Mike Leigh,
OBE (born 20 February 1943) is an
English writer and director of
film and
theatre. He studied theatre at the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and did his early acting with the
Royal Shakespeare Company . He began as a theatre director and playwright in the 1960s. In the 1970s he made the transition to television plays, many of which were characterized by a gritty "
kitchen sink realism" style. Some of his well-known films include
Life is Sweet (1990), the comedy-drama
Career Girls (1997) the Gilbert and Sullivan biography
Topsy Turvy (1999), and the bleak working-class drama
All or Nothing (2002). His most notable works are arguably
Naked (1993) for which he won the
Best Director Award at
Cannes,
the BAFTA-winning (and Oscar-nominated)
Palme d'Or winner
Secrets & Lies (1996) and
Vera Drake (2004).
Leigh begins his projects without a script, but starts from a basic premise which is developed through improvisation by the actors.
Early life
Leigh was born in
Broughton,
Salford,
Lancashire, the son of Phyllis Pauline (née Cousin) and Alfred Abraham Leigh, a doctor
[www.filmreference.com/film/85/Mike-Leigh.html] in a working-class area of
Salford (near
Manchester). Leigh was brought up in a
Jewish immigrant family (whose surname was originally "Lieberman", but was anglicised before Leigh's birth).
[www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/18298108/review/23356406/happygolucky][www.jewishjournal.com/films/article/habonim_spirit_influences_work_of_director_mike_leigh_in_happy_go_lucky_200/] Initially trained as an actor at
RADA, Leigh went on to start honing his directing skills at
East 15 Acting School where he met the actress
Alison Steadman.
He won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1960. He later attended Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, and the London Film School. He played small roles in several British films in the early 1960s (
West 11,
Two Left Feet),and a part in the BBC TV series
Maigret. In 1965 he began to write and direct his first plays.
Career
In the 1970s, Leigh made nine
television plays. Earlier plays such as
Nuts in May and
Abigail's Party tended more towards bleakly yet humorously satirising
middle-class manners and attitudes. His plays are generally more caustic, stridently trying to show the banality of society.
Goose-Pimples and
Abigail's Party both focus on the vulgar middle class in a convivial party setting that spirals out of control. The television version of
Abigail's Party was made at some speed, Steadman was pregnant at the time, and Leigh's objections to flaws in the production, particularly the lighting, led to his preference for theatrical films.
In 1988, he made
High Hopes about a disjointed working-class family whose members live in a run-down flat and a council house. His later films such as
Naked and
Vera Drake are somewhat starker, more brutal, and concentrate more on the
working-class; Leigh's latest film, however, is a modern-day comedy,
Happy-Go-Lucky. A commitment to
social realism and
humanism is evident throughout. More specifically, several of his films and television plays examine the domestic relationships of ordinary people, which are brought to a head or transformed by some crisis towards the end of the film.
His stage plays include
Smelling A Rat,
It's A Great Big Shame,
Greek Tragedy,
Goose-Pimples,
Ecstasy, and
Abigail's Party.
The anger inherent in Leigh's material, in some ways typical of the
Thatcher years, softened after her departure from the political scene. In 2005, Leigh returned to directing for the stage after many years absence with his new play,
Two Thousand Years at the
Royal National Theatre in London. The play deals with the divisions within a
left-wing secular Jewish family when one of the younger members finds religion. It is the first time Leigh has drawn on his Jewish background for inspiration.
Leigh has won several prizes at major European film festivals. Most notably he won the Best Director award at
Cannes for
Naked in 1993 and the
Palme d'Or in 1996 for
Secrets & Lies. He won the
Leone d'Oro for the best film at the International
Venice Film Festival in 2004 with
Vera Drake. He has been nominated for the
Academy Award six times, twice each for
Secrets & Lies and
Vera Drake (Best Original Screenplay and Best Directing) and once for
Topsy-Turvy and
Happy-Go-Lucky (Best Original Screenplay only).
Leigh has used a pool of actors regularly over the years, including
Alison Steadman,
Timothy Spall,
Lesley Manville,
Ruth Sheen,
Marion Bailey,
Phil Davis,
Jim Broadbent,
David Thewlis,
Peter Wight,
Sally Hawkins,
Eddie Marsan,
Claire Skinner, and the late
Katrin Cartlidge.
Style
Leigh uses lengthy improvisations developed over a period of weeks to build characters and storylines for his films. He starts with some sketch ideas of how he thinks things might develop, but does not reveal all his intentions with the cast who discover their fate and act out their responses as their destinies are gradually revealed. Initial preparation is in private with the director and then the actors are introduced to each other in the order that their characters would have met in their lives. Intimate moments are explored that will not even be referred to in the final film to build insight and understanding of history, character and inner motivation.
The critical scenes in the eventual story are performed and recorded in full-costumed, real-time improvisations where the actors encounter for the first time new characters, events or information which may dramatically affect their characters' lives. Final filming is more traditional as definite sense of story, action and dialogue is then in place. The director reminds the cast of material from the improvisations that he hopes to capture on film.
In an interview with Laura Miller, "Listening to the World: An Interview With Mike Leigh," published on salon.com, Leigh states, "I make very stylistic films indeed, but style doesn't become a substitute for truth and reality. It's an integral, organic part of the whole thing." Leigh's vision is to depict ordinary life, "real life," unfolding under extenuating circumstances. He makes courageous decisions to document reality. He speaks about the criticism
Naked received: "The criticism comes from the kind of quarters where "political correctness" in its worst manifestation is rife. It's this kind of naive notion of how we should be in an unrealistic and altogether unhealthily over-wholesome way".
[Salon: Mike Leigh, page 2]
Personal life
In September 1973 he married
Alison Steadman; they have two sons: Toby (born 1979) and Leo (born 1981). Steadman appeared in seven of his films and several of his plays, including
Wholesome Glory and
Abigail's Party. They divorced in 2001. He now lives in Camden with costume designer Charlotte Holdich.
In June 2009, Mike Leigh joined the
Russell Tribunal on Palestine
[Russel Tribunal on Palestine Support Committee]
Filmography
List of plays
Recurring collaborators
