a brooding presence
by
Douglas Messerli
Mike
Leigh (writer and director) Mr. Turner /
2014
Mike
Leigh’s 2014 film, Mr. Turner, which
I finally viewed on Netflix the other day, is a physically beautiful film about
a rather ugly human being, a removed and somewhat eccentric individual, who 
apparently sexually abused his willing housekeeper, Hannah Danby (Dorothy
Atkinson) and who forms a closer sexual union with the twice-widowed owner of
boarding house in Chelsea where Turner stays, using a pseudonym, in Chelsea,
with Sophia Booth (Marion Bailey).
The excellent actor Timothy Spall plays
the great artist, J. M. W. Turner, as a kind of taciturn beast lumbering
through the beautiful landscapes that are the source of his art. The only time
he seems truly to come life is when he discusses color or art with his father
(Paul Jesson) or his brilliant Scottish cousin, Mary Somerville (Lesley
Manville).
Yes, at moments this strange hero
certainly seems foolhardy and perhaps a bit brave, as when he has himself
lashed to the mast of a ship during a fierce ocean storm just to be able to
experience its beauty and horror in order to depict it in his painting.
For many, it appears that he has
intentionally destroyed a perfectly beautiful work, perhaps, suggests one
painter, declaring war of the other artists’ clichés. But when he later returns
to remove the lower half of the red, creating a small white line in the top of
the daub, they recognize it to be a boat buoy that initiates a new sense of the
color into the work. It might almost be nice to imagine that, had he not
altered the red paint, he might have become one of the first of truly abstract
painters.
But then, in some ways, in his wild fury of sky and waves, Turner was a kind of early abstract painter, leading the way, soon after, for the Impressionists.
As critic Matt Zoller Seitz has noted, in
the end, there is something truly sad about the artist, who was clearly
shattered by the death of his father, perhaps explaining the melancholy feel to
the entire film. But, as Seitz also noted, it is difficult to fathom or explain
Turner’s behavior, who alternately appears priggish and sexually abusive to the
woman around him. He is certainly not a very likeable figure despite his
stunning artworks. And, in the end, Leigh’s film, unlike so many of his other
works, particularly Topsy Turvy, is
simply not much fun. If Gilbert and Sullivan, each in their ways, were also
self-centered, abusive eccentrics, the telling of their story, along with their
music and lyrics, was a joyful affair, while Mr. Turner, while meticulously filmed, with Leigh’s usual attention
to costumes and sets, is, like its hero a rather grim affair, with moments of
relief as symbolized by Turner’s brush of red paint.
For all that, one can’t really complain
of his directing, since the very way Leigh presents the English countryside is
so often utterly breathtaking. Like Turner’s art, Leigh’s movie is a work of dark
and somber light, which he cinematographer Dick Pope so lovingly captures that
it’s hard to truly dislike this brooding piece of cinema, although I might propose
that I probably will never watch it again.
Los Angeles,
February 5, 2018
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