Dear Diary Entry Where Mike Leigh Reams Me (In My Dreams)

I don’t usually write down my dreams but sometimes they’re so intense that I should/need to write them down. I’ve written whole haiku-like poems in my dreams before but this morning I dreamt that I was working on a Mike Leigh film and he was stuck about how the opening title sequence should look like and I offered my suggestion of starting a type in medias res and then a sudden freeze-framing (like Truffaut, like Degrassi Jr. High) with the credits rolling in pop-colored font (yes these were very specific suggestions) superimposed over the freeze-framed image. And suddenly Mike Leigh became the archetypal megalomaniac director/dictator and hated not only my suggestion but that I offered one to begin with. None of the actors who would spend a year workshopping the film were on my side and I was never asked to work on a Mike Leigh film again.

The New Believer

The best thing on newsstands right now is the March/April  issue of The Believer magazine.  It provide us with an interview with Mike Leigh where he discusses in detail his method (not the Method) where the actors collaborate with the creations of their characters through a several month long improvisation workshops. We can see this sense of organic characterization in his films including last fall’s Happy-Go-Lucky, a film that I think as miscategorized as one of his “character studies,” the polar opposite of Naked, they say. While the central focus is Sally Hawkins’ Poppy, the exploration of the ensemble is definitely visible. The reactions to Poppy’s happy-go-lucky ways is as important as the central figure herself. Just look at the woman who plays her best friend: an overlooked performance.

Also in the issue is a bonus DVD that is all Godard, Godard, Godard. The DVD includes Godard’s appearance on the Dick Cavett show in 1980, an appearance that would be unlikely on any American television show today, not even Charlie Rose or Terri Gross would discuss contemporary Godard, as Dick Cavett did on his show. The man is still doing work today. He didn’t die with the New Wave.  The host acted incredibly nervous, but I suppose who wouldn’t sitting next to such an intellectual and artistic giant as Godard. The best part of the DVD is this weird home video footage of Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin, and the founder of California Cuisine, Alice Waters on the seashore of Del Mar right here in San Diego, swimming, sunbathing, eating plums. Jean-Pierre Gorin has taught at UCSD for nearly forty years now. His pedagogical investment and his approach to  analysis has left a deep impact on me and my friends, even though he’s never officially been my professor. Since I do have high regards for the man, my shock for seeing JP’s back tattoo, or as the kid’s today call them his tramp-stamp.