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There are spectres of modernity haunting Mike Leigh’s biopic of JMW Turner’s later years. From the railways which burst into the paintings, the invention of the camera which threatens to render the artist obsolete, to the curt upper lip and dismissive tones of a young Queen Victoria whose tight-reared reign would last another 60 years, we meet the artist at the end of one age and the beginning of another.
As expected, the natural power and beauty of Turner’s paintings are portrayed dramatically across turbulent seascapes and evocative sunsets, and we witness their transition from the natural world into Turner’s studio (Timothy Spall famously learned to paint like Turner for over two years in the build-up to the film). Yet we are also exposed to a darker side of nature in a film interwoven with beauty and decay. The pastoral landscapes are interrupted by character portrayals of decrepit bodies. Turner’s housekeeper Hannah (Dorothy Atkinson) plays a desolate role of fading sickliness, Turner’s father (Paul Jesson) is forever spitting out his lungs, and in Spall’s performance the body always supersedes speech.
In fact, it is Spall’s non-verbal actions which make his portrayal so masterful. His expressions consist of a bestial grunting, a deep guttural rumbling which is accompanied by a heavy deliberate gait, purposeful yet clumsy. The growling conveys an array of meanings, from marking acute perceptions to blunt dismissals. The bodily noises are intensified by the film’s visuals as we are treated to magnified images of the decomposing bodies, from Hannah’s dirty nails digging into the itch of a festering rash on her neck to the paralysing hysteria of Turner’s father’s coughing fits.
However, it is not a film of despair and decline. There is a matter-of-fact attitude posed in the face of sickness and death, no better captured than by Turner himself. He is more enigmatic than first meets the eye — “honest but dishonest”, as Mike Leigh describes him. At once a gruff, grizzly, good-hearted fellow whose knowing growls can cut through the pretentious wittering of art critics (a lisping John Ruskin is knocked down a few pegs), but also unable to confront personal failings, such as his mistreatment of Hannah and the denial of his children. Turner is a man humanely crafted, through flaws, grunts and genius — a character straight out of Phillip Pirrip’s London.
The comedy ultimately seeps through in Turner’s ever-present humanity. Spall’s performance perfectly captures the interiority of his character, when amidst the surrounding dialogue and action we trace Turner’s thoughts in our own minds, with our suspicions of his thoughts occasionally confirmed by the odd guttural affirmation, and by our own wry smile. The visceral portrayal Spall gives through his capacity to express himself without language alludes to Turner’s artistic ability to do the same, revealing how the life and work are inseparable.
In a film which considers artistry and aesthetics, cinematographer Dick Pope’s work is fantastic. Landscapes seem hyper-real, more like paintings than reality, whilst the stuffy interiors of houses and studios capture that murky brown of Victorian repression. The black billowing smoke of an industrialising nation cuts through the amber hues of dying sunsets. Turner’s last words — “The sun is god” — feel like a fading truth with the emergence of the “remorseless monster” of the railways, as Dickens’ Mr Dombey put it. The most arresting image occurs upon the Thames as the great Fighting Temeraire ship is being tugged off for scraps by a dirty smoking tugboat. Two worlds are colliding in a “chaotic universe” as the natural philosopher Ms Somerville has it. Turner, as always, brings this conflict to life.
