MR. TURNER Leaves a Great Impression
Mr. Turner was released in the UK on 31st October and will be released for a limited theatrical run in the US on 19th December. Warning — this review may contain intentional (and unintentional) artistic puns.
“My business is to paint what I see, not what I know is there.” That rather perceptive quote emanated from the sometimes objectionable gob of J.M.W. Turner, and pretty much sums up the prolific artistic output of perhaps one of the greatest landscape painters the world has ever seen. Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) was something of a child prodigy, influenced by such revered 17th century painters as Claude Lorrain and Aelbert Cuyp. By the age of fifteen he was exhibiting his eye-catching works at London’s Royal Academy of Art, going on to have a reputation not only as a master of watercolours and oils, but also as a bit of a libertine. Born in bohemian Covent Garden — the place to go for drinking, gambling and a bit of ‘how’s yer father’ (which was the accepted scientific term for ‘fucking’ back in the day) — at a time before Victorian England started tutting and huffing at the mere glimpse of an exposed table leg, it’s no wonder he grew up a little ahead of his time, both artistically and privately.
“’Sup, bitches.”
A pioneer in his increasing preoccupation with light, form, and color, his idiosyncratic style accentuated his obsessions with the ferocity of nature, the vulnerability of humanity, and the power of truth and myth, paving the way for the impressionist movement that would come to prominence in the latter half of the 1800s (Claude Monet was a huge fan). Despite travelling extensively throughout Europe (including Italy, Germany, France, and The Netherlands), J.M.W. Turner was renowned as a resolutely British artist whose greatest works captured England’s landscape in a way unmatched before (and some say since). So it’s not really surprising he would be ideal subject matter for that bastion of the British Film Industry, Mike Leigh. For Mr. Turner is not just an affectionate tribute to a giant of art, but also a loving ode to the beautifully diverse landscape of good old Blighty.
Taking another crack at history following the critically lauded Gilbert and Sullivan-fest Topsy Turvy, Mr. Turner ostensibly deals with the last 25 years in the life of one of the most extraordinary artists who ever lived. Through a series of handsomely mounted vignettes carefully slotted together like a psychological jigsaw to form a coherent whole, we get a sense of a man who on the surface comes across as a phlegm-gurgling, curmudgeonly prick, celebrated and reviled by the establishment in equal measure.
Pfft! Rubbish.
But as Mr. Turner’s two and a half hours gently rolls by (remarkably un-slog like), Leigh wisely avoids hagiography and gradually humanizes Turner as more than a part-time misanthrope with little in the way of airs and graces (although he was totally that as well). Brilliantly embodied by a hunched, twinkly-eyed Timothy Spall (winning the Best Actor gong at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for his troubles), the film reveals the legendary landscapist’s hidden complexities through the sometimes fractious, sometimes warm relationships with the various people (particularly women) in his life.
On the one hand, his bastardry is best exhibited in his willful neglect of ex-mistress Sarah Danby (Ruth Sheen, elevating nagging guilt trips to an art form) and his two daughters, as well as in the cold, almost exploitative treatment of his inexplicably besotted housekeeper Hannah Danby (poignantly played by Mike Leigh regular Dorothy Atkinson). The revelation that Turner’s mother was declared insane and died in Bedlam early in his life attempts to explain his perhaps unorthodox relationships with women. But cries of “What an arsehole!” are invariably silenced thanks to the close bond he has with his adored father William (Paul Jesson, an agreeable foil for the cantankerous Spall), his admiration for science writer and polymath Mary Somerville (a spiky Lesley Manville), and, best of all, Turner’s touching relationship with his mistress Sarah Booth (a warm-hearted and funny turn from Marion Bailey), with whom he would spend his final years.
“Now Mr. Turner, if you so much as touch me with that thing I’ll have your balls on a spit.”
A droll sense of humor leavens the potentially stuffy proceedings as Mr. Turner attempts to prick the pomposity of the establishment and normalize some of that era’s most celebrated artists. We get an intriguing insight into the methods employed to produce their masterpieces (spitting, anyone?), and Leigh portrays the Royal Academy as a boisterous boys’ club populated by talented fops squabbling over where their paintings should be hung — the brief scene of artistic one-upmanship between Turner and acclaimed arch rival John Constable is hilarious. And perhaps Leigh’s own attitude to critics comes to the fore in the smarmy portrayal of renowned art critic and talented painter in his own right John Ruskin (Joshua McGuire — doling out the tedious pontifications with great relish). Best known for allegedly running off in terror at the sight of his wife’s pudenda (see Dakota Fanning in new film Effie Gray. Or perhaps not. Might be a bit weird), he was actually one of Turner’s most vocal champions, with some remarking that he had “exceptional powers of perception and expression,” even if he was “frequently self-contradictory, hectoringly moralistic, and insufficiently informed.”
Like all Mike Leigh’s films, Mr. Turner was created thanks to close collaboration between cast and crew. Through a combination of meticulous research, months of intense rehearsals, discussion, and improvisation, the initially non-existent script was formed and honed to miraculously become a lucid narrative — although the slightly more archaic English dialects flowing out of the mouths of the talented cast may initially come across as a little impenetrable to some (our overseas brethren may require subtitles).
“Fine sirs. After careful consideration, I do proclaim to you that your works are, in the words of the great Pliny the Elder, a bit shit.”
Mr. Turner could be overly criticized for having little in the way of a discernible plot and displaying those familiar Leigh-isms of being overlong and leisurely of pace. But the venerated writer/director cleverly marks the passage of time not only by the subtle changes in his cast’s appearance, but also in Turner’s continuing development as an artist and his fascination with (as opposed to fear of) emerging technology — from the industrial revolution and the age of steam to the dawn of photography — which seemed to chime with his forward-thinking approach to art and life in general. In addition, transferring those universal themes Mr. Leigh usually deals with like relationships, family, life, and death from his overlong, dull kitchen-sink dramas to Victorian England means the histrionics of the ridiculous caricatures he typically writes seem far less jarring within a historical context than in a dingy little flat in present day London (as you can tell, for the most part I’m not a Mike Leigh fan).
And if you’re going to make a film about one of the greatest artists of all time, you better make it look good. Fortunately, this is Mike Leigh’s most cinematic film to date. The composition of almost every scene recalls Turner’s various masterpieces, and Dick Pope’s luminous, Oscar-baiting cinematography pays homage to Turner’s singular style — from the sunrise and sunset enhanced grandeur of the English landscape to the bustling streets of Victorian London, all are sumptuously lit, precisely framed, and accompanied by Gary Yershon’s fittingly mournful score droning on in the background.
But it’s still not a patch on this.
Despite becoming increasingly eccentric in later years, prone to bouts of depression following the death of his beloved father, and being at odds with both Victorian England’s increasingly puritanical views and critics who mistook his progressively impressionistic style as signs that his eyesight was failing (to which he amusingly retorted “indistinctness is my forte”), J.M.W. Turner left a considerable artistic legacy including around 19,000 works of art and a £140,000 donation for the “decaying arts.” Bestowing his finished paintings to the National Gallery, insisting they be displayed in a special gallery to be enjoyed by the British public free of charge, the fact this didn’t happen quite how he wished is testament to the vagaries of politics and the whims of idiots. Still, at least he got a prestigious art prize named after him. And now, thanks to Mike Leigh and his talented troupe of thespians, he has an insightful, non-judgemental character study that seeks to peel back the layers of enigma wrapped around his rotund form.
Whether Mr. Turner is an accurate portrait of the man is up for conjecture. Spall’s stellar turn is, regardless of the amount of research that has gone into his character-building, an interpretation, albeit a fascinating one that ensures he is human enough for an audience to empathize with, and eccentric enough to be interesting. After all, research can only get you so far, and Mike Leigh has stated Mr. Turner is a film, not a documentary. Yet, in telling a version of the truth through the prism of what we know, it succeeds, as Mrs. Booth herself says at one point, in painting a picture of “a man of great spirit and fine feeling.” He could draw quite well too.
Thanks Mike Leigh. All is forgiven.
