4 resoundingly-complex-character-performances out of 4
I’d like to divulge that director and writer Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner is a divisive film. By no means are any of its scenes or characters poor or weakly-executed, but it is a nonetheless stunningly boring film that casually meanders from plot point to plot point with no true regard for any modern notion of story momentum. It is also one of the greatest films of this century, and is a stunning feast for the senses. In short, it is an actor’s film, indeed, even a critic’s film. This is the kind of movie that I will gush and fawn over, praising everyone from its director to its lead actors to its best boys.
Make no mistake however, Mr. Turner is stunningly boring. If it were not for everything it does so well, this film would have been a disaster. Thankfully, everything it does do well – direction, acting, score, and cinematography – makes the film seem like a painting come to life.
Mr. Turner stars Timothy Spall in the eponymous role, and with his performance we observe a man so devoted to his craft that we see no amount of his true, real-life self. Spall immerses himself into the Turner character, channelling the artist’s cadence, pace, hunch, and mannerisms to such an astonishing degree that one is pardoned for failing to recognize where the actor ends and the performance begins. More than any other aspect of the film’s production, it is Spall who is the sole reason to watch Mr. Turner.
Without Spall, the film is a sputtering mess, with no momentum, little intrigue, and almost no hook to speak of. Leigh, a director whose acclaim is only rivalled by his talent, takes a great risk in bringing Turner to life. Indeed, one wonders why Leigh, a man who has deigned both stage and screen with his work, chose to bring Turner to life through cinema. This story, indeed, this character, is so much better suited for theatre – where audiences need not be distracted by the unnecessary frivolities of film production.
The grand scope of Turner’s story suggests that Leigh’s decision stems from the larger-than-life nature cinema affords its subjects. Turner is a big man – in stature and import – and as we watch him live the last years of his life – painting, losing family, loving, and eventually succumbing to the rigors of illness – we understand that stage is no place for a performance like Spall’s. Theatre simply doesn’t have the ambition.
In short, Mr. Turner is about a man living his life. It’s about J.M.W. Turner. It’s about the connections we make with those around us; it’s about the things that drive us to other people.
Turner lives with his father – a man who fuels and supports his son’s artistic ambitions. Turners junior and senior also live with a housekeeper – Hannah Danby. Danby is a woman in love with the idea of Turner Jr. We know what draws her to him, but in reality, the man is more akin to hound than human – grunting and slobbering over everything. Turner gesticulates in grunts. Furthermore, Turner trumpets around the world like a penguin, hobbling about. There is nothing physically attractive about this man, and yet he eventually convinces a seaside innkeeper to fall in love with him. Indeed, he convinces all of Britain to love his art.
Turner is adored and adorable. Like a mischievous puppy, Spall convinces his audience to be equally enamoured and put off by the brutish Turner. I loved this film because it refused to give me the satisfaction of aching for the character, or for watching him succumb to comeuppance. When we see the public briefly renounce Turner for his avant-garde work, we’ve spent enough time with the bullmastiff that his sadness aches within our souls.
I did not like this movie, but I loved it. Praise to Leigh and praise to Spall. Praise to cinematographer Dick Pope for two stunning sequences on boats. In one, a storm threatens to eliminate Turner from this world; indeed, the pneumonia that grips Turner soon after almost kills him outright. In another scene, Spall sits in a rowboat, smoking cigars with fellow bruisers from the Royal Academy of Arts. They watch an old steamship captured in the warm glow of an effervescent sun.
The scenes are representative of the duality within Leigh’s film, and Turner’s oeuvre. The mundane, the bleak, and the dull are all captured by the graceful eye of an old master.