Mr Turn­er

“Iron” Mike Leigh’s biopic of British Roman­tic painter, JMW Turn­er, bursts with such vivid detail that sin­gle frames stand alone as art. Water­colour open­ing cred­its morph into a Bel­gian field at dawn. Two work­er women stroll by a riv­er, their ordi­nary clothes and chat­ter imbued with grace by the orange sky above them. The cam­era then finds anoth­er fig­ure in the dis­tance. He’s a port­ly sil­hou­ette with a down­turned lip, a stove-pipe hat and eyes locked on to the land­scape he’s sketching.

This open­ing scene is a mis­sion state­ment. Back­ground is as impor­tant as fore­ground — a per­spec­tive rein­forced via the 150 min­utes (cov­er­ing 25 years) we spend in the com­pa­ny of a painter intent on record­ing nature’s boun­ty. Leigh pays trib­ute to Turn­er in the most fit­ting of ways, work­ing with reg­u­lar cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Dick Pope to drama­tise his subject’s life against a per­sis­tent­ly majes­tic back­drop of fine peri­od detail. He sent his Turn­er, Tim­o­thy Spall, off for two years of paint­ing lessons. This is a token insight into the extent of Leigh’s plan­ning, research and desire to present the world in a light that might have pleased his sub­ject. As a result, Mr Turn­er is a for­mal mas­ter­work that cuts no cor­ners in its ren­der­ing of loca­tions from the 1800s, from rur­al havens to the Mar­gate coast­line and the grub­by bus­tle of London’s Maryle­bone where Turn­er lived with his retired-bar­ber father, William (Paul Jesson).

A third per­son lives with the Turn­er men. She is Han­nah (Dorothy Atkin­son), a loy­al maid and equal­ly loy­al sex toy. As for so many of Leigh’s char­ac­ters, she con­veys oceans of feel­ing, but only in the (body) lan­guage appro­pri­ate to her social posi­tion. After tak­ing dirty laun­dry off a new­ly-returned Turn­er and pro­vid­ing him with a drink, she asks if he’d like any­thing more. The expec­tant look in her eyes and the way she holds her brown sack-of-a-dress are akin to a shy school­girl with a crush on the teacher. Turn­er has no time for her feel­ings and uses her as just one more avail­able gob of colour to apply to a can­vas of end­less inde­ter­mi­nate shades.

Atkin­son is heart­break­ing as this trag­ic woman who scut­tles rather than walks with eyes full of sun­shine when mas­ter favours her, and light­ning when anoth­er woman effort­less­ly poach­es not just her love but her liveli­hood. That Hannah’s arc loops qui­et­ly in the back­ground (with the added indig­ni­ty of a steadi­ly grow­ing, nev­er men­tioned phys­i­cal afflic­tion that starts with an itch) with only the mer­est of cli­max­es is a reflec­tion of the over­all tone. Peo­ple in this world do not expect or enjoy an over­abun­dance of hap­pi­ness. Those that fare bet­ter are the lucky souls who can lose them­selves in the minu­ti­ae of their labour.

Eval­u­at­ed in these terms, Turn­er is a lucky soul. He lives to work: ris­ing in the ear­ly hours, trav­el­ling for miles and strap­ping him­self to the mast of the ship in order to get the best per­spec­tive pos­si­ble of a com­ing storm for his paint­ing, ​‘Snow Storm — Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth’. Much of the film is con­cerned with exer­tions. Yet Spall gasps, grunts and wheezes in human com­pa­ny more fre­quent­ly than in pur­suit of art. His devo­tion is lib­er­a­tion. Peo­ple are com­pli­cat­ed and want answers or atten­tion or mon­ey. Which isn’t to say that Spall and Leigh’s Turn­er is a mis­an­thrope, far from it. Roar­ing sobs wrack his body when learn­ing the young age of a pros­ti­tute, and he is not averse to bawdy humour. A dou­ble enten­dre involv­ing the word ​“salty” is hilar­i­ous, first­ly as an unex­pect­ed zinger and sec­ond­ly, as a 19^th cen­tu­ry come-on.

With Top­sy-Turvy, Leigh’s only oth­er peri­od work to date, the detail, mous­tach­es and speech were all immac­u­late but, reflect­ing the title, the film was a pur­pose­ful­ly mean­der­ing slice of Gilbert and Sullivan’s life book­end­ed by the cre­ative cycle of their ​‘new’ musi­cal-com­e­dy, The Mika­do. Here, in addi­tion to get­ting char­ac­ters and set­tings to feel utter­ly authen­tic, Leigh has tight­ly bound what feel like a series of stand-alone vignettes via brac­ing­ly per­son­al themes. Suf­fer­ing, artis­tic tran­scen­dence, the plea­sures of work and rela­tion­ships are fol­lowed by more suf­fer­ing, more artis­tic tran­scen­dence, more work and more fleet­ing rela­tion­ship plea­sures. Death scenes receive a heavy empha­sis, mak­ing the need to get up ear­ly and cre­ate art all the more urgent.

Spall’s act­ing — part elo­quent utter­ances, part non-ver­bal sounds — serves to foru­mu­late an enig­mat­ic per­sona. He nev­er steals scenes but makes his pres­ence felt in all walks of life, with monied patrons, ver­bose peers and poor work­ing folk. Leigh inter­spers­es life shot from the ground, with life shot from the heav­ens — a low-key domes­tic chit-chat is dis­placed by a gor­geous seascape. Sooth­ing vis­tas are the only respite, for in Mr Turn­er, there are no grand cli­max­es or sym­pho­nious con­ver­gences. Mr Leigh has giv­en us a piti­less pic­ture of life, a rev­er­ent pic­ture of work, and a divine pic­ture of art.