TORONTO (AP) ā When the British filmmaker Mike Leigh was 6, his father, a doctor who would oppose his son becoming an artist, told him to quit drawing pictures of people.
In a way, Leigh never stopped. In his six decades making movies, the 81-year-old Leigh has made some of the most humanistic movies in cinema, many of them character studies of ordinary, working-class people ā though the films, from āSecret & Liesā to run the whole gamut.
āI walk down the street and I see characters,ā Leigh says. āLooking at people is what itās about.ā
Leigh is sitting in a Toronto restaurant the morning after the premiere of his latest film and first in six years, It reunites him with Marielle Jean-Baptiste, who was Oscar-nominated for her role in 1996's āSecrets & Lies.ā
In āHard Truths,ā which will open for a qualifying release Dec. 6 and nationwide Jan. 10, Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a bitter and rageful woman whose unexplained internal suffering spews out in venom directed at her husband, son and most anyone she encounters in her few, anxious trips out of their London home.
The film was made in Leigh's trademark way. He sets without a script and instead builds the character and story through months of rehearsal with his actors. It's an approach that Leigh says has gotten increasingly difficult to pull off in today's movie industry. He spoke about that struggle and others in an interview.
___
AP: Pansy seems unable to enjoy life. We probably all know people like Pansy, and sometimes feel like her. What made you interested in a character like her?
LEIGH: Thatās an interesting question because it wonāt surprise you if I say there isnāt anything Iām not interested in when it comes to human behavior. If you mean that itās something I identify with, yes, I do. But it would be untruthful if I said thatās what I had in mind. In fact, it probably never occurred to me until this conversation that there are bits of me in the thing youāre talking about. What is for sure is that, like everybody, I know Pansys of one kind or another. Some of them are quite close to me.
AP: Given the collaborative nature of how you draw out a character and a film, is it possible for you to identify the germ that you began with?
LEIGH: Itās very, very difficult, if not impossible. In the end itās intuitive and organic. Start with Marianne and Michele (Austin). I wanted to get the two of them together for the third time with me. I decided, OK, letās just look at the world of these Black folk. I actually canāt remember, let alone want to talk about, exactly the combination. Because we do genuinely embark on a journey of discovery as to what the film is ā which is not news to anyone who writes paints pictures, writes novels, writes plays, writes screenplays, makes music, writes poetry, creates sculpture or anything else. How many novelists have said, āI didnāt know what was going to happen next, and then the character told me.ā We really do do that, basically. My films are, for me, a consist part of an ongoing personal investigation. Theyāre not movies about movies. Theyāre not genre movies. Theyāre films about stuff, life.
AP: Many scenes capture how people, in stores and parking lots, respond to Pansy's irritability. The same could be said of audiences getting to know a difficult protagonist. Did you consider how moviegoers would respond to her?
LEIGH: I never at any stage thought in those terms because youāre motivated by the reality of it. But, obviously, lining up these antagonists, if you like, that is what that was about.
AP: Do you think about how we collectively or individually treat someone like Pansy, who rejects help but needs it?
LEIGH: Yes. The world is full of Pansys. People live with other peopleās conditions. They donāt think about it being something wrong with them that needs to be treated. Itās how she is and itās a damn nuisance, a drag, it pisses them off. Itās a running condition of awfulness. People donāt go around, mostly, thinking: My relation has a mental condition that needs to be treated.
AP: You've spoken about the difficulty of getting a film off the ground the way you make them. Has it gotten harder?
LEIGH: Itās 100% impossible. Itās very tough, and itās gotten tougher. Make no mistake. Iāve made 20-odd films, 28, I think, and over the years, working the way I do and saying no script, no discussion about casting, no interference, itās got worse. Itās got bad. This is as low a budget as Iāve had in a long time. It is reflected in the lack of complexity in the narrative. Itās fine. You cut your cloth according to its length. Itās a 97-minute film. On the whole, my films have been 120, 130 minutes. Indeed, I am frustrated. We made this and itās great, and I hope we get to do another one. But whatās frustrating is having done the likes of āPeterloo,ā Iād love to have the freedom to make a big-scale contemporary film where I donāt declare what it is so I can explore society. Nobody will cough up.
AP: Do you feel at all let down by the festivals? Cannes and Venice reportedly passed on āHard Truths.ā
LEIGH: Incidentally, so did Telluride, which is odd. Itās hard to know what to feel about Cannes. If you look at the lineup, you think, maybe you can see that they wanted glitz and glamour. People say, āThis is ridiculous. Youāve won the Palme dāOr. Youāve won the Golden Lion.ā Blah blah blah. It means jack (expletive). I mean, Iāve been around too long. You think, whatever. I mean, if nobody wanted it at all ā itās here (in Toronto) and at the New York Film Festival ā then Iād start to twitch.
AP: I would think that your notions for movies are vast, that big or small, they can come from anywhere.
LEIGH: Yes, thatās right. Even as we speak, weāre trying to raise the money for another film. I do start, quite unashamedly, like: If we get him or her to be in it. Letās start with the notion that weāll have Marianne. Thatās what happened here. OK, weāve got Marianne Jean-Baptiste and that immediately opens up a whole rich seam of character possibilities. Thatās really what Iāve always done. You get these brilliant character actors who come and do it. And they all are character actors. Theyāre not narcissists who come and play themselves. They want to play real people out there on the street.
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
