Stealth Media on British Palme D’Or hopeful Mike Leigh

Stealth Media is tipping UK film-maker Mike Leigh to bag the Palme D’Or in this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Leigh’s film Mr. Turner is a front runner for the prestigious award that Leigh previous won in 1996 for his classic film Secrets and Lies.

Timothy Spall plays the artist JMW Turner (1775-1851) as a grunting Dickensian character, his performance is being lauded in this richly detailed character study that features the best of Leigh’s own unique style of film-making.

The camera work by Dick Pope captures the storms, clouds and vistas that the real life Turner loved to paint. The costumes and set design add to a wonderful recreation of the period. Leigh and Pope even manage to recreate some of Turner’s best known paintings.

Visual flights of fancy

Mr Turner features some great visuals but also concentrates on the mundane aspects of the artist’s life. Unlike other artist biopics there are no great affairs or scandal. Turner seems like an ordinary man with a great gift. Scenes showing his callousness towards his family stem from his preoccupation with his art.

Mike Leigh

Spall is always reliable as an actor, but this film showcases his ability to bring a historical figure to very real life on screen. Turner is often a bumbling figure, but he also possess a great intellectual curiosity and a single mindedness that explains his great work.

Geniuses are strange

Spall himself has commented about the film "It's about how genius is not in always the most romantic of packages," said Spall. "Most geniuses are strange." Leigh confirmed that two years before starting his famous lengthy rehearsal process for the film he urged Spall to work on his painting skills.

Leigh’s famous rehearsal process that helps put the film together (and often eschews a scripted blueprint) has resulted in many actors giving their greatest performances.

From Abigail to JMW Turner

Leigh’s career as a director began back in the 1970s working in television. His career really took off with the classic TV play Abigail’s Party. Originally done for the theatre the famous play was entirely improvised with Leigh working with each actor on their character.

Leigh worked on character background mostly, it’s been written in the past that Leigh and his actors worked on backgrounds from birth to the present day. The actors were given so much backstory that during the play they often appear preoppupied with other things. These preoccupations are never revealed to the audience but add to the tensions of the play and the performances.

The Palme D’Or

Competition for the Palme D’Or is always fierce but Mr Turner is definitely making the front running. It would be a deserved winner and another feather in the film-making cap of one of Britain’s best, and most unique directors.

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