Some great artists have had the biopics they’ve deserved (Vincent van Gogh), some haven’t (Pablo Picasso) and some are yet to get one at all (Tony Hart). By all accounts, J. M. W. Turner could be pretty satisfied with Mike Leigh’s take on his later years, Mr. Turner. A Cannes favourite this year and already a critical darling, it has a new poster to share with you and a bus stop near you in the not-to-distant future. Centering on the final 25 years of his life, **Mr. Turner **picks up with the artist desolate after the death of his father and polarising the artistic community and public alike with his iconoclastic approach to life. He journeys the land, painting, visiting brothels and calling on the good graces of the aristocracy, at one point clambering the mast of a ship in a snowstorm to better capture the scene on canvas. Even Tony Hart doesn’t live that hard, although he does have Morph to think about.
Like Mozart and Jackson Pollock, Turner’s genius was tempered by, well, temper. “[He] was eccentric, anarchic, vulnerable, imperfect, erratic and sometimes uncouth,” Leigh told The Telegraph. “He could be selfish and disingenuous, mean yet generous, and he was capable of great passion and poetry.” The film’s trailer (below) majors on his rivalry with artist peers John Constable (James Fleet) and John Ruskin (Joshua McGuire).
brightcove.createExperiences();Mr. Turner arrives in UK cinemas on October 31.