NYFF: Mike Leigh and Dick Pope Begin Oscar Preparations with 'Mr Turner'
Saturday, October 4, 2014 at 9:00PM 
It wasn’t just the obvious reasons relating to being a fan of William Turner that made Mike Leigh want to make Mr. Turner. No, what it essentially boiled down to for the British director and his long-gestating passion project was that, essentially, Turner was a clear-cut case of “a Mike Leigh character”. Hearing Leigh describe the famed artist this way actually made me go back and think about the role given that Turner, as portrayed by Timothy Spall in his Cannes-winning performance, hardly comes off as from the same working class terrain of Leigh’s most famous films like Secrets and Lies or Another Year.
I’m still not entirely sure how the statement holds, but the press conference that followed Friday afternoon's screening of Leigh’s lush, gorgeously produced 150-minute biopic did allow for some typically keen insight from the man and his cast and crew who will surely be out there campaigning for the film throughout awards season hoping to crash an already strong roster of British biopics with style and grace typical of a Leigh movie.
A question about the film’s comically foppish representation of Victorian era art critic John Ruskin proved an interesting history lesson with Leigh hailing him as “the first modern critic of the time”. I appreciated the extra illumination that was given towards the character played by Dorothy Atkinson who described her character’s history being based on facts and that her disfiguring skin condition would “frightening people when she opened to door to let them in”. Most surprising was when Spall spoke of how he took painting lessons in the two-and-a-half years between being asked to do the project in 2010 and when finally the production go the funds. Adding:
I got quite heavily into the whole process of all that, and I was taught by a brilliant guy and portraitist called Tim Riley who took me through all the disciplines up to the point where I was able to do a full-size copy of a Turner painting… I couldn’t do it then, but I managed to do it then.
If viewers of Mr. Turner are like me then they’re most be taken by the film’s cinematography by Dick Pope, who I have a hard time believing won't snag his second Oscar nomination come January. The work, painterly and beautiful, reminded me a lot of Girl with a Pearl Earring in the way the work of the film's subject was transformed into moving images on the cinema screen.
Hearing Pope discuss his and Leigh’s method for capturing the gorgeous images was filled with wonderful bonmots of information about the craft that can only be admired and respected. He better get used to talking about it since he'll be doing quite a bit of it.
It was less reproducing the work, more evoking the spirit of what he was looking at, what he was seeing, what inspired him. What drove him, drove us. We studied together, Mike and I, everything we shot and decided when we were going to be there at what time of the day. We were blessed with wonderful weather last year when we made the film, when we shot it. This fantastic summer. … A lot of people have come up to me and said, ‘That’s CG, isn’t it?’ – like hell it is [the crowd laughs wildly]. ... The other thing to say about the visuals is that I studied Turner’s palate quite a lot at The Tate where they have fantastic resources for everything on Turner, about the paints he used. So we took that. In a way, the film is colored, the colorization of the film, is very much in the palate of what Turner was using at the time.
Mr. Turner won't make it's way into cinemas until late December, but Mike Leigh will give a free 60-minute talk sponsored by HBO at NYFF tomorrow, Sunday the 5th, at 2.30pm.
Reader Comments (6)
I'll say it first: It's so unfortunate that Mike Leigh doesn't have an Oscar yet.
the cinematography on this was amazing. I'd heard that from Cannes but seeing is believing (especially with festival hyperbole). It's really the most gorgeous of Leigh's movies in terms of the camera and lighting... though Topsy Turvy may still have a case of most gorgeous of all due to everything (costumes, production design, etcetera)
What is the acting like,any surprises as is usual with Leigh,he manges to find the diamonds in the stones.
mark - I think Michael is writing a review for publication soon, Unfortuantely i was sick during the screening so i missed a chunk of the movie so I don't feel right reviewing it BUT I will say that Lesley Manville, who was so good in Topsy Turvy and Another Year was really vivid and warm (though she really only has one scene - albeit a big one) and Marion Bailey as "Mrs Booth" a woman who runs a bed & breakfast that Mr Turner begins to frequent was by far the MVP and definitely a supporting actress contender if AMPAS likes the film at all. She doesn't show up for awhile but she becomes very important and Bailey is super charming, attractive, and fun in a movie where many of the characters are grunting, off-putting, and dour so she really stands out.
A lovely movie, and the cinematography is to die for. At the Q&A yesterday afternoon Dick Pope made the audience gasp - literally - by revealing that it was shot entirely digital. He fooled me too. It's one of the most gorgeous digital presentations I've ever seen. Cool fun fact, which I think has since been circulating on twitter: Pope used very old lenses that, among other things, were used in the filming of Spartacus and, even cooler, on the first ascent of Mount Everest.
Roark, that's a great tidbit. And shows digital doesn't have to look flat and ugly and like bad reality television, but can rather match the warmth and beauty of 35mm.