PETERLOO
****
Director: Mike Leigh
Screenwriter: Mike Leigh
Principal cast:
Rory Kinnear
Maxine Peake
Pearce Quigley
David Moorst
Rachel Finnegan
Tom Meredith
Country: UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 155 mins.
Australian release date: 16 May 2019
Previewed at: Palace Central, Sydney, on 1 May 2019.
Beginning in 1815, on a battlefield in the midst of the Battle of Waterloo, Mike Leigh’s Peterloo opens on the figure and face of a bewildered young bugler, Joseph (David Moorst), who today we’d recognise as being ‘shell-shocked’, probably suffering from PTSD. We next see the lad as he stumbles through the door of his family cottage near Manchester and into the arms of his loving mother Nellie (Maxine Peake). From then on, this family, headed by father Joshua (Pearce Quigley) and including other son, Robert (Tom Meredith), is our ingress into the events that led to the massacre in St. Peter’s Field, Manchester, on 16 August 1819, that became known as the Peterloo Massacre. Peterloo brings this defining, yet not widely known, incident in British history to the screen. It is an epic portrayal of a peaceful rally that resulted in 18 dead and hundreds injured and which ultimately played a major role in the foundation of The Guardian newspaper, which was established as a result of the carnage.
With Joseph unable to find work and not enough food to feed the family because of laws that prohibit the importation of cheap grain, the men begin attending political meetings that question the actions of the government. As one of the attendees asks, “When has the government ever done anything to help us?” Some of the local organisers of these gatherings travel to London to hear a famous radical, Henry Hunt (Rory Kinnear), speak at a meeting and, impressed by his oratory, ask him to come to Manchester to address a mass demonstration. Delays meant that the local magistrates got word of the planned protest, which gave them time to organise the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, a militia force, and a detachment of the regular army, to be on hand on the day. Their intention was to stop the meeting from proceeding and make an example of the upstart citizenry, and the size of the crowd, more than 60,000 souls, wasn’t going to call a halt to their plans.
At a running time of some two-and-a-half hours, Peterloo may be a stretch for the iPhone generation. Leigh’s measured direction builds slowly and introduces dozens of characters, so close attention needs to be paid to get the most out of it. Rest assured though, your time will be well spent and the film leads to a terrifying, if not entirely satisfactory, conclusion. It’s not satisfying, of course, because of the sheer injustice of the actions on display and it’s amazing that there wasn’t any punitive action taken against the murderous miscreants in later years. On the contrary, the immediate aftermath was a crackdown on all civil protest and the government declared its support for the actions taken by the magistrates and the army.
Veteran director Mike Leigh is one of England’s greatest contemporary filmmakers and it’s been four years since his last movie, Mr. Turner, was released and Another Year was four years before that, so Peterloo has probably been gestating for quite some time. Leigh also wrote the screenplay of this very wordy film, so one suspects that he was working on the script for the entire time. It’s a masterful achievement and the level of detail contained within it is staggering. Leigh also loves working with a collective team and many of his long-term collaborators have returned for this latest effort: cinematographer Dick Pope, is behind the lens once again, Jon Gregory has done the edit, Jacqueline Durran was responsible for the vast number of true-to-period costumes, Christine Blundell designed the hair and make-up, and Gary Yershon composed the music. All of these key creatives have worked with the director on between seven and 12 of his previous projects, so they obviously relish ‘putting the band back together’ and you know you’re in the hands of experts.
Peterloo is epic in every sense of the word. Anyone interested in politics and history will be naturally drawn to it but its audience needn’t be limited to those people alone. It’s remarkable that reforms are always being fought for, regardless of the period of time one examines, and today is no different. When the forces of the establishment clash with the forces of reform, blood often flows. Leigh has done an extraordinary job of casting light on one particular example from 1819 but, regrettably, there is no shortage of others in our history.
Screenwriter: Mike Leigh
Principal cast:
Rory Kinnear
Maxine Peake
Pearce Quigley
David Moorst
Rachel Finnegan
Tom Meredith
Country: UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 155 mins.
Australian release date: 16 May 2019
Previewed at: Palace Central, Sydney, on 1 May 2019.
Beginning in 1815, on a battlefield in the midst of the Battle of Waterloo, Mike Leigh’s Peterloo opens on the figure and face of a bewildered young bugler, Joseph (David Moorst), who today we’d recognise as being ‘shell-shocked’, probably suffering from PTSD. We next see the lad as he stumbles through the door of his family cottage near Manchester and into the arms of his loving mother Nellie (Maxine Peake). From then on, this family, headed by father Joshua (Pearce Quigley) and including other son, Robert (Tom Meredith), is our ingress into the events that led to the massacre in St. Peter’s Field, Manchester, on 16 August 1819, that became known as the Peterloo Massacre. Peterloo brings this defining, yet not widely known, incident in British history to the screen. It is an epic portrayal of a peaceful rally that resulted in 18 dead and hundreds injured and which ultimately played a major role in the foundation of The Guardian newspaper, which was established as a result of the carnage.
With Joseph unable to find work and not enough food to feed the family because of laws that prohibit the importation of cheap grain, the men begin attending political meetings that question the actions of the government. As one of the attendees asks, “When has the government ever done anything to help us?” Some of the local organisers of these gatherings travel to London to hear a famous radical, Henry Hunt (Rory Kinnear), speak at a meeting and, impressed by his oratory, ask him to come to Manchester to address a mass demonstration. Delays meant that the local magistrates got word of the planned protest, which gave them time to organise the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, a militia force, and a detachment of the regular army, to be on hand on the day. Their intention was to stop the meeting from proceeding and make an example of the upstart citizenry, and the size of the crowd, more than 60,000 souls, wasn’t going to call a halt to their plans.
At a running time of some two-and-a-half hours, Peterloo may be a stretch for the iPhone generation. Leigh’s measured direction builds slowly and introduces dozens of characters, so close attention needs to be paid to get the most out of it. Rest assured though, your time will be well spent and the film leads to a terrifying, if not entirely satisfactory, conclusion. It’s not satisfying, of course, because of the sheer injustice of the actions on display and it’s amazing that there wasn’t any punitive action taken against the murderous miscreants in later years. On the contrary, the immediate aftermath was a crackdown on all civil protest and the government declared its support for the actions taken by the magistrates and the army.
Veteran director Mike Leigh is one of England’s greatest contemporary filmmakers and it’s been four years since his last movie, Mr. Turner, was released and Another Year was four years before that, so Peterloo has probably been gestating for quite some time. Leigh also wrote the screenplay of this very wordy film, so one suspects that he was working on the script for the entire time. It’s a masterful achievement and the level of detail contained within it is staggering. Leigh also loves working with a collective team and many of his long-term collaborators have returned for this latest effort: cinematographer Dick Pope, is behind the lens once again, Jon Gregory has done the edit, Jacqueline Durran was responsible for the vast number of true-to-period costumes, Christine Blundell designed the hair and make-up, and Gary Yershon composed the music. All of these key creatives have worked with the director on between seven and 12 of his previous projects, so they obviously relish ‘putting the band back together’ and you know you’re in the hands of experts.
Peterloo is epic in every sense of the word. Anyone interested in politics and history will be naturally drawn to it but its audience needn’t be limited to those people alone. It’s remarkable that reforms are always being fought for, regardless of the period of time one examines, and today is no different. When the forces of the establishment clash with the forces of reform, blood often flows. Leigh has done an extraordinary job of casting light on one particular example from 1819 but, regrettably, there is no shortage of others in our history.
