| | | American Dream or Art World Scheme?
Features: DVD, Widescreen, Dolby Digital (5.1), English, French, Spanish, Subtitled
In this thought-provoking documentary, Director Amir Bar-Lev tracks the overnight celebrity of little Marla Olmstead, a toddler who creates gallery-worthy paintings on the dining room table of her family home. A media sensation by the age of four, critics compare her work with Jackson Pollock's. Sales of her paintings reach $300,000. But, sadly, the bubble bursts. When a 2005 profile by 60 Minutes suggests that Marla had help making her paintings, the finger is pointed at her father, an amateur artist and night manager at Frito Lay. Almost overnight, her family is ensnared in a web of accusation and denial - with the burden of proof placed squarely in their lap: Is Marla a child prodigy or an innocent victim of a hoax?
"...a wonder, marked by a sense of wondrous skepticism that has nothing to do with cynicism." Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"...fascinating on all kinds of levels: as a movie about the nature of art, the lure and pitfalls of celebrity, and the complicated conundrums of parenting." Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
"...among the best documentaries ever made about that elusive process of manufacturing something out of nothing." Robert Wilonsky, Dallas Observer
"Spellbinding!" Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"...captivating and highly interesting...[and] also something extremely rare -- a piece of honest journalism." Sally Foster, Film Threat
Editor's Note
In this fascinating documentary, filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev chronicles the rise and fall of child artist Marla Olmstead, the daughter of a dental hygienist and factory worker from upstate New York. Marla was all of four years old when she sold her first abstract painting. When the New York Times published a piece about her prodigious talent, she became an overnight media sensation, and her paintings quickly began to sell for up to five figures. While many lauded her amazing ability--and even likened her to Picasso--her success also sparked heated debates about the true value of abstract art. Bar-Lev begins to explore this idea, as well as our culture's fascination with child prodigies, when the film suddenly takes a sharp and unexpected turn. The impetus is a piece on 60 MINUTES in which Charlie Rose suggests that Marla may not in fact be the sole creator of her work, and that her father--himself an amateur painter--is really the mastermind. The Olmsteads are stunned by the implication, and Marla quickly falls from grace with the art world. What follows is an unsettling but nonetheless riveting examination of Marla's family. Bar-Lev suddenly finds himself in a bit of an ethical conundrum: while he would like to get at the truth for the sake of the film, he is hesitant to cause further trouble for the Olmsteads, who have granted him intimate access to their lives. He ultimately leaves it up to viewers to decide what really happened--though for many, there will likely be little doubt as to the authenticity of Marla's work. As a documentary, the film works beautifully, raising a lot of big questions about truth in art, and even about the exploitive nature of documentary film. All this because of a four-year-old girl and her paint set.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Thai |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Sony Pictures |
| Release Date: 8/26/2008 |
| Running Time: 83 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2007 | | Catalog ID: 22519 | | UPC: 00043396225190 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, Thai, Mandarin | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1 |
| Cast & Crew | Amir Bar-Lev - Director | | Anthony Brunelli - Featuring | | Elizabeth Cohen - Featuring | | John Battsek - Executive Producer | | John W. Walter - Editor | | Marla Olmstead - Featuring | | Matt Boyd, et. al. - Cinematographer | | Michael Kimmelman - Featuring | | Michael Levine - Editor | | Rondo Brothers - Original Music By | | Stephen Dunn - Producer |
| Awards |
Nominee (2007) | | | Sundance Film Festival, Amir Bar-Lev, Grand Jury Prize - Documentary |
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"[A]n intimate, sometimes unsettling family drama....An excellent documentary..." 10/05/2007 p.E8Entertainment Weekly
"[An] astute documentary, a personal work of nonfiction as layered with eye-of-the-beholder meaning as Marla's canvases....Engrossing..." -- Grade: A- 10/12/2007 p.55 Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "One of the most enjoyable, thought-pricking documentaries of the year. Amir Bar-Lev's ambiguous but uncynical approach makes a refreshing change in [the genre]..." 01/01/2008 p.50 Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "[A] fascinating documentary....Bar-Lev maintains a keen objectivity..." 01/01/2008 p.61 Sight and Sound
"The fascination of MY KID COULD PAINT THAT lies in the many different directions in which it pulls....[Bar-Lev] leaves the audience to make up its own mind." 02/01/2008 p.74-75 Uncut
4 stars out of 5 -- "[Bar-Lev] illustrates much about abstract art, child prodigies and the mercurial ethics of journalism." 06/01/2008 p.124-125 San Francisco Chronicle 9 of 10
No one emerges unpunished from Berkeley native Amir Bar-Lev's documentary "My Kid Could Paint That," not even the filmmaker himself. It recounts with uncynical sophistication the brief rise, fall and rise again of purported child prodigy painter Marla Olmstead..."I want footage of Marla painting that will put my doubts to rest," the filmmaker explains, as he arranges to capture her working on camera. "Some of the paintings seem to have big, adult ideas and others don't"...His camera produces an expose of its own, when it reveals repeatedly that Marla alone seems unable to deliver the goods that end up on gallery walls. "She only reacts like this when the camera is on her," father, Mark, explains, with ever-diminishing credibility...Bar-Lev respects the ambiguities of the case throughout. But Marla's dealer Brunelli finally comes clean when he confesses - just before reigniting her career - that he has always had a case against abstract art and wanted to embarrass the institutional art world...Bar-Lev goes to the heart of the issue - that all art, but especially abstract art - demands commitment on every side, but commitment takes many forms and has many motives behind it. - Kenneth Baker
Reel.com 10 of 10
Is four-year-old abstract expressionist painter Marla Olmstead a genuine child prodigy--or simply a puppet, manipulated by her frustrated artist father? That's one of the many, complicated questions raised by Amir Bar-Lev's absorbing and insightful documentary, My Kid Could Paint That. Attempting to discern the truth about the shy little girl from upstate New York who became the talk of the art world in 2004, Bar-Lev (Fighter) spent a year filming her and her family, as they went from media darlings to pariahs. The richly compelling result is a documentary that touches on everything from our fascination with child prodigies to the age-old debate over modern art, as well as our very notions of truth...Torn between what he believes and what he wants to believe, Bar-Lev struggles to reconcile his feelings for the Olmsteads with his search for the hard, unvarnished truth. It's an untenable situation that adds another layer of pathos to My Kid Could Paint That, for the Olmsteads don't come off as selfish, unfit parents...That Bar-Lev takes such care to depict them as complex, foible-laden individuals who can't be pegged either good or bad is one of the great strengths of this intriguing and provocative documentary, which leaves it for viewers to decide the truth for themselves. - Tim Knight
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