Mr. Turner (Film Review)
Nov. 8th, 2014 02:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakVisually, it's a gorgeous movie, and in a way that doesn't feel cheesy. Which isn't the case with all movies about painters by a long shot - on the contrary, sometimes the obvious effort to restage famous paintings can feel embarrassing. (Let's not talk about the other extreme, where you are an unfortunate film maker making a movie about an artist not dead long enough for his/her work to be out in the public domain and not given permission to use it.) Otoh when a director can pull it off, the result can be awesome - for example Julie Taymor's Frida.
Then there is, independent of any subject's profession, the fact that few people live their lives in three act structures, inconviently insist on having relationships with a lot of other people sharing similar names and functions in their lives, and even if you just pick a short excerpt of their life for your biopic, thus avoiding the problem of too much crammed in too little a space, they don't have necessarily the type of relationships easily identifiable. Some people manage to pull it off regardless. Scriptwriter Peter Morgan has made an art of out it, usually in movies and plays starring Michael Sheen. But Peter Morgan's speciality appears to be odd couple constellations (Blair and Brown, Blair and the Queen, Blair and Clinton, Frost and Nixon), i.e. very different characters sparking off each other in a mixture of antagonism and some shared goals, not necessarily in that order.
Mr. Turner by Mike Leigh, otoh, offers a good ensemble - both in the acting and in the writing sense - but while several other characters are important, no one has the same narrative weight as Turner, or is present throughout the movie, except for someone you could call the Greek Chorus, more in a minute. Speaking of Turner, Timothy Spall deserves all the applause he's been getting. It's an acting tour de force, making everyone of those many grunts multi expressive, never going for sympathy when Turner is horrid yet also also utterly believable in tender and gentle moments, and above all getting across that this is a man of curiosity about the changing times he lives in; you believe his Turner as someone able to see the beauty in a steam engine (and fascinated by it) just as he does in the sea, someone willing to let himself be tied to a mast so he can experience a snow storm on the open sea yet relying on being pampered by his father, his housekeeper and incapable of taking responsibility for his own children. Actors of Timothy Spall's age and looks usually get the character bit parts in movies (obvious example: he was Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter franchise), not the lead, so it's splendid that Leigh gave him that chance.
Given all of this, and agreeing with the praise in the media reviews, I still can't make up my mind how I feel about the film. It is very episodic: there are some overall story threads - Turner's relationship with his father in the first twenty, thirty minutes or so before Turner Snr. dies, which is highly unusual for a father/son relationship on screen because it's not conflicted at all but mutually tender (based on this movie, you can make a case that his father, who started out as a barber in Covent Garden and later become his son's studio assistant, mixer of colours and all around devoted caretaker, was one of only two people Turner loved), his relationship with his last mistress, Mrs. Booth, in the last third of the movie, the non-relationship (or relationship only in the sense of pure exploitation and complete disinterest in her as a person on his side) with his housekeeper Hannah - who'd be the Greek Chorus character - throughout) - but mostly Mr. Turner consists of small episodes, like the one of Mary Sommerville, a Scottish scientist and polymath, paying a visit to conduct a prism experiment with Turner - which is a delightful sequence, but we didn't see Sommerville before and we won't ever see her again, any more than we'll see the nobleman at whose countryhouse Turner dines (and makes a very bad yet for that oddly endearing attempt to sing Purcell) earlier in the film again. John Ruskin we do see three times in the later part of the movie (and Leigh makes relentless fun of him - this is a bad cinematic year for Ruskin, with his younger self ridiculed as a self absorbed twit in Mr. Turner and his older self portrayed as a creep in Effie) , but I don't think you get why he's there (other than for comic relief) if you don't already know who John Ruskin was to 19th century art going in. But that's a minor issue.
No, what makes me so emotionally unsure is this: reading reviews of the movie before watching it, I was concerned it would do the One Special Woman thing, i.e. would play out Mrs. Booth (who btw is as delightful and warm a character as the reviews had mentioned) against Hannah the Housekeeper and would excuse Turner's behaviour towards the later (and to his former mistress Sophia and two the two daughters by her he has zilch interest in) in the way biopics about many a male genius have done: all these other women weren't worthy/special/strong enough, but once the True Love is there, it's clear she's what X has needed all along. This I found not to be the case. The fact that Turner is able to have a mutually affectionate and respectful relationship with Mrs. Booth isn't presented as an excuse for his behavior towards his former mistress and their daughters, or towards Hannah. It's Hannah, not Mrs. Booth, who gets the movie's very last scene and shot. But Hannah's situation is so awful, and so unrelentingly presented as awful, that I found it impossible not be upset about it throughout the movie, whether she was on screen or not. Not because there was physical violence involved, I hasten to add. It's just the way Turner uses her, hanging up his coat treated no differently than sexual relief (as one reviewer mentioned, you can't even call her his mistress because that would imply he shows her the slightest bit of interest beyond a useful household equipment), her hopeless waiting for some kindness, some affection (and he can be kind; even to the hapless painter Haydon who owes him money) and the fact that you can't even root for her to get away because given that she's in increasing ill health, older and older, and hunchbacked, there's no way she'd get another job - it would be the workhouse for her. (Perhaps the only thing Turner ever does for Hannah is not to fire her once he doesn't need her anymore and has moved in with Mrs. Booth, but to keep up two households despite hardly ever being in the one with her. And there you can't be sure whether he doesn't just do that because he can't be bothered to make the necessary arrangements.)
Now, I feel a bit like a hypocrite because I do recall that back when I reviewed films like for example Lennon Remembered or The Invisible Woman (you can even throw in Einstein and Eddington for the Einstein part of it, I mentioned that while both of these movies show their respective brilliant males treating their first wives abominably, the movies still pull their punches as to the full extent of the ghastliness of their behaviour. Now I don't know much about William Turner whereas I did know a lot in advance about John Lennon and Charles Dickens. But the impression I came away with from watching was that this movie didn't pull its punches and did show the full ghastliness, and googling for reviews and short biographies hasn't given me a different expression; it seems the only complaints re: accuracy that were voiced were about good old or rather in this movie young Ruskin, not any of the women & Turner. But that very honestly makes for an emotional whipslash. We go from a comedy of manners scene like, say, Turner tweaking John Constable at the Royal Academy exhbition of the year, to a Jane Austenish (only for two late middle aged/old people) slow burning romance (Mrs. Booth) to a Dickensian-George Elliot horror story (Turner comes home, doesn't bother saying hello (or anything beyond the barest necessary orders) while accepting all the care from Hannah and at some point gets some gropes or penetration sex in before taking off again, at which point we're switching genre again, this time to the glories of nature and science as experienced by a 19th century eager mind and eye. And so on. Which paints a complete and full picture, and I tell myself: you love Breaking Bad, self, you know how to love a tale whose main character is horrid if the narrative doesn't make excuses for him. But it still doesn't work out that way and I feel whiplashed and keep going inwardly - "but Hannah?"
In conclusion: definitely a work of art. Probably not a movie I'll ever rewatch.
Then there is, independent of any subject's profession, the fact that few people live their lives in three act structures, inconviently insist on having relationships with a lot of other people sharing similar names and functions in their lives, and even if you just pick a short excerpt of their life for your biopic, thus avoiding the problem of too much crammed in too little a space, they don't have necessarily the type of relationships easily identifiable. Some people manage to pull it off regardless. Scriptwriter Peter Morgan has made an art of out it, usually in movies and plays starring Michael Sheen. But Peter Morgan's speciality appears to be odd couple constellations (Blair and Brown, Blair and the Queen, Blair and Clinton, Frost and Nixon), i.e. very different characters sparking off each other in a mixture of antagonism and some shared goals, not necessarily in that order.
Mr. Turner by Mike Leigh, otoh, offers a good ensemble - both in the acting and in the writing sense - but while several other characters are important, no one has the same narrative weight as Turner, or is present throughout the movie, except for someone you could call the Greek Chorus, more in a minute. Speaking of Turner, Timothy Spall deserves all the applause he's been getting. It's an acting tour de force, making everyone of those many grunts multi expressive, never going for sympathy when Turner is horrid yet also also utterly believable in tender and gentle moments, and above all getting across that this is a man of curiosity about the changing times he lives in; you believe his Turner as someone able to see the beauty in a steam engine (and fascinated by it) just as he does in the sea, someone willing to let himself be tied to a mast so he can experience a snow storm on the open sea yet relying on being pampered by his father, his housekeeper and incapable of taking responsibility for his own children. Actors of Timothy Spall's age and looks usually get the character bit parts in movies (obvious example: he was Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter franchise), not the lead, so it's splendid that Leigh gave him that chance.
Given all of this, and agreeing with the praise in the media reviews, I still can't make up my mind how I feel about the film. It is very episodic: there are some overall story threads - Turner's relationship with his father in the first twenty, thirty minutes or so before Turner Snr. dies, which is highly unusual for a father/son relationship on screen because it's not conflicted at all but mutually tender (based on this movie, you can make a case that his father, who started out as a barber in Covent Garden and later become his son's studio assistant, mixer of colours and all around devoted caretaker, was one of only two people Turner loved), his relationship with his last mistress, Mrs. Booth, in the last third of the movie, the non-relationship (or relationship only in the sense of pure exploitation and complete disinterest in her as a person on his side) with his housekeeper Hannah - who'd be the Greek Chorus character - throughout) - but mostly Mr. Turner consists of small episodes, like the one of Mary Sommerville, a Scottish scientist and polymath, paying a visit to conduct a prism experiment with Turner - which is a delightful sequence, but we didn't see Sommerville before and we won't ever see her again, any more than we'll see the nobleman at whose countryhouse Turner dines (and makes a very bad yet for that oddly endearing attempt to sing Purcell) earlier in the film again. John Ruskin we do see three times in the later part of the movie (and Leigh makes relentless fun of him - this is a bad cinematic year for Ruskin, with his younger self ridiculed as a self absorbed twit in Mr. Turner and his older self portrayed as a creep in Effie) , but I don't think you get why he's there (other than for comic relief) if you don't already know who John Ruskin was to 19th century art going in. But that's a minor issue.
No, what makes me so emotionally unsure is this: reading reviews of the movie before watching it, I was concerned it would do the One Special Woman thing, i.e. would play out Mrs. Booth (who btw is as delightful and warm a character as the reviews had mentioned) against Hannah the Housekeeper and would excuse Turner's behaviour towards the later (and to his former mistress Sophia and two the two daughters by her he has zilch interest in) in the way biopics about many a male genius have done: all these other women weren't worthy/special/strong enough, but once the True Love is there, it's clear she's what X has needed all along. This I found not to be the case. The fact that Turner is able to have a mutually affectionate and respectful relationship with Mrs. Booth isn't presented as an excuse for his behavior towards his former mistress and their daughters, or towards Hannah. It's Hannah, not Mrs. Booth, who gets the movie's very last scene and shot. But Hannah's situation is so awful, and so unrelentingly presented as awful, that I found it impossible not be upset about it throughout the movie, whether she was on screen or not. Not because there was physical violence involved, I hasten to add. It's just the way Turner uses her, hanging up his coat treated no differently than sexual relief (as one reviewer mentioned, you can't even call her his mistress because that would imply he shows her the slightest bit of interest beyond a useful household equipment), her hopeless waiting for some kindness, some affection (and he can be kind; even to the hapless painter Haydon who owes him money) and the fact that you can't even root for her to get away because given that she's in increasing ill health, older and older, and hunchbacked, there's no way she'd get another job - it would be the workhouse for her. (Perhaps the only thing Turner ever does for Hannah is not to fire her once he doesn't need her anymore and has moved in with Mrs. Booth, but to keep up two households despite hardly ever being in the one with her. And there you can't be sure whether he doesn't just do that because he can't be bothered to make the necessary arrangements.)
Now, I feel a bit like a hypocrite because I do recall that back when I reviewed films like for example Lennon Remembered or The Invisible Woman (you can even throw in Einstein and Eddington for the Einstein part of it, I mentioned that while both of these movies show their respective brilliant males treating their first wives abominably, the movies still pull their punches as to the full extent of the ghastliness of their behaviour. Now I don't know much about William Turner whereas I did know a lot in advance about John Lennon and Charles Dickens. But the impression I came away with from watching was that this movie didn't pull its punches and did show the full ghastliness, and googling for reviews and short biographies hasn't given me a different expression; it seems the only complaints re: accuracy that were voiced were about good old or rather in this movie young Ruskin, not any of the women & Turner. But that very honestly makes for an emotional whipslash. We go from a comedy of manners scene like, say, Turner tweaking John Constable at the Royal Academy exhbition of the year, to a Jane Austenish (only for two late middle aged/old people) slow burning romance (Mrs. Booth) to a Dickensian-George Elliot horror story (Turner comes home, doesn't bother saying hello (or anything beyond the barest necessary orders) while accepting all the care from Hannah and at some point gets some gropes or penetration sex in before taking off again, at which point we're switching genre again, this time to the glories of nature and science as experienced by a 19th century eager mind and eye. And so on. Which paints a complete and full picture, and I tell myself: you love Breaking Bad, self, you know how to love a tale whose main character is horrid if the narrative doesn't make excuses for him. But it still doesn't work out that way and I feel whiplashed and keep going inwardly - "but Hannah?"
In conclusion: definitely a work of art. Probably not a movie I'll ever rewatch.
