Finally got a hypothesis!!

"What impact does Mike Leigh's use of improvisation have on the portrayal of Social Realism in his films?" 

Social Realism

As we know Mike Leigh’s films focus a lot on the social realism of people’s lives at the time a film is set in. So when looking at his films, I decided to look at 2 main ones which I think will look closely at social realism.

(I am looking at a few more so there will be moreJ)

1. Vera Drake – the reason for this is because as it is set in the 1950’s it shows a lot about England during the post War period, we see a family that are of low class, but are very happy together they all have their jobs and help out. However Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton) has a secret, she helps women induce miscarriages for unwanted pregnancies. In the 1950’s this was illegal in England, Vera felt that she was not doing anything wrong, just helping the women making it seem so realistic and getting the audience involved by being on her side.

I am also focusing on the cinematography, how in Vera Drake there are a lot of extreme close ups Mike Leigh does this so that the audience focus on specific things, also the close ups so of the face expressions which show a lot to the audience, of the realisms of the emotions. Also looking at the long shots that show the whole family, giving is different views of the family. How they are as a family.




2. Secret and Lies – is another film that I will be looking at the reason for this is because this also shows a lot of realism, we have the Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) who really makes the audience involved and it makes it realistic. In some of the shots it is as if we the audience are observing what is happening making it seem like we are there, creating social realism. One main point in the film is that we have two different social classes a working class who have much more money, who have good living conditions and then a low working class. Showing that people can be different even though they are related meaning they don’t all have to earn the same amount.

First Post!

The auteur I have chosen is the English director, Mike Leigh.

He focuses on social realism and improvisation and this will be the basis of my hypothesis.

So far, I have seen two films and I have found an interview in Empire magazine consisting of his work.

From reading the interview and watching the films, I can see the actors were in quite a lot of shock as they didn't have a script to follow and were finding out what was going on as the film progressed. This managed to create a huge amount of realism helping the film to play on the audience's emotions.