Mr. TURNER [2014 / 2015] [Blu-ray] [UK Release] A Film of Immense Beauty! Extraordinary Heart-stirringly Wonderful! A Triumph! A Masterpiece!
A stunning and beautiful film, ‘Mr. TURNER’ tells the extraordinary story of Britain’s greatest ever artist. As Mr. J.M.W. Turner (1775 – 1851) [Timothy Spall] produces masterpieces ahead of his time that challenge the art world, so he has to confront his own ever changing circumstances and deal with love and loss.
FILM FACT No.1: Awards and Nominations: 2015 Academy Awards®: Nominated: Best Cinematography for Dick Pope. Best Costume Design for Jacqueline Durran. Nominated: Best Original Score for Gary Yershon. Nominated: Best Production Design for Suzie Davies and Charlotte Watts. 2015 American Society of Cinematographers: Nominated: Best Theatrical Motion Picture for Dick Pope. 23rd Britannia Awards: Win: Excellence in Directing for Mike Leigh. 2015 68th British Academy Film Awards: Nominated: Best Cinematography for Dick Pope. Nominated: Best Production Design for Suzie Davies and Charlotte Watts. Nominated: Best Costume Design for Jacqueline Durran. Nominated: Best Makeup and Hair for Christine Blundell and Lesa Warrener. 2015 17th British Independent Film Awards: Nominated: Best British Independent Film for ‘Mr. Turner.’ Nominated: Best Director for Mike Leigh. Nominated: Best Actor for Timothy Spall. Nominated: Best Supporting Actress for Dorothy Atkinson. Nominated: Best Technical Achievement for Dick Pope. 2015 67th Cannes Film Festival: Win: Best Actor for Timothy Spall. Win: Vulcan Award for Dick Pope. Nominated: Palme d'Or for Mike Leigh. 2015 34th Hawaii International Film Festival: Win: EuroCinema Hawaii Award for Best Film for ‘Mr. Turner.’ 2015 London Film Critics' Circle: Nominated: Film of the Year for ‘Mr. Turner.’ Nominated: British Film of the Year for ‘Mr. Turner.’ Nominated: Actor of the Year for Timothy Spall. Nominated: Supporting Actress of the Year for Marion Bailey. Win: British Actor of the Year for Timothy Spall. Nominated: Director of the Year for Mike Leigh. Nominated: Technical Achievement Award for Dick Pope. 2015 86th National Board of Review Awards: Win: Top 10 Independent Films for ‘Mr. Turner.’ 2015 49th National Society of Film Critics Awards: Win: Best Actor for Timothy Spall. 2015 80th New York Film Critics Circle Awards: Win: Best Actor for Timothy Spall.
FILM FACT No.2: ‘Mr. TURNER’ was filmed in several locations around the United Kingdom. Although Margate wasn't actually used to represent Mr. J.M.W. Turner's Margate, the production visited Kent to shoot a couple of scenes. HMS Gannet in The Historic Dockyard Chatham was used in the scene where Mr. J.M.W. Turner has himself strapped to the mast of a sailing ship during a storm. Stangate Creek doubled as the Thames when Mr. J.M.W. Turner and his friends are rowed along the Thames and discuss the HMS Victory; they then toast the HMS Temeraire.
Cast: Timothy Spall, Paul Jesson, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey, Karl Johnson, Ruth Sheen, Sandy Foster, Amy Dawson, Lesley Manville, Martin Savage, Richard Bremmer, Niall Buggy, Fred Pearson, Tom Edden, Jamie Thomas King, Mark Stanley, Nicholas Jones, Clive Francis, Robert Portal, Simon Chandler, Edward de Souza, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, James Fleet, Patrick Godfrey, Karina Fernandez, Alice Bailey Johnson, Alice Orr-Ewing, Veronica Roberts, Richard Dixon, Michael Keane, James Norton, David Ryall, Nicola Sloane, Kate O'Flynn, Joshua McGuire, Stuart McQuarrie, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Eleanor Yates, Fenella Woolgar, Richard Cordery, David Horovitch, Leo Bill, James Dryden, Sinéad Matthews, Tom Wlaschiha, Peter Wight, Marcello Magni, Mark Wingett, Ruby Bentall, Lee Ingleby, Sam Kelly, Oliver Maltman, Pearl Chanda, Ned Derrington, Phil Elstob, Peter Hannah, Francesca Zoutewelle, Billy Holland, Michael Culkin, Vincent Franklin, Nicholas Woodeson, Elizabeth Berrington, Eileen Davies, Bob Goody, Terrence Hardiman, Theresa Watson, Judi Scott, Angela Curran, Amanda Lawrence, Judith Amsenga, Helen Cooper, Lasco Atkins (uncredited), Felipe Ayres (uncredited), Francesca Bennett (uncredited), David Burge (uncredited), Katherine Denkinson (uncredited), John Duggan (uncredited), Joyia Fitch (uncredited), Robert J. Fraser (uncredited), Alex Gillison (uncredited), Raymond Glen (uncredited), Janet Henfrey (uncredited), Emily Keston (uncredited), Stuart Matthews (uncredited), TyLean Polley (uncredited), Janette Sharpe (uncredited), Tamara Sharpe (uncredited), Paul Stockman (uncredited), Angie Wallis (uncredited) and John Warman (uncredited)
Director: Mike Leigh
Producers: Danielle Brandon, Gail Egan, Georgina Lowe, Helen Grearson, Malte Grunert, Michel Saint-Jean and Norman Merry
Screenplay: Mike Leigh
Composer: Gary Yershon
Cinematography: Richard "Dick" Pope, B.S.C. (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Audio: English: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio,
Audio Description: 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio
English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio
Subtitles: English SDH
Running Time: 150 minutes
Region: Region B/2
Number of discs: 1
Studio: eOne Entertainment / Film Four
Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: One Old Master deserves another. And so it is that one of the finest films of 2014 finds English filmmaker Mike Leigh taking as his subject English painter J.M.W. Turner. The film ‘Mr. TURNER,’ like Mike Leigh's equally sublime ‘Topsy-Turvy,’ revives an era in astonishing, delicate detail, then moves through the space with a documentarian's eye. Mike Leigh takes Mr. J.M.W. Turner out of art history and puts him back in the world.
‘Mr. TURNER’ gives Director Mike Leigh’s Academy Award-nominated biographical drama arrives in the high-definition Blu-ray format to give viewers the definitive look at the celebrated 19th century British Romanticist landscape painter Mr. J.M.W. Turner.
On their surfaces, Mike Leigh and Mr. J.M.W. Turner, the artist at the centre of this Mike Leigh film, and Mr. J.M.W. Turner could not seem more like polar opposites. The 19th-century English painter created colossal landscapes of ships and seas, odd impressions that feature little in terms of human life. Mike Leigh, the director of ‘Naked,’ ‘Topsy-Turvy’ and ‘Another Year’ really works on a microcosmic scale, investigating psychology through dialogue and camera movement, finding precise moments at which the human shell can break. But both are perceptibly searching for the in-between or, as one character in the film suggests, turning “particles into chaos.” These two artists search for the essence of life through the blending of the material building blocks of the world, offering much to ponder without necessarily asserting their own importance. Even if the artist is a fool, the work will always stand.
Specifically looking at the last 25 years of his life, the meticulously researched costume period film starred Timothy Spall as Mr. J.M.W. Turner. The devoted actor brings to life the rotund, grumbling curmudgeon so authentically that he actually spent two years learning how to paint in preparation for the role. The true co-star of the 150 minutes effort is cinematographer Richard "Dick" Pope, B.S.C. who borrowed Mr. J.M.W. Turner’s colour pallet when crafting the beautiful look of the film. The digital transfer breathtakingly reveals the result and is most apparent during every one of Dick Pope’s outdoor, landscape shots.
Mike Leigh's role as cultural historian more commonly focuses on contemporary life in lower-middle-class English low life people, but his obvious fascination with and affection for his fellow artists, perhaps especially the grouchy ones, and their pains are evident. Though Leigh isn't likely quite as cantankerous as Mr. J.M.W. Turner, he's well qualified to see Mr. J.M.W. Turner for his faults as well as his genius, to understand both and guide his cast through a well-honed process of improvisatory rehearsal to arrive at life's reflection caught on camera.
Mike Leigh opens on a beautiful landscape with river and windmill, and soon enough, we see the man regarding it with a thoughtful scowl. This is what passes for peacefulness for Mr. J.M.W. Turner [Timothy Spall], who only seems truly happy in the merry company of his beloved father [Paul Jesson]. A coarse, grunting grump, Turner nevertheless remains consistently, quietly, compulsively driven to paint his landscapes and his seascapes, and to perfect his form through thoughtful regard and restless experimentation.
Mr. J.M.W. Turner is as much about a way of viewing as it is about Mr. J.M.W. Turner, and it's fascinating to enjoy Mike Leigh's entirely distinct viewpoint and technique in dialogue with Mr. J.M.W. Turner's. Mike Leigh is a dedicated, unblinking observer not of nature but of human nature, and he allows us to draw our own conclusions about what he shows us of Mr. J.M.W. Turner's topsy-turvy interactions with his world and his peers: his deep love of his father but his denial of his own illegitimate children, his sensitivity to nature and his brusqueness with people, including his sexual exploitation of women and disinterest in marriage, his total dedication to art and his iconoclasm within the English art world, dominated by the standing-on-ceremony Royal Academy of Arts.
This tension drives Mike Leigh’s portrait as the artist travels around England, capturing the most gorgeous of landscapes in an early form of impressionism in the Romantic Era. Mr. J.M.W. Turner becomes essentially obsessed the paradox of the sublime of the landscape and fitting for an artist with a love of modesty while abhorring class and social intellectualism. Mr. J.M.W. Turner constantly rejects any chances to enter the upper crust of society, mocking both high-minded intellectuals and a sequence with a young, high-minded Mister Ruskin, who resembles your freshman seminar’s worst nightmare, is one of the film’s hilarious highlights and those who cannot truly appreciate their art, instead seeing it as grotesque. Turner even defies the process of art as some beautiful craft by throwing his paintings together in blunt gestures and with non-traditional materials. In one magnificent sequence, Mr. J.M.W. Turner mocks a fellow tinkerer by splashing a giant slob of red paint right into the middle of his piece, leaving everyone in disbelief until he returns to transform the slob into a gorgeous buoy.
Mike Leigh's narrative approach tends to the episodic, with little interest in conventional "drama" and every interest in nuances of behaviour and meaning, applied with gentle brushstrokes. Just as Mr. J.M.W. Turner had a penchant for moving incognito, Mike Leigh wants to be a fly on the wall of history as his time-travels through Turner's last quarter-century of life, up to and a bit beyond his "famous last words." The collage of scenes accumulates M. J.M.W. Turner's character, from moments of great emotional impact to those of passing fancy, like Mr. J.M.W. Turner's fascinated encounter with a camera: wondrous new technology destined to evolve into the vehicle of Mr. J.M.W. Turner itself.
It is a gorgeous world that Mr. J.M.W. Turner encounters, even if Mr. J.M.W. Turner is not. Mike Leigh’s camera searches this world through slow and ponderous movements; every gesture by an actor as carefully calculated as the forceful actions Mr. J.M.W. Turner throws onto his canvases. Director Mike Leigh and regular Director of Cinematography Richard "Dick" Pope, B.S.C. zoom around these magnificently art-directed spaces, often focusing on the windows that become the magnificent landscapes of Mr. J.M.W. Turner’s canvases and magnificently staged through the long takes sequences that define the essence of Mr. J.M.W. Turner. They appear only rarely, but the precise timing of the edits and changes in composition highlight the unspoken psychology of the characters with piercing honesty; an early piano duet between Mr. J.M.W. Turner and a woman takes on sensual qualities simply through the careful positioning of director Mike Leigh that interacts between the two characters.
Mr. J.M.W. Turner has been often been quoted and described as "painting with light," a terminology also applied to the art of cinematography. Accordingly, Mike Leigh's right-hand man Richard "Dick" Pope, delivers the most stunning cinematic images, like the paintings of Mr. J.M.W. Turner, which rightly of course collected the Best Cinematography Oscar® Award. But no less deserving, is the actor Timothy Spall, who sadly only garnered a couple of Nominations for Best Actor, who has always been a career character actor and Mike Leigh insight into the life and times of Mr. J.M.W. Turner with a rare totality of presence, with a depth that insists that we love Mr. J.M.W. Turner, despite his many warts, for being so thoroughly, unapologetically himself; for being redeemed by love and vocation; for having, like Mike Leigh and Timothy Spall, the soul of an artist.
Mr. TURNER MUSIC TRACK LIST
Dido's Lament from opera "Dido and Aenas" (Composed by Henry Purcell) (Libretto by Nahum Tate) (1689) [Sung by Timothy Spall]
Piano Sonata No.8 in c minor, op. 13, commonly known as "Sonata Pathétique" (Composed by Ludwig van Beethoven) (1798 – 1799)
HERE WE MEET TOO SOON TO PART (Written by John Clare) [Sung at the soiree by Alice Bailey Johnson]
Pretty Kitty, the maid of the mill from "Harry le Roy, a Heroic Pastoral Burletta" (Lyrics by J. Pocock and music by H.R. Bishop) [Sung at the soiree by Alice Bailey Johnson]
Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from "Nabucco" (Written by Giuseppe Verdi) [Hummed by John Mayall, the photographer]
Blu-ray Image Quality – eOne Entertainment has done us proud with releasing one of the best films of 2014 with this Blu-ray disc. The 1080p encoded hi-definition digital-to-digital transfer ably handles the year's best cinematography and the lovely evocation of Mr. J.M.W. Turner's worlds on and off the canvas that excels in rich hues and bracingly sharp detail, especially in texture of the materials used in the film. Anchored by a rock-solid black level, the pretty picture loses nothing in translation to what you view. This Blu-ray of the film ‘MR. TURNER’ is presented as gorgeous and impressive images as I have seen in a very long time. We hear that Richard "Dick" Pope, B.S.C.’s approach to the film was primarily to evoke the stunning approach to the man and his paintings, and not only just to witness in seeing the artist reproduce his works. To do this Richard "Dick" Pope, sought to find a way to use the same kind of palette and colouring as Mr. J.M.W. Turner’s paintings for the film. Mr. J.M.W. Turner used warm yellow in the highlights and blue/teal in the shadows as his two main complementary colours. Indeed this seems to be borne out by the chart of colour pigments available to him at the time and as displayed at Tate Britain. Mr. J.M.W. Turner’s use of these two complimentary colours adheres very well to colour grading theory, in that if you add yellow to your highlights and blue to your shadows, basically split toning the highlights and shadows, you change the world around the subject but skin tones remain the same. And kudos of course goes to Dan Taylor's Art Direction, Charlotte Watts's Set Decoration and the Costume Design by Jacqueline Durran. Please Note: Playback Region B/2: This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Learn more about Blu-ray region specifications.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – eOne Entertainment has given us in the audio department, the brilliant and wonderful 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio experience that does not miss a beat in its clarity and immersive soundscape. Discrete placement of sound effects in the mix strongly but subtly evokes period and place while clearly prioritising dialogue and giving a full treatment to music when present. The impressive score was done by Gary Yershon, who Mike Leigh's used in the excellent film ‘Happy-Go-Lucky,’ and augmented by Henry Purcell's Dido's Lament from the Opera "Dido and Aenas" and Beethoven's "Sonata Pathétique." This is where the track sounds rich and wonderful and the atmospheric score helps the classic mood for the period of the film itself. The only slightly negative aspect to the audio presentation is that sometimes Timothy Spall sort of grunts and his speech sometimes is not quite clear and at times I had to turn up the volume.
Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
Special Feature: Making of “The Many Colours of Mr. Turner” [2014] [1080p] [2.40:1 / 1.78:1] [30:32] Here we have a look at the long process of getting the film from idea to screen, a glimpse into production meetings, Mr. J.M.W. Turner's period and style, his character contrasts, secondary characters and their relationships with Mr. J.M.W. Turner, the core events of the timeframe the film depicts, Timothy Spall's painting tutorials, costumes and shooting locations, borrowed and replicated art and images, the cast and their characters, sets and shooting locations, and much more. We also get some of the filmmakers, including director Mike Leigh, discussing the production hurdles and desired look, which helped to make the film look rich and totally satisfying experience. At the start of this wonderful intimate documentary, Mike Leigh talks about why he wanted to make the film ‘Mr. TURNER,’ which came about just after finishing the film ‘TOPSY-TURVY,’ and at the same time Mike Leigh was reading the autobiography about Mr. J.M.W. Turner and felt his paintings were very cinematic. Mike Leigh also felt the character of Mr. J.M.W. Turner was a very complex character that was ideal to be made into a film and they battled for many years to get the film off the ground. Georgina Lowe [Producer] also tells us that they were so keen to make the film and when they went to the Cannes Film Festival with the Mike Leigh film ‘Another Year’ [2010] it was there that they announced they were going to make the film ‘Mr. TURNER,’ and in order to also try and raise the funds to make the film. Richard "Dick" Pope, [Director of Photography] informs us that he felt the film was not about a portrait painter or someone who is not into still life, it is more about a painter who likes a broad canvas that are visually widescreen in dimension, as well as being epic about his work. We get to visit Wentworth Woodhouse [Grade I listed country house] that is situated in the village of Wentworth, near Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England, which they use as the location for the Royal Academy of Arts, which was an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London in 1768, but is now housed in Somerset House, which is now located in the Strand, City of Westminster in London. Timothy Spall [Mr. J.W.M. Turner] tells us that when he lived in Battersea in London as a child he had never heard of the painter Mr. J.W.M. Turner, which is a sort of stone throw away from the Tate Gallery which Timothy use to visit and while wandering around eventually came upon Mr. J.M.W. Turner amazing paintings, which at first Timothy thought they were Impressionist paintings, which of course was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists, but eventually realised the painter was English and was bowled over by what Timothy Spall witnessed, but despite that at the time he did not know much about Mr. J.W.M. Turner. We also find out that Mr. J.W.M. Turner was a very hard and dedicated towards his artistic work and because of his dedication there are estimated to be at least 20,000 paintings, which also includes personal drawings and sketches. We find out from Jacqueline Riding [Consultant Art Historian] that Mr. J.W.M. Turner is a man of his training of the Georgian period, although many people have described him as a Victorian artist, and this period was when Romantic British Landscape paintings really came into their own, because over on the Continent of Europe there were wars going on, so artists would travel more and more around the United Kingdom. Timothy Spall says that he had read around 20 to 30 books on the artist Mr. J.W.M. Turner, especially the biographies and especially what other artists influenced Mr. J.W.M. Turner. We find out from Paul Jesson [William Turner] that the Father was successful businessman as a barber and wig maker, but by the end of the 18th century his wig business was in decline and that is why he wanted to dedicate his son into pursuing a career as an artist. When Timothy Spall started to look into his character he was to play, Timothy did a lot of detective work on the life and times of Mr. J.W.M. Turner and how this person worked. Mike Leigh tells us that the film looked at the last 20 years of the artist’s life and the relationship he had with the Margate landlady Mrs. Booth, which was a great influence in the life of the artist, but sadly people at the time did not understand his paintings, especially Queen Victoria. Marion Bailey [Sophia Booth] talks about her character as Mrs. Booth and there is a lot of information about this particular woman and her involvement with the artist Mr. J.W.M. Turner, who dedicated her life to Mr. J.W.M. Turner and in his well-being and Mr. J.W.M. Turner found great peace with Mrs. Booth. Dorothy Atkins [Hannah Danby] was the niece of Sarah Danby and went to work for Mr. J.W.M. Turner at the age of 23 years of age, and Sarah Danby was the first mistress of Mr. J.W.M. Turner and Hannah Darby stayed loyal to the artist for 40 years as his housekeeper and was left the house which was in the will, but died a year after the death of the artist. The reason Mike Leigh wanted to make the film on the life and times of Mr. J.W.M. Turner was because he felt the man was honest, dishonest, totally truthful and thoroughly disingenuous, who also liked to embrace the truth, but sadly was in total denial with his children. Mr. J.W.M. Turner was also a person who was very emotionally upfront and at the same time could be very difficult. Here we get to see Timothy Spall with his painting tutor Tim Wright and teaching how to paint like Mr. J.W.M. Turner and try to make him feel like the 18th Century painter and Timothy Spall spent well over 2 years learning how to paint like Mr. J.W.M. Turner and Timothy found it very difficult to concentrate while being filmed and also had 56 people watching him while being filmed, but even more so having Mike leigh watching him also and over time Timothy got more confident. We also get to meet the artist Charlie Cobb who prepared the paintings that Timothy Spall would work on and you see how the paintings were prepared and when you see the finished paintings, they are of course only reproductions. Timothy Spall was really bowled over by Suzie Davies [Production Designer] and her work in making the Royal Academy of Arts look real and seeing all of the paintings on the walls and ceilings, which were able to be recreated because they had the original catalogue of the actual layout of the paintings in the 18th Century. We meet Jane Brodie [Art Department Assistant] and talks about the involvement in the film and we find out that they had to display over 250 paintings to recreate the look of the real thing and if they had to actually recreate the paintings for real, it would have taken them to paint four paintings a day, but instead Mike Leigh and his team contacted as many people who had the original painting around the world and loaned the paintings out free of charge. We also meet the other actors who were representing the artists in the film and they were Fred pearson [Sir William Beechey]; Roger Ashton-Griffiths [Henry William Pickersgill]; Clive Francis [Sir Martin Archer Shee]; Tom Edden [Charles Robert Leslie]; Jamie Thomas King [David Roberts]; Mark Stanley [Clarkson Frederick Stanfield] and Martin Savage [Benjamin Robert Haydon]. They eventually found this old house in Woolwich in London to represent Mr. J.W.M. Turner home which was luckily empty and they gutted the whole place and painted it in the colours of the time, which helped Timothy Spall get into character. We also go on location to Pentworth House, which is in the parish of Petworth, West Sussex, England, and is a late 17th-century Grade I listed country house that Mr. J.W.M. Turner use to visit a lot and the national Trust were very helpful in allowing them to film inside the building, especially as there are loads of paintings by Mr. J.W.M. Turner on the walls, so giving it so much more authentic provenance for the film. All the cast and crew were asked to name their favourite Mr. J.W.M. Turner painting, and it was very difficult to name one, as there were far too many to choose, but most liked the scenes of the storms and seascapes. So all in all this was a very fascinating documentary on Mr. J.W.M. Turner and of course the film ‘Mr. TURNER,’ but we also got a fascinating look behind-the-scenes on the making of ‘Mr. TURNER.’
Theatrical Trailers: You get to view four trailers when the Blu-ray has loaded up, and they are as follows: ‘Suite Française’ [2014] [1080p] [2.35:1] [2:16]; ‘The Water Diviner’ [2014] [1080p] [2.35:1] [2:36]; ‘The Hundred-Foot Journey’ [2014] [1080p] [2.35:1] [1.59] and ‘The Homesman’ [2014] [1080p] [2.40:1] [1.59].
Finally, Mike Leigh is one of the best filmmakers and director working today and ‘Mr. TURNER’ is right up there with ‘Topsy-Turvy’ as one of his biggest undertakings ever in terms of size. But it does not quite have the narrative of the brilliant ‘Topsy-Turvy’ film, relying more on cinematic atmosphere than actual narrative and sometimes such an approach can result in great things. Running for two-and-a-half hours, the conversations and gestures in Mr. J.M.W. Turner are packed with such intense thoughts, while never taking on a sense of grand proportions, that attempting to take it all in on a single viewing can prove overwhelming. Contemplating the sublime, especially one with such deceptive crevasses, may require a lifetime. And the film’s final turn towards the age of mechanical art, especially steam engines and, most frightening to Mr. J.M.W. Turner, photography and places him in a context of a man caught in the wrong time. It’s not that these sequences lack the majestic rigor of Mike Leigh’s artful camera movements, but that Mr. J.M.W. Turner’s most refreshing aspect, an elusiveness of meaning, evaporates in order to bring closure to the character and the film. Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
