Nuts in May - made for TV

 

Director Mike Leigh

Leigh with Alison Steadman and Roger Sloman

NUTS IN MAY – made for TV                    B+                                                                           Great Britain  (81 mi)  1976  d: Mike Leigh        episode of BBC “Play for Today”

You’re breaking the laws of the campsite and the laws of the country code.                                —Keith Pratt (Roger Sloman)

Basically the template for Ben Wheatley’s hilariously dark road trip spiraling out of control in Sightseers (2012), as after making his film debut with Bleak Moments (1971), Leigh took a 17-year hiatus from feature filmmaking and instead worked exclusively for British television filming his own plays, mostly for the BBC English Regions Drama department (ERD) when it was led by the renowned producer, David Rose, during what is often described as the ‘golden age’ of British television.  Having studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London during the early 1960’s, his interest in writing and directing led him to switch schools several times, ultimately graduating from the London School of Film Technique (now the London Film School) in 1965.  About that time he began developing a method for creating narratives that relied upon extensive rehearsals and actors’ improvisations to manufacture characters and conflict in an organic manner, where instead of focusing on a traditional storyline, his films rely intensely on characters, explored with as much detail as possible, which would become a signature feature of Leigh’s working method for the rest of his career, Mike Leigh Arena Making Plays The Life And Work Of Mike ... YouTube (1:20:44).  This is almost certainly the best known of the low-budget, BBC Pebble Mill’s Plays for Today, along with Abigail’s Party (1977), a taped version of the pre-existing stage production, where the subtlety and uniqueness of these films have long been overlooked, seemingly made on a shoestring budget, small in scale, dealing with daily domestic life and relationships, yet never given the same critical attention as his features, though some of Britain’s best directors made a significant portion of their films for television, most shot very quickly on 16mm, which would include Stephen Frears, Ken Loach, Peter Greenaway, Alan Clarke, and Richard Eyre.  Mike Leigh’s first television drama for ERD was a half-hour studio piece called Permissive Society in 1975, which led to this film, both notable for having no musical score.  At first, a lot of BBC staff were rather dubious of Mike Leigh’s improvisatory way of working, with the crew suggesting there’s a guy down there in the studio and they’re making it up as they go along, but what they were missing is Leigh’s careful observation of the actors interacting as the characters and developing storylines from those interactions.  David Rose originated from Dorset and wanted to depict the region, offering a sense of place, reflecting the life and culture outside of London. There seemed to be few writers from the South West and therefore Leigh was invited to make a film set around the Isle of Purbeck.  Focusing on the suburban south, Leigh’s ability to create chillingly convincing middle-class monsters emerges here, and while this is the lighter side of Mike Leigh, it has darker implications, filled with wicked humor, funny and painful at the same time, featuring characters who are hilariously unlikeable, offering observations on class and society in a more humorously imaginative yet still coherent and meaningful way, perhaps the only straightforward comedy Leigh has ever made, arguably the definitive work about the British camping holiday, where a pleasant journey into the countryside seeking a quiet refuge from the noise and industrial pollution in London produces catastrophic results.  As he has often insisted, there is no “them” in Leigh’s work, where we are always meant to see ourselves in every calamity, as Hell is never reserved for other people, yet tolerating them may feel like it.

With the great outdoors beckoning, this film captures the Back-to-the-land movement of the 1970’s as a backdrop, with substantial numbers of people migrating from cities to rural areas, associated with hippie communes and the Summer of Love, The Whole Earth Catalog, and Mother Earth News in the USA, while in the UK it was rooted in a desire for self-sufficiency and reconnecting with nature with an increased ecological awareness, encompassing various aspects, including organic farming, homesteading, and a search for a simpler life, where it was viewed as a countercultural response to the perceived ills of modern urban life and industrial society.  This film reminds us that 1970’s television was much more progressive and thought provoking, more welcoming to unorthodox ideas, freed from objectionable restrictions, allowing greater experimentation, and was actually a breeding ground for budding artists.  Ordinary lives are given dimension and complexity here because Leigh has a gift for using the close-up, speech patterns, and the silence of his characters to explore under the surface in order to capture the essence of who they are.  Like Ken Loach, an avowed socialist, both are independent filmmakers known for portraying the working class experience, yet Leigh’s films often have a comic and satiric edge, not as overtly political as Loach, accentuating the personal, creating a world too ambiguous and rife with contradictions to offer political alternatives or easy answers, focusing instead on a depiction of dramatic interactions and behavior, more intent on raising questions and possibilities rather than offering any political or social solutions.  While extending his deepest sympathies for his working class characters, many behave badly, victimize themselves, and live pathetic, constricted lives.  In a Mike Leigh film nothing comes easy, as his characters’ flaws never disappear, continuing to grate on the nerves of the audience, where this film follows the path of liberal do-gooders who narrow-mindedly flaunt their moral superiority, immersed in a fantasized Walden utopia that turns their social consciousness on its ear in this blistering satire of British middle class attitudes and manners, becoming a study of class antagonism and the insecurities of masculinity.  The young married couple at the center of this drama are Alison Steadman (married at the time to the director, also in Abigail’s Party) and Roger Sloman as Candice Marie and Keith Pratt, a maddeningly self-righteous and opinionated couple from Croydon going car-camping in the English countryside, where one thing that’s undeniably clear is that the characters are etched so vividly that they lived on in the memories of the audience for many years afterwards, so they really stand out.   Candice Marie, who works in a toy store, is that shy and submissive, artsy type who spends her time drawing, painting, or collecting shells from the shoreline of the Jurassic Coast, while also composing inane songs that sound more like goofy jingles, always playing second fiddle to her obsessional, anal retentive husband Keith, a patronizing, pompous, and domineering control freak who always treats her like a child and is what we commonly call a know-it-all, having organized their 10-day journey with great precision, refusing to budge from the itinerary, where his reasoning is “What’s the point of having a schedule if you don’t stick to it?”  Inexplicably, his reading material at bedtime is The Guinness Book of Records.   

Listed at #63 from Time Out’s list of Best British Movies | 100 Best British Films of All Time, the drama is generated simply by being who they are as opposed to arising out of actions, where Keith is a doofus, yet the interest lies not in anything he does in any given moment, but who he remains throughout, a mirror image of the snobbish and deeply repressed John Cleese in Fawlty Towers or Monty Python skits with its devastatingly awkward humor.  The first thing that stands out is their car, which they have packed to the gills, a 1961 Morris Minor 1000 convertible, known for its iconic design and “Englishness.”  Right from the outset there is drama in how they interact with each other, as we see them traipsing around Corfe Castle with its numbered landmark spots along the way, where we see them absurdly arguing over who should hold the castle’s guidebook, with Keith refusing to relinquish control, always rushing ahead, leaving Candice Marie behind as she struggles to keep up, totally dependent upon whatever information he’s willing to share, usually shouted from a distance, so immediately we’re aware of the imbalance of power.  While they’re folk-singing vegetarian types, the kind who lecture other people on the evils of eating meat, also non-smokers, but the kind who enjoy describing tar-caked lungs to anyone they see smoking, with Keith swearing that food needs to be chewed 72 times before swallowing, as if that’s a proven scientific fact, while also jotting down every expenditure in his ledger, their vacation idyll is interrupted by another vacationer, Ray (Anthony O’Donnell), who has set up his tent right next to theirs, blaring the transistor radio, even though he’s not really listening to it.  When they ask him to turn it off, he simply refuses, leaving Keith fuming, as if betrayed by the commoners, so they move their tent farther away.  On an excursion to Stair Hole and Durdle Door, a famous natural limestone arch that can be seen standing erect along the coastline, they end up getting drenched by the rain, stopping their car for a pedestrian who turns out to be Ray, with Candice Marie taking a friendly interest while Keith simply refuses to speak to him.  Her attempts to be social infuriate Keith, whose dogmatic obstinance is nothing less than jealous outrage, so when she invites him over afterwards for a cup of tea, Keith bullies him into joining them for a singalong, which couldn’t be more absurdly irritating, where that tortured expression on Ray’s hapless face is priceless, Zoo Song - Nuts in May[Mike Leigh] YouTube (3:30).  Disinterest is something that Keith clearly doesn’t notice or care about.  When an even noisier couple from the Midlands arrives on their motorbike, Finger (Stephen Bill) and Honky (Sheila Kelley), chaotically sharing the same space, refusing to go to bed quietly, with alcohol flowing freely leading to loud, boisterous sexual activity, Keith simply loses it.  Flouting the “country code,” he attempts to make a citizen’s arrest the next day when they have the unmitigated gall to build a fire, which is forbidden, of course, as tempers flare, where his embarrassing frustration boils over into Monty Pythonesque hysteria, quickly becoming the butt of their jokes, which only pisses him off even more, causing them to leave altogether, completely fed up with all these horrible people, yet in reality they cannot escape the horror of other people, which may as well be a prescient metaphor for Brexit.  Nothing earthshaking happens here, where Americans are often perplexed by a cinema in which nothing seems to happen, though Leigh’s drama of transformation is rooted in the layered rehearsal of interpersonal dynamics observed with the patience of Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu, but it’s impossible to forget just how easily the characters continually get under our skin, making this a small gem of a movie that continues to impress even after all these years.  Rare and hard to find, but well worth the effort.    

Nuts In May (1976) : Mike Leigh  YouTube (1:20:58)

Nuts In May (1976) with commentary by Mike Leigh  YouTube (1:20:58)

Life Is Sweet

LIFE IS SWEET                    B                    

Great Britain  (103 mi)  1990  d:  Mike Leigh

Cinema of discomfort by way of comedic farce, striking a wonderful balance between despair and comedy, this is Mike Leigh’s third film, mostly working in theater and television at the time, introducing his own Third Man production company which is the vehicle for all his future film releases.  Relying upon a stalwart cast, anchored by his own wife at the time, Alison Steadman as Wendy, the irrepressible matriarch of a middle-class suburban family, seen in an amusing prologue introduction, featuring that rare thing never shown in Mike Leigh films – young children.  It’s a bubbly, upbeat intro filled with a kind of colorful joie de vivre from the always sunny Wendy, encouraging young primary school kids to shake their bums and raise their arms in joyous motion, letting off a little steam, where they need a little persuasion, not easily letting themselves go.  Made at the end of the Margaret Thatcher era of British conservatism, with Leigh at the time branded as “The Scourge of the Middle Classes,” the film is anything but sunny, with people stuck in dead-end lives, not exactly miserable, just hating the way their lives turned out.  A young Jim Broadbent is Wendy’s husband Andy, a professional cook in an industrial kitchen, who takes a lot of flak at home for not carrying out a few home improvement projects, never really motivated to take the time, preferring to hang out in pubs with his exasperatingly manipulative friend Patsy (Stephen Rea), who plies him with alcohol before surprising him with supposedly cheap deals on retail items for sale, which includes a broken down mobile snack bar that he might convert to a food truck, but it needs a lot of work.  Nonetheless, his dreams of getting out from under the horrible weight of his present job inspires him to dream of something better, hoping a food truck is the way to go, but it simply sits outside his front door like a broken down boat with a hole in it forever anchored on land, never once making it out to sea.  Basically a good-natured guy, he’s too polite to admit he’s been snookered, yet every scene together with Patsy produces the same irrepressible gullibility, as he always falls for the latest swindle.  Their children are twins in their early 20’s, two girls at opposite ends of the spectrum, Natalie (Claire Skinner), bookish and clear-headed, easily mistaken for a boy, yet quite comfortable working as a plumber, saving up for a vacation trip to America, and Nicola (Jane Horrocks), an ill-tempered layabout with an acerbic tongue, contemptuously dismissive of others, quick to call people “Capitalists” or “Fascists,” fancying herself as an ardent feminist, yet her everpresent dour mood is unshakeable, completely isolating herself in self-destructive behavior, smoking excessively to suppress the appetite, but showing signs of bulimia, refusing to eat all day, then stuffing herself with sweets in the late night hours, retching into the night, while her sister in the room next door overhears all. 

A typical working family (Wendy works as a clerk in a maternity clothing store), three of them are off to work in the morning while the disgruntled Nicola shows no signs of ambition, refusing to be an exploited worker, so she does no work at all, remaining aimless and bored for the most part, yet perfectly miserable, anxiously filled with nervous twitches, hair drawn down over her face, hiding behind her glasses, sneaking in a boyfriend during the day to have sex when everyone else is out, who turns out to be David Thewlis in a thankless role, always asked to leave immediately afterwards, never sticking around for anything more.  Making a rather eccentric entrance is Timothy Spall as Aubrey, seemingly an old friend of the family, viewing himself as a Bohemian cool cat from the 50’s, yet he’s always restless and overanxious, flirting inappropriately with Nicola before making his way to the back yard.  Andy and Aubrey share something in common, both food chefs aspiring to work for themselves, but going about it very differently.  Both are hampered by the realities of life, stuck with who they are, limited and constrained, with a narrowing window of opportunity to realize their dreams.  Andy dreams of a life away from the boring routine, stupidly investing in a broken-down food truck, while Aubrey’s plan is to open a nouveau cuisine restaurant, thinking he’s a “genius” chef, that if he builds it they will come in droves.  So he opens the Regret Rien restaurant in the heart of town, asking Wendy to come waitress for him, as his regular waitress skipped off to Prague with her boyfriend, working with the ever dour sous-chef Paula (Moya Brady), who would be out of place in any environment, whose glum hangdog expression suggests a life of woe, the picture of the downtrodden, with no apparent concerns for health violations.  Opening night has a customary anticipation to it, yet the unappetizing menu that Aubrey reads sounds utterly unthinkable, as it’s completely inedible, yet Aubrey is so confident of his culinary expertise.  As Aubrey and Wendy share a glass of wine to help calm the nerves, Aubrey never stops drinking, first making the moves on the sous-chef in the kitchen, whose face never changes expression, before drinking himself into a stupor, making a complete ass of himself, screaming at the top of his lungs on the street in utter contempt for all the customers who never showed up before stripping off his clothes and expressing his lustful desires for Wendy.  While she fends him off, he goes into grotesque mode, thoroughly exaggerated, destroying all the tables, turning them upside down, creating a chaotic mess as the night turns into an unmitigated disaster, with Aubrey left passed out on the restaurant floor (mumbling the name of Nicola) while Wendy makes a hasty exit, attempting to save Paula as well, but she’s clearly fixated on earlier fictitious promises made by Aubrey, both apparent soulmates of delusion and dysfunction.

Working for the first time with cinematographer Dick Pope, who would go on to shoot all of Leigh’s subsequent films, this is the first film to reach an international audience, establishing Leigh’s realist, working class style, where the rhythms of this family’s existence are informed by a dull routine, by a repetition of trained habits, which leads to a certain stagnation, feeling stifled by the banality of it all.  Leigh resorts to comic exaggerations in how characters are depicted, yet this is a theatrical device that hides and often overshadows the humanity contained within.  While the musical score is written by Rachel Portman, it repeats with a monotonous omnipresence, growing deliriously repetitive, which may have your brain seeking an alternative refuge, but it drives in the discomfort associated with this film, which Leigh has described as his least favorite.  In contrast, Wendy always looks at the bright side, possessing an ability to turn any disaster into a positive experience.   Unashamedly cheerful, she and the perpetually disillusioned Andy make a happy couple, proud of both of their girls, even as they are routinely the targets of Nicola’s ire.  She receives her own comeuppance in the form of her boyfriend’s refusal to engage in the same sex routine, standing his ground, insisting on having a decent conversation instead, challenging Nicola to articulate her feelings and utter coherent thoughts in sentences instead of bitter critiques that sound more like slogans.  This catches her offguard, even humiliated, which he takes full advantage of, finding herself at the end of a mercilessly critical tirade, which leaves her flummoxed.  Even after the disastrous restaurant opening, Wendy comforts her daughter that she finds in tears, talking some sense into her, confronting how joyless and unhappy she has become (in stark contrast to that opening dance sequence with the kids), becoming the dramatic center of the film, as it’s done with such tender and loving care, urging her to rejoin the human race and become part of the living, none of whom have it easy, but at least they’re trying.  Somehow countering all her deeply troubled, self-loathing critiques, Wendy’s affectionate concern for others is the star of the show, becoming an emotional revelation that reverberates with heartfelt intimacy.  Embracing flaws and inadequacies as part of the human character, Wendy offers the thoughts of a mature being, someone who has lived through and survived her own share of personal crises, yet maintains a sweet optimism that includes an affirmation for life.  As it turns out, more disasters are lurking, as if part of the life cycle, yet the manner in which you address these inevitable setbacks determines one’s quality of life, where you can become paralyzed and easily give up, griping over every issue and calling it all unfair, or you can roll with the punches and give yourself another shot at experiencing joy and happiness, embracing it when it comes, knowing how fleeting it can be, where what ultimately matters is a willingness to accept the bitter with the sweet.