Stunningly
photographed biopic about one of England’s greatest painters, J.M.W. Turner, by
one of England’s greatest living directors, Mike Leigh. In his lifetime, Turner was a celebrated landscape
and seascape artist who progressively embraced a more abstract style in his
later years, to the point that many consider him the true father of Impressionism. No less an authority than Kenneth Clark even
considers Turner the greatest of all painters.
He is played in the film, in a remarkable, almost animalistic
performance, by Timothy Spall as a man cursed with genius but thoroughly and
painfully devoid of social skills. He
has respectability, yet the upper class patrons who know his name and patronize
him never comprehend his need to go further.
Snickering at his experimental paintings that appear to abandon form
altogether, guests at an exhibition call his style “a dirty yellow mess.” In reality, Turner was experiencing a
cathartic and philosophical breakthrough that he barely understood and which
was a magical convergence of art, science and consciousness. His work earned him the moniker “Painter of
Light.” Director Leigh, not usually
known for period dramas, (though he has made a few), goes to great lengths to
avoid “Masterpiece Theater syndrome” since he’s working in a genre that is
highly conducive to it. He has no hope
of replicating cinematically the visceral impact of Turner’s paintings, of
course, but he does successfully convey the majesty of nature that so moved
Turner and imbued him with a strange tranquility even as he faced tremendous
hardship and ill health. Though famous
and financially secure, he was no less tormented and alone than Vincent Van
Gogh. When offered a fortune for his
work by a private buyer, Turner balks, insisting that he intends for all of his
paintings to be kept together in a museum and readily available for viewing by
the public. Even as dementia sets in and
death approaches, he displays an aplomb that is almost Zen-like. Informed by a doctor that his days are
numbered, he merely states matter-of-factly, “So I’m to become a non-entity.” His final words before expiring, “The sun is
God!” underscore the unspoken but all-consuming theme of his art; a paganistic
worship of nature that is both dark and light and acknowledges equally its
horror and beauty.
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