From a 2014 review of the Mike Leigh film, “Mr. Turner” :
Like Leigh’s “Topsy-Turvy,” which showed the world of Gilbert and Sullivan almost exclusively through their eyes, and the eyes of their performers and collaborators, “Mr. Turner” understands creative people on every conceivable level, and translates that understanding with a deftness rarely seen outside of astute documentaries about creative people. To watch it is to feel as though you’re a part of its world, talking shop with the painters, experiencing tiny fluctuations in received wisdom and sudden changes of artistic direction that can only be sensed by professionals who are plugged into their art form, and completely in command of their talents.
That the performances are excellent will come as no surprise to Leigh fans. Spall, who’s had a remarkably varied career, adds another fine portrait to his own actor’s gallery with Turner, a character who’s impossible to fully fathom (as if you’d want to!) and even more impossible to approve of. He can be high-handed, brusque, oblivious. But there’s something immensely sad about him, and you can sense it most strongly during moments like the one pictured at the top of this page, when he’s seen from a distance, from head to toe, moving through the sorts of landscapes that he himself might paint. These images, photographed by Leigh’s regular cinematographer Dick Pope, express the essence of a phrase used by Manville, “the interconnectedness of all things.”
– Roger Ebert
There are no comments published yet.