Devised and directed by Mike Leigh / edited by Bryan Cardinale-Powell & Marc Di Paolo.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Cardinale-Powell, Bryan, editor.

Di Paolo, Marc, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Leigh, Mike, 1943---Criticism and interpretation.

Leigh, Mike.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (368 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Renowned for making films that are at once sly domestic satires and heartbreaking 'social realist' dramas, British writer-director Mike Leigh confronts his viewers with an un-romanticized dramatization of modern-day society in the hopes of inspiring them to strive for greater self-awareness and compassion for others. This collection features new, interdisciplinary essays that cover all phases of the BAFTA-award-winner's film career, from his early made-for-television film work to his theatrical releases, including Life is Sweet (1990), Naked (1993), Secrets & Lies (1996), Career Girls (1997), Topsy-Turvy (1999), All or Nothing (2002), Vera Drake (2004), Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) and Another Year (2010). With contributions from international scholars from a variety of fields, the essays in this collection cover individual films and the recurring themes and motifs in several films, such as representations of class and gender, and overt social commentary and political subtexts. Also covered are Leigh's visual stylizations and storytelling techniques ranging from explorations of the costume design to set design to the music and camerawork and editing; the collaborative process of 'devising and directing' a Mike Leigh film that involves character-building, world-construction, plotting, improvisations and script-writing; the process of funding and marketing for these seemingly 'uncommercial' projects, and a survey of Leigh's critical reception and the existing writing on his work

Contents:

Introduction: the politics and poetics of comic-realist cinema

by Marc DiPaolo

Devising Leigh. Christopher Meir: The industry and

of the auteur

Robert Marchand : Devising and directing

Andrew Crowther: Every performance is a contrivance: art & truth in Topsy-turvy

Brenda Wentworth, Christopher Jordan, and Sharon Cogdill: Costuming choices: stylization and Leigh's selective realism

Bryan Cardinale-Powell: Cultural stillbirth: an examination of reactions to Vera Drake

It's an ordinary life. Leonard Quart: The uniqueness of ordinary lives: Home sweet home and Grown-ups

Sarah Godfrey: Masculinities and male identities from Bleak moments to Happy-go-lucky

William Verrone: Transgression and transcendence beyond verisimilitude. Stella Hockenhull: Melodrama and tradition in Vera Drake and Another year

Frances Pheasant-Kelly: Class, loss and space: reframing Secrets & lies

Bryan Cardinale-Powell: All or nothing: Mike Leigh and The fickle finger

Leigh versus the Tories. Steven Morrison: "Those days are over": Naked & Something rotten in the 1990s

Derek Gladwin: Gendered troubles on screen: reproducing nationalism in Four days in July

Ana Miller: Fluctuating identifications, learning disability, and class in Meantime

Kevin M. Flanagan: The grotesque state of the nation: Mike Leigh's High hopes and The Thatcherite comedy of errors

David Sweeney: 'I spy': Mike Leigh in the age of Britpop.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781628928662

1628928662

9781623569532

1623569532

OCLC:

1154863128