New Trailer for Mike Leigh's 'Mr. Turner' Starring Timothy Spall

Mike Leigh's last film was four years ago with the wonderful, seasonal drama Another Year, but he made his return to Cannes with the period biopic, Mr. Turner. Starring Timothy Spall in a rare leading turn, his performance as controversial landscape artist J.M.W. Turner earned him Cannes' Best Actor award, and elevated him to Oscar hopeful for later this year. As the film makes its way stateside, a new U.S. trailer has been released. Here's the official synopsis:

MR. TURNER explores the last quarter century of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851). Profoundly affected by the death of his father, loved by a housekeeper he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually lives incognito in Chelsea, where he dies.

Throughout this, he travels, paints, stays with the country aristocracy, visits brothels, is a popular if anarchic member of the Royal Academy of Arts, has himself strapped to the mast of a ship so that he can paint a snowstorm, and is both celebrated and reviled by the public and by royalty.

Sony Pictures Classics will roll out Mr. Turner on December 19th. 

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'Winter Sleep' Wins Palme d'Or at Cannes; Bennett Miller Wins Best Director for 'Foxcatcher'

The curtain has drawn on the glamorous 64th Cannes Film Festival, and the event came to a close with polarizing Turkish film Winter Sleep taking home the prestigious Palme d'Or. Clocking in at over 3 hours, the second year in a row a film of that length has won, Winter's Sleep was directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan who accepted the award from Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman. Some had surmised that Jane Campion's majority-female jury would be more open to selecting Naomi Kawase's acclaimed film, Still the Water, but we saw that gender ultimately played no part.

Taking home the Grand Prix was Alice Rohrwacher's The Wonders, while Bennett Miller won the top directing award for Foxcatcher, which is expected to be an Oscar contender later this year. Timothy Spall won best actor for Mike Leigh's highly-praised Mr. Turner, and Julianne Moore took home best actress for David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars.

The full list of winners is below.

Palme d’Or: “Winter Sleep” (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey-Germany-France)
Grand Prix: “The Wonders” (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy-Switzerland-Germany)
Director: Bennett Miller, “Foxcatcher” (U.S.)
Actor: Timothy Spall, “Mr. Turner” (Mike Leigh, U.K.-France-Germany)
Actress: Julianne Moore, “Maps to the Stars” (David Cronenberg, Canada-Germany)
Jury Prize (tie): “Mommy” (Xavier Dolan, Canada) and “Goodbye to Language” (Jean-Luc Godard, France)
Screenplay: Andrey Zvyagintsev and Oleg Negin, “Leviathan” (Russia)
Camera d’Or: “Party Girl” (Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger, Samuel Theis)
Short Films Palme d’Or: “Leidi” (Simon Mesa Soto)
Short Films Special Mention: “Aissa” (Clement Trehin-Lalanne)
Ecumenical Jury Prize: “Timbuktu” (Abderrahmane Sissako, Mauritania-France)

UN CERTAIN REGARD

Un Certain Regard Prize: “White God” (Kornel Mundruczo, Hungary-Germany-Sweden)
Jury prize: “Force Majeure” (Ruben Ostlund, Sweden-France-Denmark-Norway)
Special Prize: “The Salt of the Earth” (Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, France-Italy)
Ensemble: “Party Girl” (Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger, Samuel Theis, France)
Actor: David Gulpilil, “Charlie’s Country” (Rolf de Heer, Australia)

DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT

Art Cinema Award: “Les Combattants” (Thomas Cailley, France)
Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers Prize: “Les Combattants”
Europa Cinemas Label: “Les Combattants”

CRITICS’ WEEK

Grand Prize: “The Tribe” (Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, Ukraine)
Visionary Prize: “The Tribe”
Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers Prize: “Hope” (Boris Lojkine, France)

FIPRESCI

Competition: “Winter Sleep”
Un Certain Regard: “Jauja” (Lisandro Alonso, Denmark-U.S.-Argentina)
Directors’ Fortnight: “Les Combattants”

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