Learning beyond the classroom in Happ

1. HAPPY GO LUCKY
Learning Beyond the Classroom

2. Aims & Learning Outcomes
Aims
• To examine the contrasting contexts of learning and
teaching
Learning Outcomes
• Discuss the construction of teachers and teaching in
Happy-Go-Lucky
• Examine stereotypes of characters as portrayed in
Happy-Go-Lucky
• Explore the messages on the meaning and significance
of teaching the film conveys

3. Happy Go Lucky
Director – Mike
Leigh
Producer –
Simon Channing
Williams
Cinematography
– Dock Pope
Starring – Sally
Hawkins, Eddie
Marsan

4. Synopisis
“Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is an irrepressibly cheerful
primary school teacher who won‟t let anyone or
anything get her down. Even when her bicycle , which
she so happily rides through the busy streets of London
is stolen, her first thought is only: „I didn‟t even get a
chance to say goodbye‟. Living with her flatmate Zoe
(Alexis Zegerman), Poppy has a gift for making the
most of life. Determined to learn to drive, she finds
herself matched with Scott (Eddie Marsan), an uptight
driving instructor who is everything she is not”

5. Mike Leigh
Films include:
• Abigail‟s Party
• Nuts in May
• Vera Drake
Focus on the detail
of human
characters

6. Genre
Comedy?
Romantic comedy?
Drama?
Mike Leigh genre?
To what extent does it fit into any of these?

7. Film Structure
Scenes are loosely connected
Scenes show details of interactions
Sense of direction?
“a film that goes everywhere – goes nowhere” (Name, 2009)
Almost all about what is happening to Poppy

8. Setting
Everywhere Poppy goes
Covers the life of Poppy
• Not just her professional life
Teacher is not just a teacher
• Mostly is not a teacher
Atypical of „teacher movies‟
• Nearly all action takes place in/around school - Trier
(2001)

9. Conflict/Contrast
Nochimson – “this is a movie that
pits the bubbling fountain of
exuberance welling up ceaselessly
within its protagonist Poppy (Sally
Hawkins), against the various
shades of misery in the London
around her.” (2009: 113-114)

10. Where is conflict?
Poppy – Scott
Poppy – Adult lifestyle
Happiness - Depression
Poppy – Everyone else she meets

11. Context - Individuals in a
System
Individuals we encounter are caught in their
circumstances
Nochimson
• Social boundaries & categories
• Creation of isolation
• Problem of transcending boundaries
Poppy is no exception

12. Poppy
What type of character is she

13. Scott
What type of character is he?
http://thehollywoodinterview.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html

14. Poppy as a Woman
Single
Independent
Strong
Overly Positive
Led a fulfilled life
Attractive
Rejects pressures
• Mortgage, pension, baby
Happy-go-Lucky
http://dichotome.net/?tag=queens-of-the-stone-age

15. Scott as a Person
Miserable
Stressed
Serious
Racist
Becomes Infatuated with
Poppy
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews44/happy-go-lucky.htm

16. Poppy as a Teacher
Committed
Caring
Creative
Devoted
Spare time is focused on
teaching...& lots of it
Image from Foreman (2008) „2008‟s Best‟ http://www.donalforeman.com/blog/?cat=3

17. Scott as a Teacher
Never gives up
Exasperated
Loss of temper
Controlling
You‟re my last pupil
Image from Uhlich, K (2008) „New York Film Festival 2008: Happy-Go-Lucky‟, Slant
Magazine, http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2008/10/nyff-46-2008-happy-go-lucky/

18. Poppy & Scott‟s relationship
Polar opposites
Scott is infuriated
Is Poppy a difficult pupil?
Why doesn‟t either one break
it up earlier?
Who is the hero?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/reviews/article-1015864/Happy-Go-Lucky-When-kindness-driving-
force.html

19. Poppy as a Pupil
What is she like as a pupil
• Similar or different to her role as a teacher
How does she respond to Scott‟s authority?
How would you feel about teaching Poppy?
Is she a bad pupil?

20. Women & Teachers on Film
General absence of women as central
characters
Non central characters
• School of Rock
• History Boys
Not the central character, though significant

21. Women & Teachers on Film
Traditionally - lack of positive female characters (role
models?)
More recently – characters who subvert our
expectations
• Women who “adopt” mens behaviour (Fisher, Harris, &
Jarvis, 2008:10)
Happy-Go-Lucky
• Subverts the subversion
• Positive, but not laddish

22. Women & Teachers on Film
Fisher, Harris, & Jarvis – Women heroines
• Traditional skills employed in a public context
• Women taking on traditional male roles – macho characteristics
In film - teaching as macho
• Dangerous minds
Teaching as traditional feminine skills applied to
public setting
• Happy-go-Lucky

23. Poppy as stereotypical
Single, female teacher
Primary School teacher
• Young children
Extremely happy
The absence of tension between home & work

24. Depiction of Teaching
Teaching as a profession
Teaching as a vocation
Teaching as rewarding
Teaching as challenging
Teaching as a technique

25. Variety of Teaching
Poppy
• Enthusiastic. Passionate
Flamenco Teacher
• Experiential, Emotional, personal life gets in the way
Zoe
• Committed, more subdued than Poppy
Scott
• Confident, inflexible

26. Driving Lessons about Life
Scott is secure in his knowledge of teaching
• „Let me tell you something about teaching‟
Teacher becomes the pupil
Learning beyond the classroom
Only as good as your teacher
Scott has passion, and strength
• Disciplinarian
• Fragile strength

27. Teaching Styles
Poppy Scott
Child centred Focused
Praises children Repetition
Interactive Pay attention
Mnemonics work – believe
Authoritative me

28. Leigh on teaching
“I believe that education, if it's going to be any
good, must vary in its form and content and
structure and details according to the particular
passions of the people that teach.”
“I find Scott's prescriptive, detached, reactionary
approach to teaching abhorrent”
• Interview with Kermode

29. Bibliography
 Fisher, R; Harris, A; Jarvis, C (2008) Education in Popular
Culture: Telling Tales on Teachers and Learners, London:
Routledge
 Kermode, J (2006-2011) „Mike Leigh talks Happy-Go-
Lucky‟, Eye for Film, [Online] Available at
http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/feature.php?id=511 [Accessed
18th March 2011]
 Name, J (2009) „Study guide for the film Happy-Go-Lucky‟
[Online] Available at:
www.agkino.de%2Fbritfilms%2F3%2Fstudy%2FStudyGuide-
HappyGoLucky.pdf [Accessed 17th March 2011]
 Nochimson, M. P (2009) „Part II: Of Now, Passion, and the
„We‟‟, Film-Philosophy, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 112-123
 Trier, J.D. (2001) „The Cinematic Representation of the
Personal and Professional Lives of Teachers‟, Teacher
Education Quarterly, Summer, pp. 127-142