{"id":595,"date":"2008-09-30T08:12:59","date_gmt":"2008-09-30T13:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/545851024"},"modified":"2012-02-25T18:47:58","modified_gmt":"2012-02-25T23:47:58","slug":"mike-leigh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/mike-leigh\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Leigh (BSS #238)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mike Leigh is the filmmaker behind <i>Naked<\/i>, <i>Life is Sweet<\/i>, <i>Vera Drake<\/i>, and, most recently, <i>Happy-Go-Lucky<\/i>, which is currently playing the New York Film Festival (among many others) and opens in the United States on October 10.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/mikeleigh.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"mikeleigh\" align=\"center\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_1337\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-595-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=595-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo238.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 27:16 &#8212; 49.9MB)<\/p>\n<p><b>Condition of Mr. Segundo:<\/b> Too unhappy and too unlucky.<\/p>\n<p><b>Guest:<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mike_Leigh\">Mike Leigh<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Subjects Discussed:<\/b> Vocational symmetries within Leigh&#8217;s films, Oscar Wilde, looking at a community, bad teachers, Leigh&#8217;s considerable frustrations about Poppy being &#8220;too happy,&#8221; the difficulties of filming Poppy&#8217;s jewelry, audience members misperceiving details, the confusion over Scott being a taxi driver, <a href=\"http:\/\/alisonbechdel.blogspot.com\/2005\/08\/rule.html\">Bechdel&#8217;s Rule<\/a>, depicting women who aren&#8217;t in relationships, the duty to portray life, Leigh&#8217;s problems with semiotics, collaborating with cinematographer Dick Pope, feeling the buzz of a visual instinct, devising <i>Naked<\/i>&#8216;s opening shot, getting an Ozu fix, pursuing the issue of technology, flamenco dancing, MySpace, drawings and investigating domestic violence, &#8220;En-ra-ha,&#8221; Aleister Crowley, gloomy bookstore employees and literary references, shooting in High Definition, and film financing.<\/p>\n<p><b>EXCERPT FROM SHOW:<\/B><\/p>\n<p><b>Leigh:<\/b> But as to the jewelry as a symbol of cyclical anything, I don&#8217;t know whether I&#8217;d go along with that one.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Okay.  Well, fair enough.<\/p>\n<p><b>Leigh:<\/b> (<i>laughs<\/i>) Nice try.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Well, let&#8217;s talk about another possible symbol.  The back pain that she experiences.  This to me suggests that here we have Poppy moving forward as her specific identity &#8212; &#8220;happy-go-lucky&#8221; &#8212; and yet there is this pain in the back.  And, of course, she laughs it off while she&#8217;s at the chiropractor&#8217;s office.  But the thing that&#8217;s fascinating about this to me is that, well, this is behind her.  So it&#8217;s almost as if she has her blinders on.  She&#8217;s so focused in on moving forward that she doesn&#8217;t notice what she&#8217;s feeling in the back.  And I&#8217;m wondering again how much one should read symbols into these particular choices.<\/p>\n<p><b>Leigh:<\/b> I think as we progress into this conversation &#8212; I think you are plainly a fundamental, unreconstituted, top-rate intellectual.  Which I&#8217;m not.  I think it&#8217;s fascinating, your analysis.  But I think it&#8217;s a load of old rope.  Basically.  And I can&#8217;t go along with it at all.  I mean, the fact is, she gets a bend in the back because she pulls her back when she&#8217;s trampolining.  And it happens to be her back because that&#8217;s what she pulls.  The back muscle.  I think what&#8217;s more interesting about that unfortunate thing that happens to her, which gets fixed by an osteopath, not a chiropractor&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> My apologies.<\/p>\n<p><b>Leigh:<\/b> No, no, you couldn&#8217;t, you know.  But I think what is interesting, I&#8217;ve found, is that, you know, a lot of people &#8212; this has nothing to do with your question, but it&#8217;s talking about the same part of the film. <\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Sure.<\/p>\n<p><b>Leigh:<\/b> The same aspect of what happens to Poppy.  You know, people are conditioned &#8212; mainly, courtesy of Hollywood &#8212; into the inevitability that something terrible is going to happen.  And a number of people have thought, &#8220;Oh!  She&#8217;s got cancer of the kidneys!  That&#8217;s what this film is about!&#8221;  Partly because the last film I made was about an abortionist.  The fact is that it&#8217;s not about that.  People say, &#8220;Well, couldn&#8217;t something terrible happen to her in the film?&#8221;  And then you think of that.  And you say, &#8220;No.  Because that&#8217;s not what it&#8217;s about.&#8221;  Of course, this could become a film about a woman who dies of cancer of the kidneys.  But so what?  That&#8217;s not what it&#8217;s about.  It&#8217;s about somebody who giggles at stuff and is positive.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> You also quibbled in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/film\/2008\/apr\/17\/guardianinterviewsatbfisouthbank.mikeleigh1\">another interview<\/a> over people identifying Scott as a taxi driver instead of a driving instructor.<\/p>\n<p><b>Leigh:<\/b> Yeah, people say &#8220;that scene with the taxi driver.&#8221;  I mean, it&#8217;s amazing.  The number of people everywhere &#8212; here, in Paris, in London, in Berlin, and we&#8217;re talking about international fests &#8212; who call him a taxi driver.  And it&#8217;s very curious.  It&#8217;s as though this is a film about an airline pilot and people are calling him a doctor.  It&#8217;s very strange.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b>  I mean, I&#8217;m wondering.  Could it be the way that you actually shot him?  Because I know that you and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0005836\/\">Mr. Pope<\/a> actually used lipstick cams to get&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>Leigh:<\/b> No, no.  Come on.  You cannot construct any correlation between how the film was shot and the fact that, for some reason, people call a driving instructor a taxi driver.  You really can&#8217;t do that.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> So it&#8217;s the audience&#8217;s problem.  Not yours.<\/p>\n<p><b>Leigh:<\/b> No, no.  It&#8217;s just a weird thing.  I mean, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s even a problem.  It&#8217;s just a strange quirk.  But I don&#8217;t think anything should be made of it really.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_1338\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-595-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=595-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo238.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 27:16 &#8212; 49.9MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mike Leigh is the filmmaker behind Naked, Life is Sweet, Vera Drake, and, most recently, Happy-Go-Lucky, which is currently playing the New York Film Festival (among many others) and opens in the United States on October 10. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Too unhappy and too unlucky. Guest: Mike Leigh Subjects Discussed: Vocational symmetries within Leigh&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_1339\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-595-3\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3?_=3\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=595-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo238.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo238.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 27:16 &#8212; 49.9MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1085],"tags":[510,165,202,508,9,506,509,507],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2272,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions\/2272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}