By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.6
Director: Mike Leigh
Starring: Dorothy Atkinson | Karl Johnson | Marion Bailey | Paul Jesson | Timothy Spall
Country: france, germany, united_kingdom
Year: 2014
Running time: 150
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2473794/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Jason says: “This is Mike Leigh’s third historical biography, which is somewhat surprising considering what a loosely outlined style he is famous for using – improvisation and recreation do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. And yet, somehow, this winds up an excellent way to get to know Joseph Mallard William ‘Billy’ Turner, more so than any particular narrative might.
“Turner (Timothy Spall) was a painter, mostly of landscapes and seascapes, whose career roughly spans the first half of the nineteenth century. At the time the film begins, sometime in the 1820s, he is a solitary man, refusing to acknowledge his illegitimate children and grandchildren, mostly keeping the company of his father William (Paul Jesson) – a former barber who now serves as his son’s assistant – and their maid Hannah (Dorothy Atkinson). On a trip to the seashore, he stays in a boarding-house run by a couple by the name of Booth (Karl Johnson & Marion Bailey), to which he will return frequently.
“There are events to the movie, whether important turning points, recreations of events that have been set down for posterity, or everyday moments that demonstrate the nature of the times Turner lived in. Leigh credits and thanks many researchers in the end credits, so it is likely that few scenes are invented from whole cloth. They do not resolve into a traditional story arc, with explanations given for behavior or early actions paying off with later results, and for a while the various sequences are so disassociated that it’s a bit of a surprise to see Turner return the Booths’, or have other people become recurring presences in his life. The lessons to be drawn from this presentation of his life are perhaps small ones.
“But we watch Turner nonetheless, trying to suss out some meaning from Timothy Spall’s portrayal of the man. Spall gives the impression of an almost misplaced genius, that Billy Turner is working-class down to his very bones and is thus uncertain how to deal with the rarefied circles he finds himself in. He grunts and refuses to speak much of the time; when he does it’s as though he has difficulty elaborating on a concept with words, squeezing out simple phrases with great difficulty. There’s a guardedness to him and an ability to communicate with his peers that makes it seem more born out of class than him being a savant, especially since he is educated. And while that earthiness doesn’t disappear when he paints – he spits on his canvases and uses the materials he has available – it’s amazing how Spall can make Turner’s arms feel loose even while his back seems tense. That sort of contradictory physicality often shows up in his performance, and it more than makes up for the relatively little talking he does over the course of the film.
“Leigh surrounds Spall with a fine cast, none of whom are fancied up to look out of place. Paul Jesson brings a wincing cheer to Turner Senior; he’s stooped and in obvious pain, but gregarious, and if he doesn’t understand Billy, his devotion is clear. The same is clear for Dorothy Atkinson’s Hannah – painfully deferential, but still especially hurt whenever he fails to acknowledge his family, giving the audience room to speculate but never seeming a cipher. Marion Bailey makes Sophia Booth half star-struck and half widow-next-door, providing a solid grounding at the point when the movie would start to drag.
“Along the way, the movie is gorgeous, with Leigh and cinematographer Dick Pope often starting a segment with a shot that looks like a vibrant painting itself, and fills the scenes in between with painstaking historical detail. It is sort of amusing, in a way, to think about how carefully some of these settings were created, either on a stage or a graphics workstation or by redressing an old city street (or some combination of the three), populated with extras in period costume, and shot, with the end result being that Turner walks through grunting. It’s not overtly ostentatious, but it is enveloping, and Leigh makes sure that there is enough wit on display and ideas raised that the audience may feel the length but does not likely grow aggravated by it.
“In some ways, that makes it easy to see why Leigh perhaps sees a kindred spirit in Turner – both have created works using means that seem deceptively casual but which prize authenticity while often including impressive detail. This affinity – which seldom leads to Leigh aggrandizing his subject – certainly helps to make a film that can often seem deliberately unfocused quite interesting even to those who are not necessarily drawn to stories about artists. 4.25 cats”
Thom says: “Dear, super-talented Mike Leigh has long been one of my favorite TOP 10 LIVING DIRECTORS and this ultra-delicious period-piece biography is about the last 25 years of the great, if eccentric, English painter J.M.W. Turner, superbly played by Timothy Spall. The most fantastic element of this stunning view is the painterly quality that Leigh & his other-worldly cinematographer Dick Pope bring to the extraordinary task of making scene after scene take on the sense of a painting rather than a real location, until someone walks into the frame.
“There are so many unforgettable scenes that the film fairly bursts with insights. Who can be anything but astonished at the luscious performance of Dorothy Atkinson as the Mrs. Maggot-like housekeeper Hannah Danby, who Turner treats with utter indifference. She was robbed as she received no awards for this outstanding turn. There’s the scene where the haughty, clueless Queen Victoria with her drop-dead gorgeous Albert at her side idiotically criticizing one of Turner’s finest works. And the grand scene where the finest painters of the day gather at an extravagant gallery to show off their latest works where many of the artists are still working on their works. Turner throws a big blob of red onto one of his seascapes, essentially ruining the painting but magically turns it into a buoy. In yet another mind-boggling scene he ties himself to a mast of a sailing ship to be tossed around in a storm to get the right impressions for light & color for his latest masterpiece.
“While I considered myself a mild fan of Turner’s before I saw MR. TURNER, I left the viewing a sincere and huge fan. Finally, he appear to be as good as the French impressionists of the same period. I was reminded of a quote related to me by a friend from London, ‘Before Turner there was no fog in London.’
“Leigh’s three period films have all been about real people in TOPSY-TURVY, VERA DRAKE, & now this gem. Bravo to this most sincere director. 5 cats