ART AND CRAFT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - HOT DOCS 2014 - Philanthropic Art Forgeries yield a HOT DOCS MUST-SEE

Is this Willy Loman?
Nope. It's art philanthropist Mark Landis.
In the parlance of The Blues Brothers,
he's "on a mission from God." 

Art and Craft (2014) ****
Dir. Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman
Co-Dir/Editor: Mark Becker

Review By Greg Klymkiw

For thirty years, Mark Landis travelled the highways and byways of the United States of America in his big, old red cadillac, donating priceless works of art to innumerable prestigious galleries. In return, he asked for nothing. He wanted neither recognition nor money. Hell, he didn't even want tax breaks. All Landis wanted was to give. And damn, he gave! He gave, in the Red Cross parlance, ever-so generously. Curators, administrators and various art mavens were happy to accept his donations and mount the works of art in their galleries. Everything from Picasso to Matisse to Charles Courtney Curran graced their walls. The list, it seems, goes on and on.

And on. And on. And on. But here's the rub.

The Good Father prepares...

Mark Landis never donated the work as Mark Landis. He used a variety of aliases, replete with elaborate backstories and costumes. His most dynamic pseudonym was that of a solemn, black-robed Father Arthur Scott (replete with a pin of the Jesuit Order).

And if it's a rub, you're looking for, here's the MEGA-rub: Every single work of art he donated was a forgery of the highest order.

And if that's not rub-a-dub-dub-rub-enough for you, Mark Landis was the forger.

So, here's the question:

If you forge great works of art to the point where even the experts are bamboozled and you donate the works pseudonymously with no financial remuneration or even credit, does this make you a criminal? Or better yet, are you any less an artist because of it? Well, let's just say the movie doesn't go out of its way to answer these queries directly, but I suspect most viewers will have no problem drawing their own conclusions.

American Impressionist makes for fine forgery.

Art and Craft is the stuff movies (and by extension, dreams) are made of. Filmmakers Cullman, Grausman and Becker have fashioned a thoroughly engaging portrait of an artist as an old man, but not just any garden variety artist. Landis is a sweet, committed, meticulous and gentle craftsman of the highest order. In fact, he's no mere copy cat, he is an artist - reproducing with astonishing detail work that touches and moves, not only himself, but millions. Furthermore, he might well be the ultimate performance artist insofar as his entire life seems like a veritable work of art and certainly, his "cons" in costume are also art of the highest order.

Like any great story, though, there is always an antagonist and much of the film details the cat and mouse game between Landis and Matthew Leininger, a former Cincinnati art registrar who caught on to the wily, old forger. He became so obsessed with tracking him down and exposing the fraud that he eventually lost his job and continued his dogged detective work as a stay-at-home Dad. This was, for me, one of the more interesting elements of the tale - not just for its dramatic conflict, but because it presents a portrait of the two sides of that coin known as the art world.

Landis always comes across as a genuinely brilliant and creative force. Leininger, on the other hand, seems typical of the administrative side of the art world: a petty stickler who plays strictly by the rules and in so doing, displays the kind of frustrating, unimaginative Kafkaesque paper pushing that makes the art world a much lesser place than it could be. That said, Leininger scores a few points for being such a persnickety schlub that his compulsion comes close to destroying his own career via this dogged pursuit.

Landis, of course, is nothing less than a delight - a kind of Willy Loman of art forgery and philanthropy. Wisely, the film fleshes out his life and provides ample information about his strange, lonely childhood, his complicated but loving relationships with his parents and his struggles with mental illness. No fascinating stone is left unturned in the film and the whole experience is never less than enthralling.

Art and Craft proves once again that truth is stranger than fiction, but that a good story is never enough to make a good film, but that it must be a story well told. The filmmakers acquit themselves to this pursuit more than admirably. The movie is as compelling as it is inspiring and happily, it offers some genuine surprises along the way which go straight for the heart and deliver moments as deeply moving as a lot of the art that clearly touches the soul of its protagonist, artist Mark Landis.

Art and Craft is playing at Toronto's Hot Docs 2014. For ticket info, visit the festival website HERE.

"THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE" + "CHIMERAS" + "FELIX AUSTRIA!" - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw - Klymkiw's Bases-are-loaded HOT DOCS 2013 HOT PICKS

The Ghosts in Our Machine (2013) ****
Dir. Liz Marshall

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Okay, so something funny happened on the way to my home in the country. My wife and child, both being inveterate tree-huggers, got the craziest idea. What they wanted to do sounded like one hell of a lot of work. They promised I would not have to avail my services upon any aspect of their venture. Well, good intentions and all that, but now I find I'm not only a gentleman farmer, but involved in the rescue of animals living in horrid conditions and headed for inevitable slaughter. Now, it's not that I'm some kind of anti-environmental redneck or something, but what I love about living in the country is sitting in my dark office, smoking cigarettes, watching movies and writing. I occasionally step over to the window, part the curtains briefly and look outside to acknowledge - Ah yes, nature! I then happily return to my prodigious activities.

You see, prior to becoming a gentleman farmer, I liked the IDEA of nature, the IDEA of being in deep bush, the IDEA of living off-grid on solar energy. Well, more than the ideas, really, since I did enjoy all of the above in practice, but in my own way.

Now, I have animals. Shitloads of them that my wife, daughter and eventually I rescued from misery with the assistance of a super-cool Amish dude.

Needless to say, when watching Liz Marshall's film, I was completely blown away. You see, having experienced the joy of coming to know a variety of animals, I eventually realized that all of God's creatures I mistook for being little more than blobs of meat with nothing resembling character, spirit or intelligence was just downright stupid. I've always had dogs and THEY certainly have character, spirit and intelligence - so why NOT chickens? Or donkeys? Or hell, even bees.

Marshall's film, you see, focuses upon someone I'd have to classify as a saint. Photographer Jo-Anne McArthur is not only an astounding artist of the highest order, but by restricting her activities to mostly photographing animals in the most horrendous captivity, she's risked both her life and mental health. Given my recently-acquired predilection for animal rights, I watched Marshall's film three times. Yes, on a first viewing I was far too emotionally wound up to keep my cap of critical detachment on, but now I'm perfectly convinced of the film's importance in terms of both subject AND cinema. It's a finely wrought piece of work that takes huge risks on so many levels in order to present a stunningly etched portrait of the heroic McArthur and HER subjects - all those animals being tortured to fill the bellies of ignoramuses and line the pockets of corporate criminals. (Not that I'm planning to go Vegan anytime soon, but I do believe that ANYONE who consumes any animal product derived from cruel meat factories as opposed to natural free-range is no better than a torturer and murderer.)

Not kidding about that, either.

What you see in this film will shock you. There is no denying what both Marshall and McArthur see and capture with their respective cameras. Creatures with individual souls and personalities are being hunted, incarcerated in conditions akin to concentration camps and/or bred in captivity and tortured until they are slaughtered. Equally frustrating are the corporate boneheads in a variety of publishing industries devoted to generating purported journalism - the difficulty with which McArthur must suffer to get her work published and to bring attention to these atrocities gets me so magma-headed I need to almost be physically restrained from going "postal".

You must see this movie.

If you're a coward, loser and/or asshole and don't want to see the truth, then fuck you!

Chimeras (2013) ***
Dir. Mika Mattila

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Two artists. One rich and famous. The other - well, not so much. Both are on opposite ends of the art world spectrum. One does commercial art, the other - well, not so much. Is our tale situated then, in the two different NYC worlds of Madison Avenue and the Village respectively? Nope. We're talking China - the nation poised to be the ultimate superpower. And artists, no matter who they are grapple with common issues. They both want to pursue a purely Asian style, which is all well and good until one has to grapple with the intricacies of Communism vs. traditional Eastern philosophy and religion vs. the strange contemporary cusp period China is in which blends the tenets of a free market with Totalitarianism. Add to this heady brew the increasing and almost overwhelming influence of North American culture and artists young and old, rich and poor, seasoned and neophyte - who are grappling with a conundrum of overwhelming proportions. Director Mika Mattila steadies his gaze upon these two poles of experience through two artists and delivers are nicely made exploratory rumination upon these complex ideas. The picture is a tiny bit precious in its approach, but patience will yield rewards for discriminating viewers.

Felix Austria (2013) **1/2
Dir. Christine Beebe

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The dandy, well-dressed fellow is Felix Pfeifle from Modesto, California and director Christine Beebe offers up this scattershot, though often mind-blowingly imaginative documentary film which, being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are Viennese high culture, ultra-Austro-Hungarian-aristocracy and Archduke Otto von Habsburg, makes for a mostly intriguing mix of personal journey, obsession and history. Felix has dreams about his obsessions and this is where the film shines. Like some perverse coupling of Guy Maddin and Jan Svankmajer (with dollops of the Brothers Quay), we're treated to the sort of dazzlingly sumptuous cinema magic one would want from a film that focuses upon the aforementioned individual. Less interesting to me is Felix's real life which keeps getting in the way of the glorious dream sequences, his Austro-monarchical fetishes and finally, the astonishing moments where we lays eyes upon the last living descendant of the empire Felix so desperately adores. There is also the interesting exploration of a mysterious, huge box that arrives from the estate of one Herbert Hinckle (which, for some reason forces me to imagine some ancient, wizened version of Travis Bickle in his dotage). The package contains a wealth of materials to keep Felix in a state of perpetual orgasm for the rest of his life and it is elements such as these which make the film ultimately a worthwhile experience.

"THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE", "CHIMERAS" and "FELIX AUSTRIA!" are all playing at the Hot Docs 2013 Filom Festival. For tickets and showtimes visit the Hot Docs website HERE.