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 ustling from errand to errand in 1950 London, Mrs. Vera Drake, house cleaner, do-gooder and mother of two, has the rosy-cheeked glow and warm eyes of a particularly useful saint. Her doting husband and two grown children adore her. And who wouldn't? She's caring, generous and utterly lovely. But she has a dark secret: one of her weekly chores is "helping girls out." Unpacking her syringe, setting a teapot on the stove to boil, mixing disinfectant and carbolic soap into a basin, she gently tells girls in trouble to "take off your knickers, dear." Hooksexup sat down with sixty-one-year-old London-based director Mike Leigh one recent morning to talk about the past and future of a seemingly eternal debate. — Ada Calhoun
Congratulations winning all those British Independent Film Awards the other day.Thanks. Also last night I got the Gotham Lifetime Achievement Award. That's why I'm here in New York. I'm feeling very… …Happy with yourself? Jetlagged! [Laughs] Vera Drake has a really refreshing moral ambiguity regarding the abortion debate. Well, I don't think there's any question of the film's neutrality, ultimately, because plainly I can't be celebrating the notion of backstreet abortions. But I felt it very important to make the film in such away that it confronts the audience with a horrible dilemma. That's terribly important to me, because obviously, these things aren't black and white. Obviously, it's very good to be able to have the metaphor of a good person who's cast in the role of being the bad person by society. Our generation largely takes for granted legal abortion. Based on your extensive research, can you say what we're in store for if it's repealed? It's very straightforward. Outlaw abortion and what will happen is what has happened throughout history. There have always been non-medical people around who knew how to deal with this problem. There's nothing modern or twentieth century or anything else — it's standard human procedure, one way or another. The question is, ultimately, way beyond any discussion of whether abortion is right or wrong, the fact is must we not face the fact that abortion is inevitable, whether you like it or not, and if that is the case, is it better performed by medical professionals or by backstreet amateurs, however well-intentioned they may or may not be? The whole moral debate about abortion is all very well, but it is inevitable. We've been talking to each other for five minutes and I don't know how many unwanted pregnancies have started in the world since we've been talking and I don't know how many unwanted babies have been born. Certainly they wouldn't fit into this building. And the world hasn't gotten any bigger in that time. That's the bottom line. I know that people of a certain age take for granted that you can simply go and get a termination, but I'm old enough to remember what it was like when you couldn't. I'm lucky that I was never responsible for a pregnancy that was unwanted. It was a close thing! I was twenty-four when the law was changed. It was a close enough thing. And lots of people I knew had a terrible time. In the film, there is a point where the detective inspector says to Vera, don't you use hooks or coat hangers? She says, no, I wouldn't do that. But the fact is, that was very standard procedure, that you KILLED the fetus. And it remains standard procedure. Don’t forget, in a lot of countries it remains illegal. It is inevitable, and that's the bottom line. You mention coat hangers, but Vera uses a syringe full of soapy water, and she shaves the soap into the basin using a cheese grater, which is later admitted into evidence as an abortion implement. And whenever anyone in the film refers to the cheese grater as an abortion tool, it conjures all these awful images and people recoil in horror. When I first came across that — it was a very standard method — it seemed terrifying. You've said all your films are about family to some extent and in this one, the Drakes are just so lovely to each other. It seems like a perfect marriage, despite a twenty-five-year deception. Well, she keeps a secret because she has to. That's what she has to do, and she doesn't want to compromise her husband and children. She wants to protect them. Of course, it's a terrible mistake, but that's what happens in life. It's very feminist. Do you think people will finally stop calling you a misogynist now, as they did after Naked? That was such a stupid reaction to Naked. I find that ridiculous. It's not even worth discussing. Maybe they still will. Some people could construct negative spin on Vera Drake if they wanted to. But I know I'm not a misogynist and that's the end of it. Speaking of Naked, Vera and Johnny are both very charismatic. Do they have anything else in common? There's an awful lot they don't have in common! [Laughs] I think that's a stretch of a question. I don't see a link and I don't think you do either. True. I was reaching. [Laughs] Well, it was worth a go! In your research, did you notice much difference in the history of abortion in America versus Great Britain? Oh, that's a very interesting question! It's actually quite complex. There are three things involved: the relationship of society to it, the whole area of procedure, and the history of laws. Up until the end of the eighteenth century, it wasn't illegal at all. It became illegal at the beginning of the nineteenth century and then there was the act to which I refer several times in the film: the Offenses Against the Persons Act of 1861. And then it was repealed in 1967. I suppose the answer to your question is that in all societies there's been a continual process of change, and of course it continues. The debate now is about up until when in the pregnancy is a termination allowed. And that of course falls back to a fundamental moral, philosophical and pragmatic question, which is when does it become a life. Up until the nineteenth century, there was believed to be a point at which the spirit went into the body, which is medically nonsense. Now it's a moral question, if an unconscious fetus really does have human rights. That's a moral choice you have to make. Vera's daughter and her fiancé are so sweet. They're a wonderful counterpoint to all the ugly legal trouble. I think they are a counterpoint. Obviously, dramatically, narratively, it's great that they're celebrating — of all things — a pregnancy when the cops show up. The cops are good, aren't they? I thought it was better not to have bad cops. We wouldn't learn anything then. Right. And she did break the law, so they're just doing their job. Certainly. And they would know at that time that the law was being discussed. So, what do you think? Do you think Bush is going to do it? With Rehnquist sick, he'll certainly have a shot. What do you think? Well, I wouldn't be surprised. That couple was really so sweet. It's nice how, in the film, marriage and babies aren't on one side and abortion on the other. As long as it's not sentimental! I like the variety of the women, too. The drunk society girl who thinks it's all hilarious and the mother of seven who would be killed by another baby. You usually just see one thing: the distraught incest victim who shows how necessary abortion is or the selfish, arrogant modern girl who shows how evil it is. I have a predilection for that. It's important, for the sake of the moral question, to show the range of situations. Well, it was nice that they weren't all rape victims, which plays into the idea that... ... Rape's the only way to get pregnant, when we all know that's not the case. You can get pregnant loving someone, too. That still doesn’t mean you necessarily want a baby. n°
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