Mr. Turner

The outstanding merit of this film is its realism. One may question what the point is of exposing and anatomizing the worst sides of icons, they would most certainly have strongly minded it themselves, especially Mr. Turner here, who isn't spared for a moment, allowed freely to grunt and growl his distasteful ways all through the entire film, almost as if the point was to make him out as grotesque as possible; but the success and great interest of the film is its way of catching that age and times - it is perfectly convincing all the way. It is also true to Turner as a painter personality, showing his later life very appropriately as paintings like taken directly from his humdrum squalidness of a private life of a rather repulsive and pathetic nature, no matter how rich and successful he was. This character of a series of paintings of a painter's life makes a conventional story unnecessary - the realism and picturesqueness of this fascinating Dickensian world made so true and convincing compensates the lack of further deserts. The highlight is the great exhibition scene in the middle of the film with all the artists and critics together minutely studying each other's works with comments and gossip - admirably like taken directly out of that reality. The quality of Mr. Turner's actual paintings are quite enough to further make this art film completely satisfactory as a good enough accomplishment of its ambitions.

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.

Mike Leigh is perhaps best-known for his serio-comic social-realist dramas about contemporary British life, films like "Abigail's Party" and "Life Is Sweet", but he also seems to be developing a sideline in biographies of nineteenth-century cultural figures. First there was "Topsy-Turvy" about Gilbert and Sullivan, and now we have "Mr. Turner" about the life and career of the artist J. M. W. Turner. Or rather about the latter part of his life and career; when we first meet him he is already middle-aged.

Leigh has described Turner as "a great artist: a radical, revolutionary painter," and this is undoubtedly true; Turner's work, especially his later work, seems to prefigure Impressionism, perhaps at times even abstract Modernism. We must not, however, allow our appreciation of the progressive side of Turner's work to degenerate into that lazy cliché about the great artist starving in a garret, scorned or neglected by his contemporaries but later discovered by a grateful posterity. (Very few great artists, except perhaps Van Gogh, have ever conformed to this stereotype). He was greatly admired by his contemporaries, was praised in the highest terms by many critics, especially Ruskin, became a full Royal Academician while still in his twenties, never lacked for patrons and died a wealthy man. By contrast his great contemporary and rival, John Constable, whose art seems much less radical to our eyes, had a much harder struggle to establish himself.

Leigh's purpose in making the film was to "examine the tension between this very mortal, flawed individual, and the epic work, the spiritual way he had of distilling the world." This tension is something very obvious in the film. Turner, especially in later life, was noted for his eccentricity. Unlike many working-class Georgians and Victorians who rose in the world, he never attempted to hide his humble origins. He was untidy, had no social graces and could be rude and tactless. He never married but had a number of mistresses. He was estranged from the first of these, Sarah Danby, and refused to acknowledge his two illegitimate daughters by her. (Sarah appears in the film as do two other mistresses, Hannah Danby Sarah's niece and Turner's housekeeper and Sophia Booth, a seaside landlady).

And yet this uncouth, boorish-seeming man was an artist not only of genius but also of a deep spirituality. His obsession with accurately recording light and atmospheric conditions- he once had himself strapped to the mast of a ship so that he could paint a snowstorm- was born not only of a concern with fidelity to nature but also of a belief that light was a visible manifestation of the Divine. (His last words are said to have been "The sun is God").

How, then, could any actor hope to play so contradictory an individual? The answer to this question comes from Timothy Spall, one of Leigh's favourite actors. Spall is someone I have normally thought of as a "character actor", but here he gets the chance to prove himself as a leading man and makes the most of it. His Turner is a grumpy old man, and in his dealings with women something of a dirty old man as well, forever grunting and spitting and forever speaking in a sort of Cockney whine, and yet we are never allowed to forget that underneath his unpromising exterior he is a sublime artist. This is probably the finest performance I have seen Spall give; it won him "Best Actor" at the Cannes Film Festival and I hope that the Academy will bear him in mind when it comes to next year's Oscars. There is insufficient space to single out all the deserving supporting performances, although I should mention Martin Savage as Turner's friend and fellow-painter Benjamin Haydon, forever trying to borrow money off him, Paul Jesson as Turner's father, to whom he was very close, and Joshua McGuire in a comic turn as an effeminate, lisping Ruskin, very different to the way Greg Wise portrayed him in the recent "Effie Gray".

The other outstanding feature of the film is its visual beauty. Leigh and his cinematographer Dick Pope were clearly aiming to make it one of those films where every shot looks like a painting in its own right, and certainly succeed in this ambition. Some cinematic biographies of great artists, such as "Girl with a Pearl Earring" about Vermeer, do succeed in capturing the distinctive "look" of their subject, but I think that Leigh and Pope were not actually aiming to make every shot look like a Turner; their palette of colours, for example, is rather too muted for that. Possibly they felt that the peculiar luminosity of Turner's work would be too difficult to reproduce on film. There are, however, some memorable shots, such as the opening scene by the river in Holland, complete with windmill, and the one where Turner watches "the fighting Temeraire" being towed up the Thames, thereby getting the inspiration for one of his best-known works.

I am not sure if "Mr Turner" quite justifies the label "masterpiece" which some have tried to pin on it; it can at times be too slow-moving for that. Spall's wonderful acting, however, and Pope's striking cinematography make it a film that stands out from the crowd. 8/10

I hated it... I sighed and tutted and moved around in my seat... and then about a third of the way through it won me over. In that respect (and in many others respect) it's actually a lot like a Turner.

The initial scenes of the movie, which are very irritating to sit through, set the rest up well, lots of loud stomping on wooden floorboards, dry interiors in Turneresque palettes Timothy Spall making more grunting noises than any actor should be able to and still be taken seriously... stomp stomp stomp bang bang bang, hoarse shouting instead of dialogue, character introductions so perfunctory and stark they're almost parodic of the cinematic vernacular. The movie just screams with the kind of self-absorbed worthiness and obsession with human frailty that gives 'art films' a bad name... The wife shows up and harangues Turner at a volume that would transcend satire... there's an extended sequence during which a contemporaneous artist's career is commented on, vociferously and cruelly, by a group of critics/artists/patrons as he stomps off over the fields, this scene plays nothing like a conversation, but rather as if the script writer had typed out a series of quotes from a biography...Turner molests his housekeeper in the gruntiest, unsexiest way possible but it's SO clumsy and awkward the scene burns itself out and it just looks totally lifeless...actors expending effort poorly...

But the movie carries on like this with such gusto and wholeheartedness that it eventually became quite difficult (for me, at any rate) to remain cynical and detached. I did find myself immersed in the life of the man.

Timothy Spall's performance is completely over the top, and actually rather unpleasant to experience. Grunt, bash, bang, smash, grunt, growl, stomp, bash, grunt... it's almost a cartoon. You certainly can't come away from this movie liking the man you've just watched. He's an extremely annoying man. But as the movie progresses new flavours enter the character and it becomes clear that this movie isn't really a story at all, it really is primarily a portrait (rather as Turner's landscapes often seem more like portraits... so moody and full of consequence and meaning). Should I be disappointed at that? Perhaps I should, but I wasn't. Judging the movie on how it achieves it's intentions I should probably give it a 10... (Only I think it went on too long).

The scene that made me realise that the film-maker was fully aware of how I felt about this man I was watching came near the end when Turner's popularity is waning and he attends the Academy exhibition to be confronted with the Pre-Raphaelites. He starts sniggering. Nowhere in the movie is any attempt to explain his art or his theory of his art or the theory of any of the art contemporaneous with his and yet the scene makes perfect sense.

Very nicely done.

It is like his art. I don't like Turner, but I can't really *dismiss* Turner as I might someone more widely "respected" like Mondrian or Lichtenstien... or...(eyeroll)...Rothko.

There's a scene with an elephant. Mike Leigh spends some time on getting this scene right. I think it might mean something... Such a long time it's been since a movie made me actually *ponder* on whether or not I liked it... That's got to be worth something.

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.