Now that My Policeman is out, I just have to mention from the viewpoint of my artsy oriented brain how gorgeous they thread the theme and visual connections of art and real life throughout the movie. Specially, so much focus on their hands, the touches to marble to the touches of body, the way Patrick sees Tom almost as a piece of art himself, sculpture or painting of everything he desires. It ties beautifully together and really paints (no pun intended that time) the picture of how both Patrick and Marion see Tom and see who he is beyond the surface. I just love it and bravo to Michael and his team for making that happen.
"You don't have to. That's the wonderful thing about it. It's about reacting to it. Feeling it, if you like. It's not really anything to do with knowledge"
The house in Peacehaven that Tom picks out for his and Marion's retirement is tied to the Turner painting he and Patrick first connect over.
"How does it make you feel?", Patrick asks. The feelings Tom describes, "Like swimming in rough surf" and the ensuing conversation is foreshadowing for what is about to happen to their lives.
There's a reason Grandage picked this scene as the opening of the first teaser for the film.
Forty years on, Tom has chosen to live out his life in a house with a side view of the sea. The sea, with its rough waves, is a permanent feature of the house and it's the connection to his memories of Patrick.
The painting is "Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth Making Signals in Shallow Water" by J.M.W. Turner, 1842. It's a (heavy handed) metaphor for the story, Tom at the center of a storm of emotions. Patrick and Marion the warring sea and storm. He is the light at the center of the storm, fighting against the waves and snow to stay afloat long enough to make it shore.
Turner belonged to the Romantic movement in art, music, and literature. Think Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin. The Romantic movement was all about emotions and individualism. Turner's style of painting to depict the movement of natural elements would go on to influence the Impressionist, Post-Impressionists, and Modernists. The Turner Prize is named after him.
“It felt so strangely personal, to look at your own life and think: ‘How would I have coped?’ How lucky am i to not [have to] worry my reputation could be destroyed, or I could lose friends. Now, I’m able to proudly say that I’m gay.”
David Dawson on how My Policeman made him feel grateful and proud of his sexuality, via British vogue.