Film discussion: Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery

But movies also love criminals and low-lifes of all sorts. Remember what Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid did for a living and remember how you actually rooted for The Godfather?

On Tuesday night, we will get a chance to get to know Wolfgang Beltracchi, a very real convicted criminal who has been convicted of art forgery on a massive (or at least a very expensive) scale. Wolfgang (and his wife, also convicted) is a very talented artist, and this fascinating documentary will give you a long look into how he fakes his paintings, how he chooses what to fake and (even more importantly) why he chose art forgery as a way to make a living.

Yes, greed is certainly in the mix, but great movies do not get made from spending time with subjects with simple motivations. In this forger, there is a touch of pride (or maybe hubris), a dash of showing off and a large dose of a very well-thought-out philosophy of art. Beltracchi clearly has an art critic and a social critic fighting it out with the artist inside his head.

The idea of fooling art scholars and making venerable cultural institutions (like museums) look dumb is always appealing. I’m thinking about documentaries like F is For Fake (Orson Welles) and a slew of fictional films.

But Beltracchi offers us unprecedented access to interviews with the forger himself. And a very entertaining and likable rogue he seems to be too.

I have friends who have already seen Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery, and they report that it delivers on its promises with real entertainment. (Their opinions mesh with those of just about every critic who has ventured a review of the movie, and that’s good enough for me.)

So, now that we’re supposedly living on Eastern Standard Time, which means we’re living in near-constant darkness from 4:30 on, I figure we might as well have something fun to watch while we sit in the dark. And a brisk discussion of a fun film will help keep the seasonal blues at bay.