ARTS & CULTURE
Monday, January 5, 2015 13
Film reviews
» continued from page 6
fully understood; it’s layered, complex tempers are
legion. Call it an acquired taste with a kinky savour.
You can almost get a contact high from watching.
Team PTA, always and forever.
Mr. Turner (2014) 3/4
Abrasive and refreshingly unstructured, Mr. Turner
is a vivid grumble; a mighty work of critical imagination; and a loving, unsentimental portrait of a rare
creative soul. As fresh and lively as one of its subject’s oil seascapes, it’s a rich, ruthless, and profoundly compassionate study of art and love and life.
Rather than nostalgia, it feels like time traveling.
Mr. Turner explores the last quarter century of
JMW Turner (1775-1851), the great, eccentric British
“painter of light.” Profoundly affected by the death
of his father, loved by a housekeeper he takes for
granted, Turner forms a close relationship with a
seaside landlady with whom he eventually lives
incognito in Chelsea, where he dies. Throughout, he
travels, paints, visits brothels, stays with the country aristocracy, is an anarchic member of the Royal
Academy of Arts, has himself strapped to the mast of
a ship so that he can paint a snowstorm, and is both
celebrated and reviled.
Reminiscent of Charles Laughton, longtime Leigh
collaborator Timothy Spall (Sweeney Todd: The
Demon Barber of Fleet Street) delivers a titanic,
Oscar-caliber performance that’s symphonic in the
sweep of its eccentricities and telling in the spectrum of its passions, playing the determined bohemian like a bronchial, randy old toad with backache.
Porcine and self-involved, Spall’s Turner growls,
gurgles, and wheezes, but the performance could
not be more eloquent, revealing the painter in all
his talents and contradictions. Snarling, he struts
down London’s alleyways like a Dickensian villain,
chewing the scenery and spitting it back out with
contempt.
Through industrious application, writer-director
and keen observer Mike Leigh (Vera Drake, Another
Year) brings his hawk’s eye to a rendering of the
artist. Leigh makes full use of his canvas, and Mr.
Turner’s best moments – marinated in detail – are
ravishingly good. Creating the cinematic equivalent of Turner’s panoramic washes, Leigh and DP
Dick Pope have carefully incorporated actual Turner
paintings into the film’s immaculate visuals, making
the experience a lot like living inside a masterpiece.
Like Andrei Rublev and Amadeus before it,
Mr. Turner is a stunning encapsulation of a life
– strange, thoughtful, and exciting – effortlessly
hitting upon universal themes of creativity and
mortality. Less an explication of the man’s genius
than an immersion into its essence, Mr. Turner has
a mysterious quality that perfumes every scene. Any
expectations of reverential biography are quickly
dispelled by Leigh’s scintillating script and Spall’s
daring aptitude. Turner is a grunting vulgarian and
complex visionary, and Spall is as majestic as one of
Turner’s swirling sunsets.
Mr. Turner addresses big questions with small
moments. Arm in arm, Leigh and Spall sketch
an intricate drawing of a wonderfully messy
» see film reviews, page 14
ê Above: Movie poster for Mr. Turner. Below: Timothy Spall won the Best Actor prize at Cannes for his performance
as J.M.W. Turner. Photo credit: Spectator.co.uk.