In conjunction with its 50th Anniversary celebration, the Dartmouth Film Society presented its Film Award to British director Mike Leigh this past saturday.
Leigh also presented an advance screening of his latest film, "Topsy Turvy" which is not due for release until this December. In fact, this was only the third screening of the film, which has also been shown at the Venice and New York Film Festivals, Leigh said.
While his career spans thirty years, Leigh may be most well-known in the United States for his 1996 Oscar-nominated film, "Secrets and Lies," which garnered him two nods for direction and screenwriting.
While the film's five Academy Award nominations went unrewarded -- it lost out to "The English Patient" -- Leigh was still excited about the picture's success.
"It's great to make a movie that can move to a greater profile. These things are kind of luck, and this film sort of spoke to people," Leigh said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Another reason for the film's success, according to Leigh, is its provocative subject matter. The film, which is about a black professional who seeks out her white biological mother, certainly raised eyebrows. "The particular subject is so contentious and emotive that the world reacted to it," Leigh said.
For years, Leigh has established a repertoire of films that are similarly thought-provoking, from "High Hopes" to "Naked" to "Career Girls." His work is often characterized by an intense view of class conflict in Britain, mostly seen from the perspective of members of the lower echelons of society.
"I always try to make films about living and people and living with people," Leigh said, but he refrains from the generalization that his films are solely about lower-class Britain.
In a reaction to a Time Magazine article that described his films as "working class Brits scraping each other's skin with their verbal aggressions," Leigh said that "it's a limited description. Some of the characters are verbally aggressive, but it's also about upper-middle class. A lot of political stuffI've made films about all sorts of people."
In fact, Leigh's newest film, "Topsy Turvy," seems to be a break from his past trend of focusing on the working-class. The picture follows the lives of Gilbert and Sullivan as they strive past creative differences and produce "The Mikado."
"I wanted to make a period film," Leigh said. "I'm quite interested in the 19th century. I wanted to make a film about what we do, as in we in show business. I'm amused by how unlikely it is."
Set in the late 19th century, the film has extremely high production values, and may be a front-runner for costume and set design Oscar nominations. A hit at the New York and Venice Film Festivals, the picture may go on to find wider critical success.
Already, "Topsy Turvy" has been linked by certain critics with last year's Academy Award winner for Best Picture, "Shakespeare In Love." However, the films are clearly different.
"If people see it because they think they'll see 'Shakespeare In Love,' that's great," Leigh said. "They'd be hallucinating if they think it is the same. The fundamental difference is that 'Shakespeare In Love' is a fantastical film -- a spoof. 'Topsy Turvey' is a serious, realistic film. Historical accuracy is what it's about."
In fact, according to Leigh, the amount of research that went into the film was unlike anything he had done before.
"You name it, we did it. Research was colossal. [We researched] social background, musical background, political background, medical background, etiquette --which was very elaborate," Leigh said.
Probably most impressive was that, despite the emphasis on historical accuracy, the film had no script. Instead, like each of Leigh's previous films, the actors were incredibly familiar with the material and had been subjected to the same rigorous research that Leigh and his production team had engaged in.
The entire crew, which features a surprisingly large ensemble of actors, rehearsed for several months before shooting. Leigh said that he likes the actors to improvise in order to achieve a natural quality in the acting. However, by the time the material reaches the screen, the scenes are incredibly precise, following a script that has been molded carefully out of the actors' improvisational sessions.
This unorthodox style of filmmaking is the main reason why Hollywood hasn't come recruiting Leigh for projects.
"I start with no script, and that's not what Hollywood's all about. I'm just a foreign filmmaker," he said. "In Britain, the important thing is to make independent movies. Culturally independent as well --not controlled by Hollywood."
