Since Amir Bar-Lev's "The Tillman Story" is one of the best documentaries of the year I thought we should take a look back at his previous film.
This played briefly in the Raleigh area 3 years ago and is now available on DVD and streaming on Netflix Instant:
"My Kid Could Paint That" (Dir. Amir Bar-Lev, 2007)
Is Marla Olmstead just a regular 4 year old who likes to paint or is she a artistic genius on the scale of the great masters?
Bar-Lev's documentary filmed a few years back follows the Olmsteads - a family from Binghampton, NY whose youngest daughter's abstract canvasses cause a sensation in the art world.
Her paintings are sold for thousands attracting media attention and then controversy. A "60 Minutes" piece claims that Marla's father (Mark Olmstead) actually coached the work out of her or actually produced the paintings himself.
This is where the narrative arc becomes “a story about a story” as Elizabeth Cohen (the columnist who first broke the original story of Marla as child prodigy) says. Parents Mark and Laura Olmstead are outraged at the accusation that they are exploiting their child and attempt to prove that Marla is the sole author of her work by filming her with a hidden camera.
The plot thickens even more as filmmaker Bar-Lev has growing doubts and voices them, at first alone to his camera in the car driving from the Olmstead home then directly to the parents in an extremely uncomfortable but still compelling scene in their living room.
The cleverly named "My Kid Could Paint That" is one of the best of the current crop of documentaries and one that leaves you guessing about what really went down much like "Capturing The Friedmans" or the more recent "The King Of Kong".
Having been introduced to these folk through these visual essays, whether or not they are balanced portraits, we can follow up through the further internet coverage and make our own conclusions. In Marla's unique case we are shown many of her paintings and much footage of her at work.
Her father Mark does seem to have a controlling influence and her work when filmed on her own appears to be different by style and method to the previous examples.
Mark Olmstead also seems overly defensive and makes some 'digging a hole' type comments like: “I don't want this documentary to be about '60 Minutes' although everybody wants to talk about 60 Minutes but I'm not! Because I don't talk about it ever until you guys are around!”
Still, as Bar-Lev sensitively stresses through-out the film Marla and her family seem like nice people who got caught up in the craziness of modern art marketing and manipulation. It's hard not to have sympathy for their situation but if the attacks on the arts authorship have truth to them it's pretty damning nonetheless.
Mother Linda at a frustrated moment says “documentary gold” right before tearfully walking off camera - she says it extremely sarcastically but it may be the most truthful remark made in this movie.
When Marla comes of age it will be interesting to hear what she says about her parents and painting dominated childhood - a prospect that I'm sure Bar-Lev is looking forward to.
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