many brilliant moments - I kind of see it as a companion piece to Naked.

I apologise for tarring Alfred and Eric with the Match Point-appreciating brush.

I was reading this thread on my phone and thinking have I gone through some wormhole where Mike Leigh directed the godawful Match Point. Was very relieved after a frantic IMDB check.

Ha ha. Sorry fo polluting the whole thread.

jed otm itt. Watched this last night and it was sortof enjoyable in a deadeyed bbc way with loads of semi-recognisable actors hamming it up but was complete antithesis of everything I like about topsy turvy (its baggy improvisatory feel, its digressary construction).

worst things:
the score! twee and saccharine and overbearing.
maxine peake and her exposition-spouting family (I usually like maxine peake, although I'm starting to get sick of her playing the exact same character and wearing the exact same hat). There are a number of these 2-dimensional 'noble' characters (such as the guardian journalists excitedly founding theguardian.com at the end) prattling on flatly throughout. They sortof appear every now and then, as if Leigh has been reminded that he needs to connect the plot more explicitly to historical context and often results in tritely presented scenes like the egg bartering at the beginning (we do not remain interested in the household accounts of the maxine peakes, this single egg-buying experience is supposed to account for quite a bit here.). The film seems as bored of these characters as I was but prefers to snigger at the hammy 'characters' in a way I found pretty repulsive and boring.
casual mysogyny: unless you are a saintly pragmatic female main character, you are likely to be an imbecile or a shrew. I find this to be the single most damning thing in leigh's films, and doubly weird that he made such a complex film about the politics of abortion (vera drake) considering how frequently his characterisations of women are so hateful. in this one the 'dimwit maid' character really stood out. How can someone insert characters like that and still be considered (a) interested in realism and (b) to be some sort of figurehead of progressivism in britain*?

Its disappointing because the historical events are interesting, and the contemporary resonances many (the spying on progressive movements, the authoritarianism and paranoia of the british ruling class etc) and at the very least the film seems to have somewhat restored the events to more mainstream knowledge in the uk (hopefully somewhat durably).

*don't answer this one

Fascinating, and I couldn't disagree more strongly.

I suspect that some of the things I find most egregious about Leigh might not be so legible if you haven't spent much time in the UK (especially England), although I think his weird women issues would be obvious to an alien.

Just watched Career Girls for the first time, having seen most of his other films. This seem quite poor. The student year scenes I found excruciatingly bad and the mature years were ok - but not just enough chemistry between Hannah and Annie to make it interesting. The 'coincidences' or meeting former college acquaintances just seemed to be mostly a mess (or a miss).

The acting in the "young" scenes in Career Girls must be some of the worst (or most misguided) ever done by talented actors. I literally could not understand why they were talking and gesturing in such contrived ways. 20 years later, I'm no wiser. Was it meant to show how precocious they were? Were the viewers meant to hate the characters as much as I did?

Didn't expect to read Mr. Turner as an idiosyncratic exegesis on creativity, depression and the anguish that runs through them but by the end I was kinda wrecked by it.

Really need a supercut of Spall's variety of grunts - whether as exclamation, criticism, joy, sadness, or all the nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and conjunctions.