{"id":15835,"date":"2014-12-29T09:05:32","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T17:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=15835"},"modified":"2014-12-29T09:07:27","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T17:07:27","slug":"mr-turner-film-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/mr-turner-film-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Turner — Film Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mr. Turner<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Directed by Mike Leigh<\/p>\n

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I read one blurb that called this film an “epic biography” of British painter William Turner. \u00a0Well, that’s hype of the most grandiose favor.\u00a0 This film is not a biography at all.\u00a0 It would be stretching it to call it even a portrait.\u00a0 It is more of a sketch, and a rather superficial one at that.\u00a0 William Turner is the dominant figure in the film and he is played superbly by Timothy Spall.\u00a0 It is his rendering of Turner’s character that holds this rather disconnected, aimless film together and prevents it from falling apart into an amorphous nothing.\u00a0 He is almost always on screen.\u00a0 There is hardly a time when he isn’t.\u00a0 Because he is such an imposing presence, you do get a feel for Turner’s personality, at least in this conception (whether it has anything to do with reality, I do not know.\u00a0 I take the film at face value).\u00a0 I suppose the way I should say it is that it is a supremely convincing portrayal.\u00a0 The cinematography is exquisite.\u00a0 Every scene is perfectly composed, perfectly lit.\u00a0 England in the nineteenth century must have been a wonderful clean, neat, orderly place with everything properly arranged, minimal clutter, and people wearing clean clothes all the time and smelling so good.<\/p>\n

The problem with this film is that it lacks depth and insight.\u00a0 We don’t see what is driving Turner in any aspect of his life, whether it is his painting, or his relations with his women, or within himself.\u00a0\u00a0 He has an ex-wife or mistress with whom he had two grown daughters, who hate him bitterly — a feeling he reciprocates.\u00a0 What’s that about?\u00a0 He has an apparently long established relationship with his housekeeper.\u00a0 But he leaves her for a new woman who rented a room to him on a painting excursion.\u00a0 Why did he do this?\u00a0\u00a0 He does seem to have a positive, supportive relationship with his father, with whom he was living until his father’s death.\u00a0 He belonged to some sort of society of fellow painters among whom he was highly regarded.\u00a0 His life overlapped the early days of photography, and he had a portrait taken of himself with his last mistress, the landlady.\u00a0 He seemed to think photography boded ill for him as a painter, but neither his interest in photography nor his attitude toward it are explored in any great detail.<\/p>\n

This is about all you find out about William Turner from this film. \u00a0It is not a lot for a two hour and forty minute session.\u00a0 It is slow moving with an absolute minimum of “action.”\u00a0 It avoids becoming tedious or boring, at least for me, strictly on the strength of Timothy Spall’s riveting performance.\u00a0 He makes this character come to life enough that you don’t mind staying with it for over two hours even though nothing is happening and you are not getting a very full or satisfying treatment of the subject.\u00a0 It’s not all bad, but I can’t recommend it unless you have an exceptional interest in nineteenth century painting.\u00a0 But if you are that type of person, you probably won’t learn very much from this film.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr. Turner Directed by Mike Leigh       I read one blurb that called this film an “epic biography” of British painter William Turner. \u00a0Well, that’s hype of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[837],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-joe-cillo"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"