I don't want to be a sourpuss but I doubt if anyone who goes to Mike Leigh's film in the expectation of learning more about the art of William Turner will come away any the wiser. Insofar as the film succeeded at all, it was as a triumph of the cinematographer's art which I doubt was the effect intended.
I went to see Mr Turner with the best of intentions and with no desire to find fault, but I have to report that I found it over-long and ever so slightly boring. It failed to pass the Subliminal Mr Dunn's test of a good film, that is to say one that prevents you from nodding off shortly after a light meal.
As for Timothy Spall, he gave an excellent interpretation of .... Timothy Spall.
It is difficult for me to accept that people can have different opinions from me (to me?) but of course I do concede that we would be in a pretty mess if we all agreed on everything. At the same time, surely there must be an at least partially objective way of determining whether a film is, in the French expression, a navet*?
Film reviews and rewards? In this case, the respectable newspapers heaped almost universal praise on Mr Turner while it walked off with two prizes at the Cannes Film Festival (usually a bad sign). About the only journal that begged to differ was The Daily Star, which called the film "beautiful but boring". My sentiments exactly. The paper's critic concluded:
I went to see Mr Turner with the best of intentions and with no desire to find fault, but I have to report that I found it over-long and ever so slightly boring. It failed to pass the Subliminal Mr Dunn's test of a good film, that is to say one that prevents you from nodding off shortly after a light meal.
As for Timothy Spall, he gave an excellent interpretation of .... Timothy Spall.
It is difficult for me to accept that people can have different opinions from me (to me?) but of course I do concede that we would be in a pretty mess if we all agreed on everything. At the same time, surely there must be an at least partially objective way of determining whether a film is, in the French expression, a navet*?
Film reviews and rewards? In this case, the respectable newspapers heaped almost universal praise on Mr Turner while it walked off with two prizes at the Cannes Film Festival (usually a bad sign). About the only journal that begged to differ was The Daily Star, which called the film "beautiful but boring". My sentiments exactly. The paper's critic concluded:
I'm definitely in the minority, but it didn't do it for me. I spent nearly as much time looking at my watch as I did gazing at Spall and Pope's great work.
Lottery money has allowed Leigh to hoist his production values sky high. I suspect, it has also allowed him to ignore the needs of the vast majority of the people who buy the tickets.
* Navet = third-rate film
Thank goodness I'm not the only one who felt like this!
ReplyDeleteI had felt slightly guilty telling you what I thought.
But at least I reported well on the Immigration Game, didn't I.