Timothy Spall (pictured) is mesmerising as he harrumphs, snorts and grunts his way through this meticulously detailed, slow burn art movie about British master painter of light, JMW Turner.
Looking at the last 25 years of the artist’s life, director Mike Leigh has created his own oil painting, painstakingly recreating on screen some of Turner’s iconic images, the places he travelled to and person himself.
At two-and-a-half hours the film feels as long as it is, as Leigh takes his time to create the image – this is a character sketch of minutia. It is no Merchant Ivory biopic of repressed emotion and exacting manners, but rather of real places with peeling wallpaper and imperfect people who made mistakes. Bawdy brothels get visited and then it’s off to a genteel dinner conversation about gooseberries. Art critics scowl, artists throw their paintbrushes around in a fit of pique, women call Turner (Spall) uncouth and through it all he never apologises to anyone.
Dick Pope’s cinematography uses the colour palette Turner worked in, evoking what he would have seen, especially while travelling around England. Anyone who has seen The Fighting Temeraire at the National Gallery in London will immediately recognise what you are about to see when Turner is floating down the Thames with friends.
The opening sequences starts off almost as if in a painting itself and there are other startlingly beautiful images, like the steam locomotive that inspired Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway. Familiarity with Turner’s work will greatly enhance the enjoyment of what will otherwise be a tedious biopic for non-art film lovers.
The film is as much an homage to the painter as his art – he was one of the first Romantic painters who painted what he felt rather than saw, so he was totally radical in his approach, inspiring many who followed, but he was also just a flawed mortal being.
Turner as he is painted in this film is a study in opposition – emotionally stunted with people and yet capable of evoking emotion through his art.
Spall meticulously layers the character with eccentricity, giving him ticks, bad behaviour, great philosophical insight and abrupt rudeness. And yes, snorts. Spall expresses more emotion with a well-timed, cantankerous “gggrrr” than most actors do in entire films.
He creates a contradictory genius of a painter who had an abundance of emotion he didn’t always know how to express. While he seemed to have a warm and loving relationship with his father, he treated the purported mother of his children and her cousin, his female housekeeper, abominably.
But, then, a great deal of the film also shows us an affectionate relationship he had with a woman in Chelsea.
The film is peppered with some interesting characters, if you know your art history and understand the significance of the Academy of Arts. It is also simply a finely tuned portrait, with no high point or huge dramatic arc or resolution which makes it a bore for anyone who is only into conventional three-act potboilers.
If you liked Pollock or Frida, you will like this.