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}} Mike Leigh OBE (born 20 February 1943) is an English writer and director of film and theatre. He studied theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design.〔Coveney, p. 66〕 He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s his career moved between theatre work and making films for BBC Television, many of which were characterised by a gritty "kitchen sink realism" style. His well-known films include the comedy-dramas ''Life is Sweet'' (1990) and ''Career Girls'' (1997), the Gilbert and Sullivan biographical film ''Topsy-Turvy'' (1999), and the bleak working-class drama ''All or Nothing'' (2002). His most notable works are the black comedy-drama ''Naked'' (1993), for which he won the Best Director Award at Cannes,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Festival de Cannes: Naked )〕 the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA and Palme d'Or-winning drama ''Secrets & Lies'' (1996) and the Golden Lion winning working-class drama ''Vera Drake'' (2004). Some of his notable stage plays include ''Smelling A Rat'', ''It's A Great Big Shame'', ''Greek Tragedy'', ''Goose-Pimples'', ''Ecstasy'', and ''Abigail's Party''. Leigh is known for his lengthy rehearsal and improvisation techniques with actors to build characters and narrative for his films. His purpose is to capture reality and present "emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films."〔 His aesthetic has been compared to the sensibility of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. His films and stage plays, according to critic Michael Coveney, "comprise a distinctive, homogenous body of work which stands comparison with anyone's in the British theatre and cinema over the same period."〔''The world according to Mike Leigh'', p. 8, Michael Coveney, Harper Collins 1996〕 Coveney further noted Leigh's role in helping to create stars – Liz Smith in ''Hard Labour'', Alison Steadman in ''Abigail's Party'', Brenda Blethyn in ''Grown-Ups'', Antony Sher in ''Goose-Pimples'', Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in ''Meantime'', Jane Horrocks in ''Life is Sweet'', David Thewlis in ''Naked'' – and remarked that the list of actors who have worked with him over the years – including Paul Jesson, Phil Daniels, Lindsay Duncan, Lesley Sharp, Kathy Burke, Stephen Rea, Julie Walters – "comprises an impressive, almost representative, nucleus of outstanding British acting talent."〔Coveney, World according to Mike Leigh, p. 9〕 Ian Buruma, writing in the ''New York Review of Books'' in January 1994, noted: "It is hard to get on a London bus or listen to the people at the next table in a cafeteria without thinking of Mike Leigh. Like other wholly original artists, he has staked out his own territory. Leigh's London is as distinctive as Fellini's Rome or Ozu's Tokyo."〔Buruma, quoted in Coveney, the world according to Mike leigh, p. 14〕 ==Early life== Leigh was born in Welwyn, the son of Phyllis Pauline (née Cousin) and Alfred Abraham Leigh, a doctor.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Mike Leigh Biography (1943-) )〕 His mother, in her confinement, went to stay with her parents in Hertfordshire for comfort and support while her husband was serving as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Leigh was brought up in Broughton, Salford. He is from a Jewish immigrant family whose surname, originally Lieberman, had been anglicised in 1939 "for obvious reasons".〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Movie Reviews, Ratings, and Best New Movies )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Habonim spirit influences work of director Mike Leigh in ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ - Film )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Mike Leigh cancels Israel visit over 'conscience' )〕〔(Mike Leigh comes out on his Jewishness by Linda Grant )〕 When the war ended Leigh's father began his career as a general practitioner in Higher Broughton, "the epicentre of Leigh's youngest years and the area memorialised in ''Hard Labour''."〔Coveney, p. 41〕 Leigh went to Salford Grammar School, as did the director Les Blair, his friend, who produced Leigh's first feature film ''Bleak Moments'' in 1971. There was a strong tradition of drama in the all-boys school, and an English master, called Mr Nutter, supplied the library with newly published plays.〔Coveney, p. 7, 45〕 Outside of school, Leigh thrived in the Manchester branch of Habonim. He attended summer camps and winter activities over the Christmas break all round the country in the late 1950s. Throughout this time, (and though supplemented by his discovery of Picasso, Surrealism, ''The Goon Show'', and even family visits to the Hallé Orchestra and the D'Oyly Carte), the most important part of his artistic consumption was the cinema. In 1960, 'to his utter astonishment', he won a scholarship to RADA. Initially trained as an actor at RADA, Leigh went on to start honing his directing skills at East 15 Acting School where he met the actress Alison Steadman.〔Michael Coveney, The World According to Mike Leigh, p. 17〕 Leigh responded negatively to RADA's agenda, found himself being taught how to 'laugh, cry and snog' for weekly rep purposes and so became a sullen student. He later attended Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts (in 1963), the Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design, and the London School of Film Technique in Charlotte Street. When he had arrived in London, one of the first films he had seen was ''Shadows'', an 'improvised' film by John Cassavetes, in which a cast of unknowns was observed 'living, loving and bickering' on the streets of New York, and Leigh had "felt it might be possible to create complete plays from scratch with a group of actors." Other influences from this time included Harold Pinter's ''The Caretaker''—"Leigh was mesmerised by the play and the (Arts Theatre) production"— Samuel Beckett, whose novels he read avidly, and the surreal writing of Flann O'Brien, whose 'tragi-comedy' Leigh found particularly appealing. Influential and important productions he saw in this period included Beckett's ''Endgame'', Peter Brook's ''King Lear'' and in 1965 Peter Weiss's ''Marat/Sade'', a production developed through improvisations, the actors having based their characterisations on people they had visited in a mental hospital. The visual worlds of Ronald Searle,〔''Marlow meets Mike Leigh'', Sky Arts〕 George Grosz, Picasso, and William Hogarth exerted another kind of influence. He played small roles in several British films in the early 1960s, (''West 11'',''Two Left Feet''), and played a young deaf-mute, interrogated by Rupert Davies, in the BBC TV series ''Maigret''. In 1964–65 he teamed up with David Halliwell, and designed and directed the first production of ''Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs'' at the Unity Theatre. Leigh has been described as "a gifted cartoonist ... a northerner who came south, slightly chippy, fiercely proud (and critical) of his roots and Jewish background; and he is a child of the 1960s, and of the explosion of interest in the European cinema and the possibilities of television."〔Coveney, p. 7〕〔(Mike Leigh's DVD Picks )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mike Leigh」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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