Only his features, of course
-
grchereck — 16 years ago(September 24, 2009 05:58 PM)
You've got some good points.
I think the point Leigh often makes in his films about social climbers is that they do so at the expense of their own humanity the higher-up in the world they go (or try to go), it seems the more selfish and arrogant they become (the character of Alan in "Who's Who" is a great example), whereas the least well-to-do characters seem to care the most about other people. That may be true a lot of the time in the real world, but to suggest that that's always they way things are is like saying that upward mobility is a bad thing in itself that arrogance and stupidity are natural by-products of it (rather than character flaws that anybody can have).
(I love your sig quote, by the way
)
"I know I'm not normal but I'm trying to change!" ~ Muriel's Wedding
Alice Army -
podwilliams — 16 years ago(September 25, 2009 02:30 AM)
Paradoxically perhaps, I think it makes more sense to look at the political sensibilities that have informed Leigh's work than it does to put his characters (or the all too real individuals people are alluding to here) under the microscope, as it were. Leigh so often sets up working class characters with 'ideas above their station' for a fall, disappointed perhaps that the working class didn't trudge obediently down the road towards state socialism. The attachment, in Britain, to the redefinition of socialism in the 1930s as state ownership of key industries led many leftists, in the decades that followed, to see those who had no illusions in cost-cutting state administrators, low paying councils, health authorities, bus and rail networks as betraying their class, when, in fact, the equally forlorn option of turning to the 'freedom' and 'individualism' of the Thatcher government's 'popular capitalism' merely betrayed the failure of Labourism and state socialism to match even the most basic of working class aspirations. (The enduring myths about individualism and collectivism in 80s Britain are taken apart in this brilliant 1996 essay by James Heartfield:
http://drpod.blogspot.com/2009/09/communal-self-sacrifice.html
.)
I think this provides some of the context to the way in which Leigh often, if not always, portrays those who dare to 'get on' with so little sympathy.
Having said that, after finally getting around to see 5 or 6 of his films I'd never seen before (all of which were excellent) it looks more and more like I'm overstating my case now, with only a small number of Leigh's films triggering the thoughts I've outlined above.
On that positive note, Neil Davenport, a superb commentator on class and culture (
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/author/Neil Davenport/
), can't praise
Abigail's Party
enough, defending its compassionate core against those who would suggest it's 'laying into the aspirational, suburban masses':
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/4032/
The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep. -
podwilliams — 16 years ago(September 25, 2009 02:24 PM)
You can take Abigail out of the chipshop but you can't take the chipshop out of Abigail.
Hmm, substitute any ethnic epithet for your euphemism for proletarian - 'chipshop' - and look what we have.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep. -
podwilliams — 16 years ago(September 26, 2009 09:07 AM)
I didn't miss them, but was instead petrified in the presence of your 'know your place', quasi-Nietzschean declaration about remaining rooted to one's origins. Squeeth, who, this side of a social revolution, would actually choose to be working class? This recalls the anti-humanism of the environmentalist movement, whose visions of 'sustainable development' and 'fair trade' consign millions to 'stick to their roots', which, for greens, translates as the bucolic idyll of being 'closer to nature', while for the vast majority of the earth's population it means being closer to death.
The grasping opportunism that we're all aware of, and which Mike Leigh has caricatured in the aristocratic pretensions of the 'nouveau-riche' and aspirant petit-bourgeoisie, is one thing, but the fact that a desire to want more, to improve oneself, to escape one's sociological origins can be perverted by the ideological and cultural norms of bourgeois society is not an arguments to 'stay true' to a class (in the sense in which you've suggested), unless of course, like all moral and political conservatives, left and right, you just don't want things to change (something that, when listening to Leigh's DVD commentaries, he's guilty of more than most).
The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep. -
podwilliams — 16 years ago(September 27, 2009 04:51 AM)
Being loyal to your roots is the opposite of knowing your place. The corollary of knowing your place is aping the pretentions of the bourgeoisie, without the equipment.
This is just a mess of nonsense and non sequiturs. I'm sure
you
know what you mean, but it has no explanatory value for the rest of us. 'Loyalty to your roots' has a rough 'n' ready authenticity about it, but it has no political import. Working class solidarity; active allegiance to the working class; class consciousness, whereby one becomes conscious of the need for the working class to be a class
for
itself, and not just a
mass
in itself* - now, these things mean something, regardless of their pertinence to the current political landscape.
In the meantime, I'd be as happy for you to, say, win millions of pounds on The Lottery as I would anyone else. And not having any real reason to doubt your radical political credentials I'm perhaps more confident than you seem to be that wealth would do no injury to said principles.
Ferraris for all!!
http://www.worldwrite.org.uk/
*Hal Draper made the point that 'class in itself/class for itself' was a mistranslation of Marx, the original being closer to 'mass-in-itself/class-for-itself'. The correct translation only makes the point clearer.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep. -
-
voided-1 — 16 years ago(December 13, 2009 05:17 AM)
Ratings out of 10:
Happy-go-Lucky (2008) 10
Vera Drake (2004) 8
All or Nothing (2002) 10
Topsy-Turvy (1999) 7
Career Girls (1997) 10
Secrets & Lies (1996) 10
Naked (1993) 10
Life Is Sweet (1990) 8/10 10
High Hopes (1988) 10
Bleak Moments (1971) 10
This possibly isn't very helpful. I'm a bit of a fan.
"Don't leave us in the dark!" -
allisonalmodovar — 16 years ago(March 12, 2010 08:51 AM)
- Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) 9.5/10
- Secrets & Lies (1996) 9/10
- Life Is Sweet (1990) 8/10
- All or Nothing (2002/I) 8/10
- Grown-Ups (1980) TV episode"BBC2 Playhouse" (1 episode, 1980) 7.5/10
- A Sense of History (1992) (TV) 7.5/10
- High Hopes (1988) 7/10
- Topsy-Turvy (1999) 7/10
- Who's Who (1979) TV episode 6.5/10
- "Five Minute Films" (1975) TV series 6/10-7/10
- Abigail's Party (1977) TV episode 6/10
- Vera Drake (2004) 6/10
- The Short & Curlies (1987) (TV) 6/10
- Career Girls (1997) 6/10
- Home Sweet Home (1982) TV episode 6/10
- Four Days in July (1985) (TV)6/10
- The Kiss of Death (1977) TV episode 6/10
- Nuts in May (1976) TV episode 6/10
- Hard Labour 5/10
- Naked (1993) 5/10
- Meantime (1984) (TV) 5/10
- Bleak Moments (1971) 5/10
I'll stick Another Year in between Vera Drake and The Short & Curlies. It was entertaining but not substantial.
-
miran_kor — 16 years ago(March 13, 2010 12:03 AM)
Thanks for your rates, Allison. Much appreciated.
Nice to see you thought of me.
Your list is beyond impressive and should be very useful to me (still haven't seen a thing - aside from 'Life Is Sweet' ages ago - by Leigh sigh).
vivaLuis
http://imdb.com/board/10053967/board/thread/97124879