Grunting is acting?

Turner was known to be brusque to the point of rudeness and lacking formal education or manners. Only his undoubted genius made all these personality flaws easy to ignore.
The scene of his easy repartee with the distinguished members of the Royal Academy made it clear that his rough ways were overlooked by his talent.

If you were expecting a Sir John Gielgud mellifluous flow of English you were doubtless disappointed, but I saw an actor at the peak of his powers showing more with a rumble in his throat, a cocked eyebrow and a dismissive wave of the hand than any showy "play acting"







Come on lads, bags of swank!

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What I was taken by its how, despite the frequent grunted communication, he was also scrupulously polite when called for.

It is acting, but only if it expresses something. Actor's just grunting in the movie to clear his throat is stupid. Actor's grunting to express emotion or thought that helps to define the character and be a pivotal element in the story, while perfectly succeeding in it, that's acting. I think grunting was perfect element in this great movie, same way as hunching Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood. Part of being good actor is to invent those small details about the character that defines him on completely day to day level, like the way he is walking with that umbrella. All of us have some kind of twitches that we don't notice, capturing this in the character and making it consistent and important part of his life, that's acting. Note how grunting evolved from occasional grunting to almost complete replacement of his speech. You know there are people like that, I think it was very realistic.

Did I mention what a great movie that is? Watching it was probably the same experience as the people in Turner's time gazed upon his paintings. The experience and ability of the artist, in our case Mike Leigh, is undoubted and you can always trust he knows what he is doing.

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But has it been documented anywhere that Turner was a "grunter"?

Every time he grunted I thought of Marge Simpson and her sisters.