Mr. Turner (Two Disc Special Edition)   Starring: Timothy Spall, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, Lesley Manville and Martin Savage Distributor: Entertainment One RRP: £19.99 Certificate: 12 Release Date: 02 March 2015

Mr Turner (2014. 2 hrs 23 min 53 sec) is a biopic of the last ten years of J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), an English romantic painter. The film was written and directed by Mike Leigh and stars Tim Spall, Paul Jesson, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey and Ruth Sheen. The film won, among others, the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and remains nominated for numerous awards ceremonies for 2015.

When the audience first encounter Turner he is a very unusual individual. Spall portrays him as a bad tempered idiosyncratic person. Turner is rough in speech and visage, his face distorts and his grunts make him look like a pig digging for truffles. He is secretive about his personal life, to the point where it wasn’t until his death that it was discovered that he had been living as Mr Booth with a landlady from Margate for the last ten years of his life. The initial reaction is that this man is emotionally stunted, he denies the existence of his own ex-wife and children and sexually abuses his house keeper, who is even odder than Turner.

In many ways the first impression is of an unpleasant character. However the genius of the film is the contrast between Turner as the artist, a creator of great beauty and the emotionally stunted person he really is. We witness him trying to connect with others, the encounters are highly embarrassing, and he clearly has no idea how to translate his skill as an artist into his interpersonal relationships.

This may be due to the fact that he was born into a working class family, but, because of his skill, has been adopted into polite society, a place with its own rules. Turner may be adored, but he is very much a fish out of water.

Things change following the death of his father (Paul Jesson), probably the one person he truly had an emotional connection to. Following this traumatic event he continues his travels around England looking for inspiration and turns up at the door of Sophia Booth’s (Marion Bailey) boarding house. Here, finally he meet his life partner, although he keeps this a secret from the rest of the world.

Disc one contains a single extra, Making of – Many Colours of Mr Turner (30 min, 32 sec) with contributions from cast and crew. This is the way that 'Making of’'s should be made. It’s a fascinating look not only at the film and its creation but also has much to say about Turner, the man and how they came to portray him.

The look of the film is sumptuous, the colour scheme drawing heavily on Turner's own work, and the DVD does a very decent job of capturing this. There is a choice of audio tracks. The main one presents the film with in 5.1 DD, but there is also a description track and subtitles

The second DVD contains more extras, which starts with a collection of deleted scenes (19 min, 09 sec), ten in all of variable lengths. Interesting in and off themselves, nevertheless I can see why they were not included as few push the plot forward. The longest involves Turner attending a society dinner party, which tells us more about the environment than it does about the artist. Following this we have nine interviews with the principle cast and crew. Overall, they create a collection of vignettes which explores the film and the artist without turning into the usual vacuous hype that is normally served up as interviews.

Overall, this was a fascinating and wonderful film, the cast, including the supporting actors, hold the audience attention and the performances keep you riveted to the screen.

9

Charles Packer