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Mike Leigh

Online ISBN:
9780252093401
Print ISBN:
9780252036385
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press
Book

Mike Leigh

Sean O'Sullivan
Sean O'Sullivan
Ohio State University
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Published online:
20 April 2017
Published in print:
1 August 2011
Online ISBN:
9780252093401
Print ISBN:
9780252036385
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press

Abstract

This much needed examination of Mike Leigh reclaims the British director as a practicing theorist—a filmmaker deeply invested in cinema's formal, conceptual, and narrative dimensions. In contrast with Leigh's prevailing reputation as a straightforward crafter of social realist movies, the book illuminates the visual tropes and storytelling investigations that position Leigh as an experimental filmmaker who uses the art and artifice of cinema to frame tales of the everyday and the extraordinary alike. Concentrating on the most recent two decades of Leigh's career, the study examines how Naked, Secrets and Lies, Topsy-Turvy, Vera Drake, and other less-discussed films such as Four Days in July and The Short and Curlies engage narrative convergence and narrative diffusion, the tension between character and plot, the interplay of coincidence and design, cinema's relationship to other systems of representation, and the filmic rendering of the human figure. This volume also includes key selections from the author's several interviews with Leigh.

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