Mr. Turner - Meister des Lichts

"The Sun is God." JMW Turner (Timothy Spall)

These are the last words of the great 19th century British Romantic painter, J.M.W. Turner. Writer/director Mike Leigh has brilliantly captured that sentiment, ironic or not, in each moment of Mr. Turner's short 150 minutes. Sun and light inform each frame to reveal Turner's fascination with the big landscapes and stormy seas infused with the infinite variations of that light. Yet even in the parlors of aristocrats or his seaside retreat, Leigh reminds us of what Turner with the help of light sees that we don't.

Leigh concentrates on Turner's last years, approximately from the late 1820's to 1851, a time when he jockeyed with the best artists of his day for the public's notice and when the Industrial Revolution was changing everything. Most artists, even Turner, were consumed with their own artistry, fought among themselves like children, and recognized Turner for his genius. As played by Timothy Spall, he's phlegmatic, surly, and almost piggish, at least in the way he makes love and snorts every other breath.

That snorting, like the light, expresses Turner's affinity for nature, which he then romanticizes in his paintings. While I never get enough insight into the inspiration of genius in these artist-biopics, Leigh peppers the narrative enough with Turner's quiet, reflective viewing of nature to satisfy my curiosity.

The film shows also Turner's appreciation of humanity as well, from charming prostitute to sickly servant to wealthy lord and fishmongers. At times Leigh lets Turner be mostly observer, throwing him among the distractions of city life and effectively losing him there. When Turner emerges, Leigh gives us the sense that nothing is lost on this genius; humanity will out in his painting.

When a disgruntled artist asks, "What is wrong with being a portrait painter," the haughty response is "What does it do to elevate the art?" Mike Leigh has elevated the art of film into the premiere spot among the arts—truly the most influential art form in the history of civilization. Mr. Turner is art and artist in all their lovely mess.

Immediately I noticed this film advertised as being directed by Mike Leigh, I checked the cast list of "Mr Turner" (Mr T) and noticed some familiar names he cast from the 1999 film "Topsy Turvey" (TT) - a biopic about Gilbert & Sullivan and specifically about how "The Mikado" was created by the famous lyricist and composer.So in "Mr Turner" we had Timothy Spall in the title role while in TT he played Richard Temple.The physical makeup appearance of Dorothy Atkinson as Hannah Danby was very different after 15 years having played Jessie Bond in TT.Martin Savage who played George Grossmith in TT played Benjamin Robert Haydon in Mr T.Finally Lesley Manville - Lucy Gilbert in TT surprisingly played a scientist Mary Somerville in Mr T.This appears to be a coterie of some of Mike Leigh's favourite actors.Other directors like Mel Brooks similarly cast favourite actors in their films.

I learnt that Timothy Spall took two years in developing his characterisation of Joseph Mallord William Turner and that a real artist was engaged in giving him lessons in Turner's art technique.Being an amateur artist myself I would have liked to see more shots of him painting though rather than grunting.There is always a dichotomy between the arts when a biopic is produced in how much screen time you give to the central character's discipline and how much to acting out their life.In this case the producer has to cater for cinema goers who do not know about Turner and his art.Other Victorian notables who appeared in "Mr Turner" were Queen Victoria & Prince Albert, The art critic John Ruskin & John Constable (James Fleet).I also noticed a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti who often used Elizabeth Siddall as his model, since the pre-Raphaelite movement was beginning towards the end of Turner's life.References to Railways, The Great Exhibition of 1851 added a topical scientific & dramatic flavour.Most of Turner's most popular paintings were on display, most notably "The Fighting Temeraire", "Steam Fire & Air" and "Slave Ship Throwing Slaves (in a storm into the waves)".

I attended with my wife in one of the first viewings of "Mr Turner" when it went on general release on 1/11/14.I enjoyed TT a little more since this film of Mike Leigh had the additional joy of hearing G&S and I therefore gave Mr T 7/10 and TT 8/10.

Four years ago, Mike Leigh released one of the finest films of his oeuvre. I saw Another Year at the London Film Festival gala premiere and I still consider it the only perfect film of this decade thus far. As a result, expectations for his long awaited followup Mr. Turner were very high. Especially as it's ostensibly his most ambitious, even moreso than Topsy-Turvy, also a period drama, that ultimately won 2 Oscars, the only Oscars any of his films ever won. Nevertheless, he's frequently a gift basket receiver at the ceremonies, garnering obligatory screenplay nominations and the odd directing nom, the last of which being for Vera Drake 10 years ago. His organic storytelling, balance of abstract concepts, ability to orchestrate extraordinary performances and his sardonic sense of humour resonate with critics and audiences alike. However, he's not always a crowd pleaser, and Mr. Turner in particular has divided audiences, though not enough to hinder its current awards progress. It's clear to see why. This biopic of the visionary 19th century artist J.M.W. Turner is dense and cryptic. In Leigh's impeccable attention to detail, not just in the production and costume designs, the language is authentic to the convoluted dialect of the upper class of the period and thus it's hard to follow the sparse plot, even for fans. It's unusual for Leigh to adapt a true story, he often starts from scratch, but true to his form his script here defies traditional structure. It's a liberating free form style, sampling scattered moments of Turner's life, not building to anything specific but just exploring what shaped his idiosyncratic perspective. As a result, the film has grit hard to find elsewhere, and although it's difficult to decipher, it's enchanting for some. Headlining the film is Timothy Spall's colossal performance. He's always been a highlight of Leigh's films when he's been involved, especially his knock out performances in Secrets & Lies and All Or Nothing. This is the role he was born to play. Tossing narrative aside, the film's primary concern is the character study of Turner, a brilliant but flawed man, and each sequence adds layers upon layers of dimensions to him as they swirl in anguish. Spall wears those emotions on his sleeve with a perpetual sneer, grumbly grunts and a piercing stare. The moments where he breaks down have the weight of an earthquake. He's at once a force of nature and has a tender vulnerability. But as illustrated by the exquisite opening shot, he is above all a man of his art and watching Turner paint with a chaotic elegance is fascinating, especially as the results develop over the film. The ensemble around Spall gives ample support, including the fleeting appearances from familiar faces such as the seething Ruth Sheen as the bitter mother of his estranged children and the delightful Lesley Manville as a sprightly scientist who conducts an art orientated experiment. The standouts however are the warm glow of Marion Bailey, Turner's landlady of his second home and mistress, and the anxious agony of Dorothy Atkinson, Turner's housekeeper who he frequently engages in sex but who suffers from a disfiguring skin disease. Bailey has her great moments, especially when she's overwhelmingly flattered, but Atkinson in particular has such heartbreaking conviction that she bursts from the background of her scenes. What makes the film Leigh's most ambitious project is the cinematography. He's always had a great eye for blocking and making the kitchen sink cinematic, but Dick Pope's work here broke the mould. It's obvious to call it Turner-esque, but that's the intention. It's almost like a David Lean precision of waiting for a cloud to move in the right place. It was indeed whenever Leigh and Pope encountered landscapes like this on other films that inspired them to pursue this film. Some shots cover more ground than he covered in the entirety of his early films. Not only are the outside shots beautifully composed, but also the inside, using wide angles to keep the grand scale. A collaborator since Happy-Go-Lucky, composer Gary Yershon's forlorn oboe contributes to the rich ominous tone. It's interesting that for a film about art and colour that it's saturated with browns, blacks and greys. The inherently meandering plot does lead it to becoming bloated, but it attempt to be an insight the many different facets of Turner's life and how that feeds into his work, something applicable to all the great artists. It also considers themes of legacy, one perhaps self-aware in hindsight, but important in context. It's a complex film, and it needs another viewing until I'm fully ready to embrace it. As like life, it ends unresolved and I'm still not sure what to make of it. I must be one of the few people who didn't feel it was too long, but only because I was hungry for something more conclusive. Leigh doesn't make it easy for us, but gives us everything to work with. For what I can digest so far, it's a gargantuan achievement. Due to that inaccessibility and the length of the film, awards attention outside of critic's awards is unlikely. Perhaps it could get a couple of BAFTA nominations, Leigh is not the sweeper people think he is there but it will no doubt get noms for Spall and Best British Film. If there were any justice, it would get Cinematography, Production Design and Costume Design across the board as for even people who didn't like the film can't deny their prowess. Leigh may miss out on that Original Screenplay nomination as the film is looser than his usual output, but particularly because the dialogue needs a double take. It is going to be difficult to imagine where Leigh will go from here but Mr. Turner duly satisfies a thirst for now. 9/10

We regularly attend Roger Ebert's Film Festival and before Mr Ebert's death, Timothy Spall was one of the event's special guests. He was there for a showing of Hamlet, I think, and I remember that he was charming and more fun to listen to than I expected. I hadn't really thought of him as a particularly impressive actor but, once again, Roger was right to single him out.

His talents are in full display here enriched by one of the most meticulous productions I've ever seen. The supporting cast is as flawless as any lead could ever ask for, as if everyone could see how unusually good the movie was to become. I particularly enjoyed every move and word that came out of his housekeeper, Hannah, unforgettably played by Dorothy Atkinson.

The subject of the movie, the last part of the life of the English artist J M W Turner, is not the stuff of great drama. The man was an eccentric in his later years, and not a particularly pleasant man. But what sustains the movie is the brilliant insight into 19th century English life. Every one of those characters in English novels who never really quite felt true to life is made undeniably real here. And the thing is, it's being done by Englishmen who are not shying away from full disclosure.

The thing is I usually wait for the DVD with English movies so that I can use the captions, but our local art theater was so beckoning and as it turns out, I needn't have worried. Often the dialog was impossible to make out, but somehow it didn't matter at all. It's not that kind of movie. It's long, but not slow, and I at least enjoyed every minute of it. The opportunity to be enthralled by such talented people is no everyday thing.

We always knew that "Mr Turner" would not be a conventional costume picture any more than it would be a conventional biopic. It is, after all, a Mike Leigh film and Mr Leigh doesn't do 'conventional'. Of course, he normally concerns himself with the vagaries of contemporary middle-class culture, poking fun at, and then finding the bleeding heart of, the little people who inhabit his very personal world. (Leigh is, perhaps, the only writer/director who can crack us up and break our hearts simultaneously).

"Mr Turner" isn't the first time he has looked to the past nor to real historical figures for his material. With "Topsy-Turvy" he created the world of Gilbert and Sullivan and 'The Mikado'. As musical biopics go it is, perhaps, unique. Now with "Mr Turner" he takes us deep into the life of William Turner, arguably the first great 'modern' painter and almost certainly the greatest of all English painters, and in doing so has created the least stuffy costume picture I have ever seen. Of the several masterpieces Leigh has given us "Mr Turner" may be the finest.

It begins when Turner was already in middle-age and established as England's premier painter and it follows him until his death. It reveals him to be a man of many contradictions, sharing his later life mainly with two women, (he had long since disregarded his shrewish wife and grown-up daughters whose very existence he always denied). For sexual favours he turned to his housekeeper Hannah Danby while preferring the company of the widow Mrs Booth with whom he lodged part of the year in Margate, (Danby never knew of Booth's existence until just before Turner's death). He could be both cruel and kind in equal measure, both to his contemporaries and to those he professed to care about and he certainly had a temper.

We don't learn a great deal about his technique as a painter though we do see him, briefly, at work, including a wonderful scene, one of several great set-pieces, where he adds a daub of paint to one of his canvases at the Royal Academy's Exhibition. It's not really that kind of film. Leigh is more interested in observing the man and getting inside his skull and in this he is greatly helped by Timothy Spall's magnificent performance as Turner, capturing the man mostly in a series of grunts. Spall's Turner doesn't go for deep, philosophical conversations on the nature of art. He seems happiest making small-talk with Mrs Booth and when, in another of the film's great set-pieces, the conversation veers into the critical appraisal of a fellow artist he is quick to debunk the pretentious John Ruskin who obviously likes the sound of his own lisping voice.

Spall, of course, is just the lynch-pin of a terrific ensemble. No-one puts a foot wrong, (including Leigh regulars Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville), but one must really single out Dorothy Atkinson as the unfortunate and much maligned Danby and Marion Bailey as Mrs Booth. Both women are superb, giving us characters that are much more than mere historical sketches. There is something deeply moving in their silent acceptance of Turner's foibles, (and while Leigh's dialogue is splendidly 'of the period', it's often in the silences that the film is most effective). Credit, too, to Dick Pope's superb cinematography which captures perfectly the paintings without seeming in any way slavish. Indeed, of all films made about artists this may be the finest. I don't doubt for a moment that it's a masterpiece.