The Art of the Steal

As a movie, it would have made a better book (or, failing that, a New Yorker piece). It's your basic talking heads, carefully arranged to lead you to the author's viewpoint. As a polemic it failed to convince me that I really should give a damn. Maybe it's just me, but on some fundamental level I can't get worked up about people not following some dead guy's wishes, and I was never convinced that it was some crime against humanity to move the art from its already artificial setting.

Great documentary a little bias, but a story very well told and worth telling. Also raises great questions about respecting the wishes of a person who dies or opening great cultural works for the public and for the money.

An excellent viewing of exquisite art, but ultimately a boring story about the control of the Barnes estate. I am not a big fan of so many talking heads. I would liked to see more of the artwork instead.

Excellent documentary.

Holy shit is this a mischievous and dastardly conspiracy. The film itself may be polemic, but there are certain facts that are inescapable. The main point being the exploitation of a private, educational collection of great art, corrupted in the name of the almighty dollar.

It would make a stronger case for outrage if it relied more on the remarkable nature of the institution in danger of being lost as reason, but snaking through the political machinations surrounding the Barnes is fascinating enough in and of itself.

"Argott advances Wire creator David Simon's art to offer a leaner, meaner template for complex investigative filmmaking." - Kevin B. Lee

Mostly compelling doc on a generally uninteresting topic.

An absolutely stellar documentary.

All the evidence is pulled together in compelling fashion as person after person testifies about the betrayal of Barnes's legacy and wishes. Argott makes the film into the equivalent of a page-turner with each new revelation stirring fresh animosity towards those orchestrating the exploitation of the collection in the name of tourism dollars and transferred prestige. It seems a small matter in the description of it, but Argott manages to make it seem like malfeasance of the highest import.

Barnes is a fascinating person and the film starts off well. However, the film started losing me when it didn't ask certain questions, namely--was there really a way to finance the Barnes collection as he wished? and did the trustees do a good job managing the financial aspects of the institution? The film demonizes Annenberg and the Philadelphia Museum, but if the Barne's collection was not financially viable or mismanaged, then Annenberg, etc. aren't really villains.

This documentary not only depicts the absurd power held by the colluding and money-blind heads of Philadelphia, but also the death of the rights of the Western individual. If this is an example of the future of 1951, well, bleak is a word to describe ours.