Mike Leigh and Mr. Turner
For this blog I thought I’d focus on another film with interesting local connections to our shop in Twickenham. One of the town's hidden treasures is JMW Turner’s house Sandycombe Lodge in Sandycombe Road, a quiet residential street opposite Marble Hill Park.
British filmmaker Mike Leigh, another national treasure, released Mr. Turner, his prize-winning biopic of arguably Britain’s greatest painter, in 2014. Although no scenes in the finished film were actually shot at Turner’s house, (the film’s events relate to a later part of Turner’s life), Leigh took key cast members there, including Timothy Spall, for early research into the painter’s life.
Leigh has described Turner as "a great artist: a radical, revolutionary painter", and said, "I felt there was scope for a film examining the tension between this very mortal, flawed individual, and the epic work, the spiritual way he had of distilling the world".
Leigh’s approach to directing, which centres around working with actors that involves meticulous workshopping and pre-planning before the camera starts to roll, isn’t any different in Mr. Turner. With Timothy Spall superb in the title role, Leigh dissects what drives creative people to do what they do, creating a completely absorbing and compelling cinematic portrait of one of Britains greatest artists. It places Turner’s social position and maverick outsider status in the Victorian era art world, at the heart of the film. The result is a work that’s essential viewing for anyone interested in art and cinema and the links between the two.
Superficially, Mr Turner can be included as part of a trio of period-set Leigh films. Like Topsy Turvy (1999) and Peterloo (2018), the film initially doesn’t seem much like his better known contemporary ‘social realist’ dramas or comedies. However, dig a little deeper and it quickly becomes apparent that there’s the same focus on an outsider not in tune with many of his peers, and struggling to carve a niche of his own in the world, a recurring Leigh trope.
Leigh’s varied and unique career includes films as different and compelling as Bleak Moments (1971), the corrosively funny Naked (1993), Secrets and Lies (1996) and Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), as well as legendary BBC Play for Today comedy dramas Nuts in May and Abigail’s Party. What unites these films is Leigh’s profound understanding of what makes people tick, and what social behaviours make them interesting and believable as characters that we can identify with.
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