The Mike Leigh Collection – Volume One

 

                                  Picture:     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Title:

Abigail’s Party (1977)      C+                                               C+

Grown Ups (1980)           C                                                 C+

Hard Labour (1973)        C+                                                B-

 

 

Mike Leigh is a British director that has established himself as someone who is great at improvisational filmmaking and in dealing with the working class.  Sometimes, this succeeds very well, as it did with Secrets & Lies (1996), sometimes it disappoints as in High Hopes (1988), and deviation from both spelled disaster with the Oscar-winning and ever obnoxious Topsy Turvy (2000).  The Mike Leigh Collection offers three of his TV productions, one of which was shot one tape, yet that and another filmed film had theatrical releases in the United States.

 

Abigail’s Party is the taped production that plays like a British sitcom without a laugh track, which is not a bad thing.  Though it starts with the title character playing another singer’s cover of Donna Summer’s Love To Love You Baby, the “party” turns out to be tensely filled with subtle conflict and unhappiness as Beverly (Alison Steadman) invites some friends over to “discuss things” and as happens in many sitcoms, things do not go as planned.  However, there is a tradition of this in regular sitcoms and Leigh is trying to take a step after All In The Family on this one.  Think Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman goes British with a twist and this was based on a stage play.

 

The tendency is for Leigh’s films to run-on, his equivalent to the overlapping dialogue (sometimes also in Leigh’s work) famous in Robert Altman’s work, also known for its improvisation.  Both cases try to demonstrate a certain type of realism.  Grown Ups has a couple move to a new place and find themselves living near a former school teacher.  Brenda Blethyn, Leigh’s greatest ally and a favorite actress of mine, is Mandy.  Even then, she was a natural, distinctive and obviously a gifted actress.  She is the highlight of a decent presentation in which she somehow manages to stand out from the repetition of the other’s expressions.  The title becomes ironic, something the British excel at, but the pain is all too real.

 

Hard Labour was originally issued by United Artists, and though Water Bearer has used a title card to cover the old UA logo, the studio signature is unmistakable, reminding us of how savvy the company was in its time.  This is the shortest of the three at only 70 minutes.  Leigh uses the role of women oppressed more explicitly than in the other films to examine the British caste system.  This is also the best of the films and the least stagy, focusing on households with a newer and older couple.  It also does not have the rabid accented dialogue of most Leigh films.  The lack of that pretense and the shorter length help it get to the point and it is much more realistic as a result, though still a TV production.  A then-unknown Ben Kingsley plays a pensive cab driver!  The only other thing is that this may well have been the inspiration for the abstract Music Video for the great British singer/songwriter Joe Jackson’s hit record Breaking Us In Two form his Night & Day album (reviewed elsewhere on this site).

 

The full frame images show their age, with Grown Ups having more print damage and poorer color than the other two.  Either way, the filmed productions have a realistic grit to them, while Abigail’s Party is PAL video that shows its age.  Think British Music Videos a few years before they happened.  Video Red is particularly an issue, but the tape source is not damaged or problematic otherwise.  The film prints show their grain, likely both originating in 16mm.  Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is on all three as well, all showing their age, but being articulate enough.  Many may find the accents tough, but being one who can understand them, the sound never got in the way for me to hear what was being said.  There are no extras.

 

So this early look at Mike Leigh gave me a better appreciation of what he is capable of, yet also pointed out his limits.  He is no doubt talented, but it has been argued that British filmmaking of the last 30 years needs to stop limiting itself to working class dramas, almost making them a formula and trivializing the people it is supposed to be telling stories about.  The Mike Leigh Collection features three such stories when they felt more authentic and were still fresh.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo