Page 11 - Fujifilm Exposure_41 Happy-Go-Lucky_ok

LET THE SUNSHINE IN
As Happy-Go-Lucky awaits release,
we celebrate one of the industry’s most enduring partnerships between director Mike Leigh and cinematographer Dick Pope BSC
W hen you think of some of today’s great filmmaking collaborations, certainly
three come almost immediately to mind: Roger Deakins BSC & the Coen Brothers, Barry Ackroyd BSC & Ken Loach and... Dick Pope BSC & Mike Leigh. Of this extraordinary trio (or, to be more accu-
rate, sextet), it’s perhaps easiest to take the Pope/Leigh tandem for granted. So much has been written and, frankly, speculated,
about Leigh’s so-called
‘process’ with his actors - focusing on a fascinating mixture of improvisation and rehearsal - that the subsequent filmmak- ing ‘process’ is often too easily overlooked.
How did it all
start? There was,
famously, a 17-year
gap between Leigh’s
first cinema feature,
Bleak Moments, in
1971 and his 1988 follow-up High Hopes. That project, as well as his previous TV film, Meantime, had both been lit by Roger Pratt BSC. “It so happened,” explained Leigh, “that when the film, which turned out to be Life Is
Sweet, was in the offing, Roger had to decide between that and doing Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King. Anyway, a number of people had said to me that if ever Roger wasn’t available, I should meet ‘this guy Dick Pope’. We clicked, he did it and then we went on to the next one. It’s now a relationship; we like each other; we eat Chinese meals together.”
Nearly 18 years later, spanning such memorable titles as Naked, Secrets & Lies, Topsy-Turvy and, of course, Vera Drake, Pope and Leigh
have now completed their eighth film togeth- er, Happy-Go-Lucky, a colourful comedy with a really dark edge, which was Britain’s entry at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.
If there’s a tenden- cy now to assume the films’ consistent style and sheer craft, there has at least been some regular validation in the form of various
awards, with Dick Pope alone having won three top prizes (two Golds and one Silver) for his work at the prestigious Camerimage Festival held in Lodz, Poland each year.
Photo main: Sally Hawkins, winner of Best Actress Award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, in Happy-Go-Lucky ; inset l-r: The Dynamic Duo - DP Dick Pope and Mike Leigh (Photos: Simon Mein)
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