How does it feel?
I mean, do you often look back on your own work
and I just wondered if your relationship with your work changes
as you've moved to your own life?
Do you mean my relationship with my previous work?
Yeah, with your previous work?
I don't know.
Some, yeah, it's a hard one because
obviously, I mean, what I've been doing lately is just
a way of trying to answer your question.
I've been because, as you know, is the retrospective going on
at the BFI in London, and
I'll be going to the question
obsession also been sitting in on screenings.
And you know, of course, when you see a film
that obviously when one knows one's own film intimately.
But when you see it with an audience, the audience is in some way each audience.
It's a new experience because it's alive makes the film alive now.
And obviously we know that people don't
only watch one's films in audiences.
I mean, people watch them privately, of course, but
in a way that's
one way of I've been revisiting my work.
And you know, the great thing is
it's very encouraging and
great relief and a great source of energy to know that the film
still a vibrant and live and, you know, have a response.
And the great thing about, incidentally, about
the retrospective in London
is that, you know, one could have.
Been forgiven for thinking that
only old lags who saw the film way but would show up.
But actually, there's a lot of young people and people are really on it.
So all of that is refreshing.
And of course, you know my feel, I'm lucky
because I've never made a film
that I can't watch. I mean,
there are no filmmakers and probably you talk to them or know some, some
film.
I can't watch that, that film.
That's one film that I cannot watch.
And the reason is that they
somebody fucked it up for that.
You know, they this change the end.
You can't cast this, you can't cast that. or they recut it.
All that stuff and people interfered and screwed the damn thing up.
Now, I've never had that experience.
I've always made films without any interference.
So the film that's up there is a film I wanted to make, and the film that
came out of my feelings and that feeling as if everybody I collaborated with.
So in a way I am.
My films are like my children.
I love them all one way or the other.
Is that probably, do you think a little bit?
Because it's not that common theme that threads through all of your work?
there is a verisimilitude there is a veractiy to it?
There's a realness to it? And
yeah, I mean,
it's it's obvious I don't make movies about movies
that don't make movies that I don't think or operate in terms of genres.
I don't make films that reference other films.
I don't, you know, my films are about life,
and that's what you're talking about.
That's the bottom line.
And the experiences you're having watching it with audiences perhaps
harks back to your theatre roots in history as well.
That's a yes, that's true.
But that's only that's just insofar as it's obvious that that's what theatre is.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
But it's not. I don't think it's
I don't know.
That's a really important aspect of it, you know?
I also wondered actually looking back at some of the films
that are part of the BFI season and also with the rereleases of
the reissues of All or Nothing and Vera Drake,
I was thinking to myself in a way
was Naked, a little bit of a, I don't know, an antithesis
to Bleak Moments in terms of the fact
the protagonist subconsciously or consciously,
because the protagonists in Bleak Moments are very emotionally
perhaps constipated, unable to articulate their feelings,
whereas the protagonist of Naked are very much the opposite.
Yes, I think I think that there's something in that I don't think
I don't think it's accurate to say that one was
naked was
any sort of reaction to or because apart from anything else,
we made Bleak Moments in 1971
and we made naked in 1992, which is 21 years later,
and I made quite a lot of films in between of various shapes and sizes,
including the likes of Nuts in May and Abigail's Party.
So, you know.
But what is it?
You do raise what is an interesting
aspect, which actually I don't think I've ever discussed with anybody
till this moment, which is that at the time that I made bleak moments
and to a great extent, this was true of the next film
I made immediately after that and the BBC
Hard Labour.
My characters were it.
It was all about people not communicating and not saying very much
and very much subtext.
The idea of a very verbose and or articulate character
didn't happen to the third film, which was in fact Nuts in May,
when they wouldn't stop rattling on about
vegetarianism, the various other
things in another way.
So but the real point is, you know, the characters Johnny
and Naked or Poppy in
Happy Go Lucky - people with ideas and thoughts and feelings.
And, you know, in his set in his case,
is a frustrated idealist in her case.
She's an idealist who does something about it,
but they have certain similarities nonetheless.
The real bottom line is that I've made films of all kinds of people,
of all shapes and sizes, Some are, articulate some are inarticulate.
Some have a lot to say, so I have nothing to say and that's human.
All human life is that we have all the shapes, of course, people.
It's funny. You should say that.
I mean, Nuts in May is one of my personal favorites.
And you know, your television work and amongst your film,
like you've got this great body of work, the BBC and so on.
And I was thinking about institutions like Play for Today, which were great
breeding ground for filmmakers and.
Actors, in order to sort of showcase their skills and learn their trade.
Do you think the BBC and public service broadcasters generally
have perhaps abandoned
the arts community in some ways and their cultural obligation?
To be honest with you.
I don't think it's... I don't view Play for Today in the terms that you just
I don't think it's about the artistic community
or about a place to hone skills.
Iit was that too, but primarily it was all about, Play for
Today was about looking at real the real world and dramatizing it
and all sorts of people, writers and directors and others.
Actually, that's what it was all about, apart from.
And this is relevant to your question.
Apart from the fact that at that time, the BBC was a very, very liberal
organization, I mean, the great thing about Play for Today,
as far as I'm concerned,
I am concerned looking back at it is that.
You had
A producer with a number of film slots, and he could
or she could give them to whoever she wanted,
and there was no interference from committees of people
or script supervisors or saboteurs or censors of any kind.
It just got out there and created what you wanted to say.
That's what that's why Ken Loach, tried and others
came along and did the same.
So there is no risk of censorship than it was.
There's an opportunity.
No, no. Yes.
I mean, including I made a film about Northern Ireland - Four Days in July,
which is
the basis on
which nobody interfered with,
you know, and it was about the troubles
which it did, especially during that period,
was a great move, really, because it yeah, totally.
I think about that and it's just there's not
it'll be a risk in a way in terms of the film community in terms of
the film landscape, as well as television of losing the ability to have social
realism, films about programs, about British social realism.
Excuse me.
Yeah. No, you're right.
That's what I'm talking about.
I mean, you know, it's I am actually having
I've had more difficulty lately and I'm currently doing so
getting backing for a project than than
I have for many a decade.
And it's got something to do with what you and I are talking about.
Yes, of course.
And which would be a shame to lose that.
Well, you know, I mean, the fact of the matter is that life is,
you know, life carries on and you know,
there's a story on every street corner, in every bedroom, you know
? Thank you.
And it's so nicefor audiences to see
in a world that they recognize reflect.
Yes, you're absolutely right.
Alfred Hitchcock once said a woman who spends all day
washing and cleaning and ironing does not want to go to the pictures
to see a film about a woman who spends all day washing and cleaning and ironing.
And I flatly totally disagree with Alfred Hitchcock.
It was rubbish and bollocks
people love to see things that they can relate to.
That does resonate with their lives.
That's not all people want to see.
You know, it's a mixed diet.
You know, let's have all sorts of stuff.
But certainly my experience, which is considerable,
is that people really, really like to resonate
with their lives and see characters that they can relate to.
Absolutely understand all the charm and agree with that.
As an audience and myself, I'm sad it
say that you will have the rich diet, like you say across the spectrum, I think
and and in relation to you saying about making the film now,
because I know that around the age when you turn 65, you would so sit
contemplating the talk of retirement and you said that you
if you
mental capacity, you desire.. at 78, do you?
Have you changed your view? No, no, I don't.
I mean, I think I would never have talked about that because some
clever dick journalist asked me that.
I mean, it's not an issue that I would have erased...
I would have raised, initiated then any more than I do now.
Right, right.
That's not... that isn't an implicit answer to your question.
That's good.
Thank you.
Do you feel in terms of looking at the season
and the rereleases and stuff and as you have experienced it
with audiences and without an overseeing restoration programs and things?
Is there one
that you particularly stands out to or surprised you perhaps looking back on?
I don't know about a surprised me.
I mean, I ought to say that apart from the
the Blu
ray releases of Vera Drake and All or Nothing.
What's very important is that the BFI has done a wonderful
4K restoration of Naked, which is in the cinemas from actually
the end of this week, and they've also got a 4K restoration of Bleak Moments
when we referred to my first film
50 years ago, and that's out on Blu ray.
I mean, the stand out thing is the work is Naked,
it looks fantastic, and it's great that people will be able to go and see
the pictures in the movie.
They have lost none of its power.
Does that surprise you when they say that Naked has lost none of its power?
It does feel
like a little bit of an outlier, perhaps among all the rest of your oeuvre,
but it's a very much it resonates a very powerful way.
This doesn't
stay is still at risk as powerfully scorches off the screen.
Still, I think. Yes.
Well, I hope so. So
it should be, and the only thing it takes is no one's got a mobile.
Well, that's not even that's not true.
There is a mobile in the actual
one moment that Johnny talks about cashless society.
Oh, yeah, yeah, no, no.
It's it's quite clairvoyant in that sense.
It's it is. They have a crystal ball.
So in relation to the press and the public,
obviously they talk about Mike Leigh film and it's like you're an auteur.
In that sense, the people do connect that with you.
Do you ever feel a sense of responsibility to live up to that or just pull up a
ball and chain? But sometimes
it doesn't feels like either of those things.
I mean, the other responsibility is to is to
make the films that feel right and they want to make.
Honestly, I thought.
If you stop being if you start allowing those
so those preoccupations to be, as you put it, a ball and chain,
what to think about the minute you're finished
really is what is this project?
What's this about and what, you know?
Let's be honest about this.
Let's get into this.
And also so far as I'm concerned, if a film was not entertaining,
it's dead in the water.
Mean I'm in the business of entertainment, you know, as much as anything,
despite the fact
that it's going to be about something about things you say.
So, yeah, no, I don't think about those things.
I think it will be counterproductive and destructive.
And as I say it, dead in the water when
it terms of this project that you're ttrying to get backing for.
And can you say anything about what it's about?
Is it not political?
No, I never talk about anything until it's happening.
Is that is that one of maybe a superstition you've always had or no know?
It's it's actually not as if
this is a practical matter, like because of the way we make films.
It's important that we keep what they are under our
Hats, you always was very good the way you've always had to trusted
sort of like group of, like a theatre company of actors
who would come back and time and time again the special way Bergman did, I think.
Yes, I don't know about the theatre company because it's
not a permanent, unlike Bergman, who really did have an answer.
There are actors,
quite a number of them, but I come back to and come back and work with me.
But it's by no means a closed community.
I mean, there are always, always
new actors in my films and
invariably young ones too, you know, so I take that really a bit of a pinch.
I think one has to take that with a bit of a pinch of salt, but I do.
Well, James Corden in all or nothing.
Young James Corden, I did.
Yes, James James Corden, who famously came to audition for me and asked him to play
a real guy he knew, and I left him alone in the room to get into character.
And when I came back, he was sitting on the windowsill
on one floor up
and smoking a cigarette and he's quite a tubby fellow,
even tubbier then - if he had rolled over and lost his balance.
It fallen into Greek Street, Soho with a splat.
A great story
in relation to a final question, really, to wrap it up
and thank you so much for your time.
It really is a privilege and a pleasure to spend time with you and I.
If you would to direct and point somebody towards
one particular feature in your canon and one say TV work one of each.
What would it be?
Oh, I don't really distinguish between.
They're all films.
You know, I can't do that because it depends who they are.
Who's the victim you're inventing is
so I mean, I would encourage them to watch the whole lot frankly.
And that's that's a great that's a great note to end on.
Okay.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you. Take care. Cheers.