Mr Turner | Ajai's Movie Reviews

The hugely influential British painter William Turner is the subject of this film. In it his last 20 or so years are dramatized. Turner was an esteemed artist during his day and this fact is highly evident in the film where several characters acknowledge his greatness and while others seek to mock him and spew derisive comments on the nature of his work; nevertheless he is highly renowned for his work. But, the subject matter of the film is not the creative process nor is it about the aesthetic value of the paintings; it’s not even necessarily about the real Mr Turner and his influence on modern painting.

Instead, Leigh frames this picture, often with breath-taking and gorgeous stills that are reminiscent of the artist’s paintings themselves, as an exploration into his character and how his days were spent. The two and a half hour runtime can test the patience of any modern film viewer, but that is natural. The film is a slow-burn, but we wait for it to unfold like a sunset or sunrise because punctuated between the laconic moments are moments of reveal, where the true emotions of the generally reclusive and boorish Turner come to the fray and we are caught in it.

In order for us to sympathise with an obnoxious portrayal of Turner – grumpy, boorish, dismissive, and often uncaring – an actor who is able to subtly show the underlying heart of the character is required, and here that man is Timothy Spall – most modern viewers would recognise him as the treacherous coward Peter Pettigrew of the Harry Potter series. In this film, where he won the Cannes Award for Best Actor – Spall portrays the character of Turner with deft skill and sympathy; sympathy that could have easily been non-existent if all we ever felt was the nasty attributes of the person. No, but Spall reveals the character’s powerful spirit – the spirit of an artist.

It is a character study of the artist without the subject matter being not his creations, but the contrast between the sublime beauty of his creations against the ruggedness and apathy of the creator. The cold and uncaring exterior that an artist has to give so as to shrug away the harsh criticisms and circumstances that he often endures so that he can look beyond himself and the world to capture a moment so entwined in the musings of his spirit, his spontaneous outpouring of emotion, a work of art that reveals hidden within the shrouds of abstraction of nature, exquisite details, never before conceived in such powerful subtlety.

This is the Turner that is in the film, though we never see the moment of creation with vigour, we most definitely feel it from the performance of the artist in varying degrees. This might be a complaint that could be levelled against the film; that the genius of the artist is not shown in grand sequences of creation or powerful montages with overhead narration. Instead, the artist in the film experiences full outpouring emotions often when we least expect it, but certainly, it is all-consuming. We witness powerful emotions stirring into his soul. Spall shows this with the expression in his eyes most of all, and it is that perhaps is why he was so powerful. We may not be able to see past his exterior, but the expressions on his face and his eyes lent us an image into the heart underneath.

The plot is basically left out as having the least priority as events just often happen, in a linear fashion, yes, but without real consequence or as a consequence of any previous seen, except for the death of the senior Mr Turner. The whole film just strolls along in a leisurely pace to the life of Turner as he goes searching for places to rest his soul and paint beautiful landscapes, especially the sea and ships, which are the recurring theme of his paintings. Turner being such a boorish and temperamental character requires real emotional subtlety to be made sympathetic, and here you find me again praising the performance of Spall, where he unveils the true emotions of Turner in quiet moments of reflections that are so revealing in its depth that it consumes the screen in moments of silence or crescendo.

There are few characters who play a major role in the film, all of whom are equally well played by the talented cast. These characters occupy the lives of Turner, the great artist, and each of them serves a purpose for the artist as intellectual company, rivals, nuisances, lovers and mistresses, none of whom receive the depth of affection that the real Turner has except for the landlady mistress of his. They occupy moments and scenes of his life where he is in character and in them, it is revealed how he is either venerated or reviled he is to any one of them, while he himself remains basically the same. His is the character least willing to participate in the scene, while the other characters interact with him. Only in moments of spontaneous emotion do we feel the character having life, and it is often an outpouring of emotion or a sudden reveal, where we appreciate his general disposition as a façade to hide the turmoil raging beneath it.

Indeed the film is all about whether there are stereotypical artistic qualities, whether they need to be tortured or tormented souls or narcissistic and vain. All his contemporaries in the film reveal insecurities and the critics reveal their pedantic nature. It is in the midst we see Turner, often being an absolute contrast to any of them, being dismissive, unsympathetic, rude, and full of contempt. Leigh seeks to show us with “Mr.Turner” that a genius artist such as William was, he was nevertheless unable to show affection to people or have them enter his life. The artist in this film lives not to produce art but to seek solitude from those happenings of life and customs and rituals that he considers to be unworthy of any credence whatsoever.

It is because of this that the character of Turner is considered as eccentric, and after a lifetime of holding such a grudge against people and the superficiality of it all, he turns his art more abstractive, and Spall shows him carrying the weight of his haughty and contemptible character on his face, grunting and huffing through most of the film, unwelcoming to most, and preferring to be in his own company. An artist such as this, even with a great performance as great as Spalls, does make the viewer less sympathetic of him because of how in contrast to others he is, and how most of his life is a story about neglect towards him and him unto others. A genius he might be, but a character such as he requires needs real love or admiration to be made tolerable. The characters in this film do show him that, especially his housemaid and mistress, even though the former is not a recipient of his affection, she still loves him.

So, this film tells a story framed in gorgeous landscapes shots, long takes and still takes, natural sequences and sparing but precise use of music of the final years of an artist whose creations, like his life, was only judged for its exterior features for the most part. Others perceived his success and fame and either praised it or derided it. His character was cheerful and boorish to the ones where he found tolerable but arrogant and uncaring to those he didn’t. But again I hark back to the outpouring of emotions.

Turner was part of the Romantics, a group of artists and philosophers and musicians, who abandoned the apathy and coldness of industrial and city life and preferred to devote themselves to finding beauty and inspiration in a pure pristine sense.  They indulged in a great excess of emotion and marvel in the grand mystery and vast beauty of nature. As a landscape painter, Turner explored all of its potent possibilities, and when he found that the conventions of art could not reproduce the powerful emotions and inspiration of his genius, he delved into more abstract art – subtle but to the perceptive eye, containing a whole array of individual pieces of sublime beauty. And although I cannot say the film is as sublime as his paintings, it is a still powerful showcase for the subtle art of emotional contrasts in a character.