Mr. Turner (2014) ★★★★½ Quote:
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Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.
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I didn't know anything about JMW Turner when I saw this at the cinema five or so years ago and, as this isn't a biopic in the way that some will aim to tell the subject's entire life story, it doesn't tell you about his early life or rise to fame. What it does is – typically for a Mike Leigh film – to humanise the legend of one of Britain's greatest artists, someone who has so well regarded that he is buried in St Paul's Cathedral and, with The Fighting Temeraire, is on the new £20 note.
This is all about his relationships with his father, estranged daughters, housekeeper, Sophia Booth, and his contemporaries, particularly John Constable. More importantly, it looks at the relationship between Turner and his work, the remarkable lengths he would go to study his subjects (including going out to sea and being tied to the top of the mast during a storm).
This is a film in which Timothy Spall shows what an extraordinary talent he is, commanding the viewer's attention and is every ounce the artist, looking as if he is wrestling with some unseen force whilst working on his sketches and paintings. There is a great ensemble cast, so Spall is wonderfully supported by such actors as Paul Jesson, Dorothy Atkinson, Leslie Mandeville, and Marion Bailey.
Befitting a film about painting, Dick Pope's cinematography is beautiful in the exterior shots and quite intimate the scenes in Turner's house and there are many moments where you could pause the film and consider the image on screen to be a work of art. Gary Yershon's score is a great complement to the visuals, a beautifully balanced piece of music with delicate, understated moments and others which fill the room with sound, working perfectly with the sound effects and visuals to create an immersive AV experience.
It's a wonderful film and it is clear that Mike Leigh understands the creative process and creative people enough to make them in their work interesting to people who aren't aficionados of Romantic painters.