Incredible Short Cinema Presents:- 'A SENSE OF HISTORY'

A SENSE OF HISTORY [1992]

Written by Jim Broadbent and Directed by Mike Leigh

One of my favourite British film directors, Mike Leigh has (for what I believe was the first time) directed a film with a script written by someone else. That someone else was Jim Broadbent an English theatre, film, and television actor. who  plays the lead role (and almost only role) in the film as The 23rd Earl of Leete.

Jim Broadbent is an old friend and collaborator with Leigh from previous productions.

Mike Leigh has through his innovative approach created vignettes around both working class and middle class life in England and has exposed the activities of everyday life with their roots in habit, fashions and quite often absurdity.  

In an interview with Laura Miller called "Listening to the World: An Interview With Mike Leigh", published on salon.com, Leigh states, "I make very stylistic films indeed, but style doesn't become a substitute for truth and reality. It's an integral, organic part of the whole thing." Leigh's vision is to depict ordinary life, "real life", unfolding under extenuating circumstances. Speaking of his films, he says, "No, I’m not an intellectual filmmaker. These are emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films. And there’s a feeling of despair... I think there’s a feeling of chaos and disorder." 

This film of Jim Broadbent is set at the other end of the social pecking order, the landed aristocracy, the Norman elite hanging on to their priviledges nearly a thousand years on.

The film which is dangerously long for the Blogosphere at a just over 25 minutes, but I decided that it is at the upper end of 'short' and so meets the only criterion for inclusion here.

Its documentary style probably tells us more about how the Norman landed classes came to be in the position they are now... than any genuine documentary programme on BBC or the History Channel. Hope you enjoy this short film.