MY KID COULD PAINT
THAT
If Your Four-Year-Old Paints And A Finished Painting In Her Room
Sells For Big Bucks, Did She Paint It?
PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "My Kid Could Paint That"
By Omar P.L. Moore/October 5, 2007
Live or Memorex? Marla Olmstead at age four, posing before one of her
paintings, several of which have sold for six-figure sums to art collectors the
world over. Filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev chronicles the scandal and sensation
swirling around young Marla, now seven, in his excellent and engaging
documentary "My Kid Could Paint That", which opened in New York and Los Angeles
today. The film expands to San Francisco and various other cities next
Friday and in the coming weeks. (Photo: Sony Pictures Classics)
"They" say that idle hands are the devil's playground, and in
2003, four-year-old Marla Olmstead's idle hands gave way to a devilish
mainstream media storm, with an almighty crucifixion of the idea that she could
ever have painted the stunning and imaginative art that her parents (Laura and
Mark Olmstead) adamantly insisted that Marla painted. Amir-Bar Lev's
documentary takes a stunning look at not just the apparent child wonderkind, but
also at the adulterated aspects of expectation, naivety and cynicism, worming
their way into a fairy-tale optical illusion. "My Kid Could Paint That" is
also an excellent examination of the age-old question of, "what is art?"
This question and the attendant discussion of it (insightfully helped along by
Michael Kimmelman, chief art critic for The New York Times) in Mr.
Bar-Lev's sterling documentary, above all other questions, will color (no pun
intended) a viewer's perception of whether young Olmstead, a resident of
Binghamton in upstate New York, painted or did not paint the artwork that is
shown in the film.
The mendacity of the 24-hour mainstream media news cycle is the chief villain of
the documentary, although the CBS "60 Minutes Wednesday" expose of February 23,
2005 on the painting star makes Laura and Mark the bad guys, and victimizes
Marla as a fraud beset by the alleged manipulation of Mark Olmstead. As
"My Kid" delves deeper, the film takes the kind of turn that so brilliantly
intrigued in Andrew Jarecki's stellar "Capturing The Friedmans" documentary of
2003 -- to such a degree here that you soon begin having trouble believing the
parents -- particularly Mark. Even Mr. Bar-Lev has his doubts, and he, in
some of the very best moments of the documentary, is caught unawares at times,
and put in almost as vulnerable a position as young Marla is. For Mr.
Bar-Lev, this is both a terrific and unwanted feat. The filmmaker becomes
part of his own work of art, and if Rodin's "The Thinker" sculpture could ever
come to life, it too would have to marvel at such a thought-provoking and
exciting documentary and the powerful and indelible effect it has on those who
view it.
There are visual cues and some subtitling of spontaneous dialogue from Marla
herself that may or may not indicate whether the paintings, shepherded in an art
gallery by its owner Anthony Brunelli, also an alternatively brusque and
charismatic artist in his own right, are the real deal. Art collectors
stagger, ponder and wonder at the paintings, and the film's director invites his
audience to indulge as well with comparisons of the paintings that Marla has
authored. The quintessential question in "My Kid" is not whether Marla
painted, but whether adults can simply appreciate the beauty of an art piece
without dissecting and endlessly doubting the source from whence it came.
Should it matter that Jackson Pollock and not Picasso painted something?
Does your like or dislike of either of these legendary artists inform the answer
to that question? Most likely, but then again, maybe not. Should it
really matter that Georgia O'Keeffe and not Leonardo DaVinci created
something? Michelangelo? If all that we dearly behold is beautiful
on an obviously subjective level and makes an deeply personal impression upon
us, does doubt as to who created the expression that makes the imprint ever make
the artwork itself any less striking -- or is it the currency in its
selling potential that is devalued? The art and commerce question are
always intertwined in Mr. Bar-Lev's documentary -- and the commodities are the
media, Marla and her parents, and ironically, not necessarily the artwork
itself.
Another impressive thing about "My Kid" is the discussion of narrative and its
imposition and perspective in any story based upon who the storyteller is.
("They say history is written by the victors," goes a line early on in the film
"Braveheart", and this is true.) Granted, the narrative discussion is not
a new phenomenon or breakthrough, but the refreshing aspect is the filmmaker's
introspection about the question of perspective and subjectivity in his own
discussions with Elizabeth Cohen -- a journalist who first broke the story on
Marla -- and Mr. Kimmelman, achieving the very effect of unwanted intrusion into
Mr. Bar-Lev's conscience that Marla's parents -- who have since disowned their
participation in the film that they (naively) hoped would clear their name --
desperately sought to avoid.
An artistic treat and a filmmaking feat, "My Kid Could Paint This", which played
at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is a collector's treasure.
"My Kid Could Paint That" is rated PG-13 for language by the Motion Picture
Association of America. The film's duration is one hour and 22 minutes.
The film opened today in New York and Los Angeles, and will to expand across the
U.S. and Canada over the next few weeks.
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