Mr. Turner (R)
07/03/15 18:28 Filed in: 2014
Starring: Timothy Spall
December 2014
This review was originally tweeted in Real-time from the back row of a movie theater and appears @BackRoweReviews. Though efforts were made to tease rather than ruin this movie’s memorable lines and moments, some spoilers may exist in the following evaluation. The original tweets appear in black, while follow-up comments appear in red. For concerns over objectionable content, please first refer to one of the many parental movie guide websites. All ratings are based on a four star system. Happy reading!
Whenever I think of Spall, I’m reminded of that creepy rodent-man he played in Enchanted (2007). Another decidedly eccentric role.
Opening scene with sunset behind the windmill has a painterly quality.
Something that isn’t lost upon Turner, who sketches the scene as reference for a future painting.
“Do you need anything else?” Dangerous question.
Turner cops a feel. Every man has his needs, I suppose.
Don’t know that I could keep my food down with that hog’s head staring up at me.
Or at the very least I would push it down to the other end of the table and make someone else look at it.
“Remember me” is forgettable the way Mr. Turner sings it. He should stick to painting.
His voice is so awful; it could make a dog go hoarse from howling.
I was expecting a bigger ah-ha from the prism experiment.
An intriguing setup that ends up being a Huh? moment.
Is that crying or travailing?
Turner cries like he’s in labor. It’s a nerve-grating braying.
Turner ruins his masterpiece with a blot of red.
Just to make a mockery out of a fellow painter. Cruel, but not without an element of humor.
The discussion of gooseberries is zzzzzzz...
Whenever I hear the word gooseberries I think of Ergo “the Magnificent” from Krull (1983), a goofy, would-be magician who was fixated on pies filled with the berries.
“A dirty yellow mess.” Turner overhears this rather unflattering critique of his painting.
I just think he ran out of other colors.
Turner is resolved to bequeath his collection...turns down a fortune.
What unassailable integrity. Turner desired his paintings to be enjoyed by the masses not just one rich person. His focus was on posterity, not fiscal security.
“So I am to become a non-entity.” It is appointed to each of us.
Final analysis: a deliberately paced biopic that paints a vivid portrait of the eponymous artist.
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars. Surely not everyone’s cup of tea, but a gorgeous film by director Mike Leigh.
As a film featuring and focused on fine art, it’s fitting that director Mike Leigh should so deftly capture with a camera the same sumptuous vistas that the titular artist, J.M.W. Turner (Timothy Spall), created with his paintbrush back in the early to mid 1800s. Indeed, Leigh’s landscape shots are framed as photo real representations of the various paintings featured throughout the movie. Many of these tableaus are, in a word, painterly, and serve as the perfect compliment to Turner’s impressionistic, maritime paintings. Visual elements aside, the film is a fascinating character study of its central figure, a man who, as a former member of the Royal Academy of Arts, is regarded as one of Britain’s finest painters from his or any other era. As depicted in the movie, Turner is an eccentric individual whose gruff exterior is tempered only by his heart of gold. Spall’s portrayal is exceptionally nuanced, capturing Turner’s quirks and questionable behaviors in a manner that’s intriguing rather than revolting. As the lead performer in a two and a half hour movie, Spall has a surprising dearth of dialog, and many of his lines are little more than grunts…incomprehensible mumblings that lose in clarity what they gain in personality. Perhaps the highest praise for Spall’s performance is that he makes such an oddball character so sympathetic and, to a greater or lesser extent, relatable. History buffs, art critics and cinephiles will surely fall in love with this movie for its artful depiction of…art. But aside from those special interest groups, a broad swath of this movie’s audience will probably find the film: pretentious, dull, tedious, interminable or all of the above. Indeed, for many those viewers, this movie will be about as exciting as watching paint dry.