And then, dragged to the Japanese Exhibition by his devoted (and emotionally neglected) wife Kitty (Lesley Manville in a heartbreaking performance), Gilbert finds inspiration in the heretofore unexplored culture on display, from the delicacy of the manners and rituals to the dramatic theater of kabuki. Almost in spite of himself, he is inspired to create not just a new story but an entirely fresh, exotic world of characters and colors and cultural wonder, and the excitement reverberates across the company and into the marrow of what we see turn into the team's most successful production ever: "The Mikado."
Ostensibly a mix of historical biopic and backstage drama, Topsy-Turvy is ultimately a study in the act of creative collaboration, illustrated through the development a single production from inspiration through rehearsals to performance. And for all the period style and 19th century manners and generous scenes of Gilbert and Sullivan shows staged in their fullness, Leigh hasn't changed his filmmaking style for this drama. Like his films before and after, he developed the script in collaboration with his actors, working out characters, scenes and dialogue based on is sketches and ideas. The result is a bright, densely-detailed delight of creative inspiration, theatrical soap opera and 19th century British culture, an Altman-esque canvas painted in the shades of Leigh's own sensibility. Topsy-Turvy brings a freshness to the formality of 19th century decorum and conventions and an artist's appreciation to the challenges of creative work and the dynamics of personality and creative strengths between collaborators.
It's Leigh's most sprawling production and his most disciplined. He explores the culture of theater and the theater business from the top (where Gilbert and Sullivan live large on their enormous success) to the workaday world behind the scenes at the Savoy Theater, and weaves the stories and personalities of dozens of characters through the drama on and off stage, giving everyone their moment to shine within the ensemble. There are too many to them out by name, but particularly notable are Timothy Spall as Richard Temple, a comic specialty player and audience favorite whose larger-than-life portrayal hide a vulnerable man, and Shirley Henderson as the company ingénue, a single mother with a drinking problem who has given up on romance rather than face rejection.
Centering the entire enterprise are the two authors, as different as can be. Corduner's Arthur Sullivan is an ebullient social creature roused back to the partnership by the renewal of creative energy. Broadbent's William Gilbert is curiously dour and gloomy for a man with such a talent for playful lyrics and witty wordplay in his romantic fantasies. While not exactly adversaries, they aren't really friends either, simply business partners with a particularly successful creative partnership, and the film rarely shows the two men actually together in the same room, let alone swapping ideas.
The worlds are almost segregated until rehearsals begin on "The Mikado" and the authors become intimately involved with the players and musicians, choreographer and costumers, guiding their vision to life, each in his own manner. Sullivan is practically aglow as he rehearses the singers and musician, buoyant even when correcting a performer with smile, while the understated Gilbert speaks softly and firmly, working his deadpan wit into his painstaking direction of every aspect of the staging and presentation. It's the closest he comes to expressions of joy, and even he can't hide how touched he is by the benevolence of the chorus when they plead the case of a fellow actor.
This is not a simple, idealistic portrait of benevolence and the healing power of art to overcome all. The business of theater is never far from the art and more than one member of the troupe is carried along by one addiction or another. Leigh's camera takes us through the proscenium arch and past the fantasy to see the effort of actors sweating and straining behind the greasepaint and heavy costumes. And yet it only adds to the appreciation of the art itself. "I decided that it would be good to make a film about what we do, what we all go through," Leigh explained in an interview. Emphasis on the "we." Gilbert and Sullivan are at the center of Topsy-Turvy but Leigh, a man whose work is built on a close collaboration with his performers and key members of his crew, uses the crucible of this theatrical production to explore the process of how takes an entire company of collaborators to create theater. Or, by extension, cinema.
Topsy-Turvy was originally released on DVD in 2000. Criterion remasters the film for DVD and Blu-ray in a superb director-approved digital transfer supervised by cinematographer Dick Pope. Though not exactly a theatrical spectacular, the film is rich with period detail and the glorious costumes and sets of the stage productions and the new edition captures everything crisply, with rich, deep colors.
The two-disc DVD and single-disc Blu-ray release features commentary by director Mike Leigh (originally recorded in 1999 for the film's initial DVD release), a new video conversation between Leigh and Gary Yershon (the film's musical director), Leigh's 1992 short film A Sense of History (written by and starring actor Jim Broadbent), an archival featurette from 1999 that includes interviews with Leigh and his stars, and four deleted scenes, plus a booklet with an essay by Amy Taubin.
For more information about Topsy-Turvy, visit The Criterion Collection. To order Topsy-Turvy, go to TCM Shopping.
by Sean Axmaker
