[CPProt.net] Isabella Stewart Gardner museum theft: Newport Film Festival: Whodunit? Who knows?

[CulPropProtNet/MuSecNetwork]

Newport Film Festival: Whodunit? Who knows?

By James J. Gillis/Daily News staff


Director Rebecca Dreyfus, left, and producer Susannah Ludwig answer
questions after Thursday's screening of 'Stolen.' (David Hansen/Daily News
staff)
http://www.newportdailynews.com/articles/2005/06/10/news/news3.txt


NEWPORT - It's a whodunit in which you never find out who did it.

But the film "Stolen" is much more about the public loss of art, the
would-be crime solvers and a cast of real-life characters who would be
hard to invent. It screened at the Newport Art Museum Thursday night as
part of the eighth annual Newport International Film Festival.

The jumping-off point is the March 18, 1990, break-in at Boston's Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum, in which thieves dressed as cops swiped paintings
by artists such as Rembrandt, Degas and Vermeer's piece "The Concert,"
arguably the most valuable painting in the world, according to experts.

The star of the story is Harold Smith, an "art theft detective" who spends
the last few years of his life attempting to recover the stolen artwork.
Smith is hard to miss. His face is ravaged from skin cancer; he sports a
bowler and wears an eye-patch.

Throughout the film, Smith consorts with various art thieves, underground
insiders and a British informant called "Turbocharger," a blustery snitch
who describes himself as "a facilitator" and thinks Ted Kennedy should
jump into the case.

At one point, the museum offers a $5 million reward for the missing
pieces. And that brings a cavalcade of crackpots from under the rocks.
Director Rebecca Dreyfus and producer Susannah Ludwig use audio clips of
Smith's voice mails in which people offer theories on the theft, including
a woman who says the paintings are behind other paintings in the museum.

The voice mails are actually the film's only drawback, in that most are
inaudible. A few subtitles might have helped.

Some more credible theories emerge, including links to the Irish
Republican Army and to Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger, on the lam
since 1995. Boston TV reporter Ron Gollobin wonders aloud if the
intimidating Bulger is in on the action, striking fear in the Hub.

"A $5 million reward and you don't hear a peep," Gollobin says.

The subtext of the caper is how people in the art community view the
theft, as the years roll by. There are only 34 Vermeer paintings in
existence, the film tells us, and some take the theft of "The Concert"
quite personally.

"'The Concert' belongs to the world," one art writer says. "And we want it
back."

The film's subtext is Gardner's life, as a woman who established her own
art museum before the turn of the century, and the filmmakers nicely work
in photos and portraits of Gardner as well as early 20th century footage
of the times.

Gardner's correspondence between art critic Bernard Berenson is read aloud
(off camera) by actors Blythe Danner and Campbell Scott.

During a question-and-answer session, Dreyfus said she and Ludwig spent
three years working on "Stolen" and said Smith, who died on Feb. 19, felt
publicity would eventually solve the crime. The filmmakers also said they
think "Stolen" could help.

"The more people who see the film," Ludwig said, "there's a chance that
perhaps something will happen."