FilmWeek
Films to be screened: Secrets and lies – Hard truths – Happy go lucky
- Look for separate activity posts for each film
“And her over there with that fat baby. Cold, cold, cold, and she’s walking up and down the street with nothing but a big pink bow on its bald head so everybody can tell it’s a girl, like I care. Parading it around in the little outfit. Not dressed for the weather. Nah. With pockets. What’s a baby got pockets for?” (Patsy at family dinner, Hard Truths). Few films have as well crafted dialogue as those of Mike Leigh. This is despite, or perhaps rather due to, the fact that it is improvised. In the films conception, there is only a vague idea, actors and hopefully, a bag of cash from a trusting producer. The rest is worked out through a meticulous process of experimentation and improvisation where the story grows out organically through the actors’ interactions. Mike Leigh’s films are thus fundamentally about character. Set in modern or historical England, the characters are sometimes happy, sometimes very unhappy, almost always funny. Viewing every life as a tragicomedy, Leigh, through a career stretching over fifty years, delves into the foundation of both joy and despair.
Viggo Johnson, Filmklubben
- Look at activity post for each screening