On Movies: Filmmakers finds Barnes story travels well

If

Don Argott

and

Sheena Joyce

, director and producer, respectively, of

The Art of the Steal

, had lingering doubts that their documentary about the battle over the Barnes Foundation would play beyond the Philadelphia region, these last few weeks have put them to rest.

Traveling with their film to Portland, Ore., San Francisco, and New York, showing it at festivals and museums, the pair have seen the same sort of response as they did when it played in September at the Toronto International Film Festival.

"It's been overwhelming," Argott says. "A lot of people didn't know the story - certainly [not] outside of Philadelphia - so they get to see this hidden story for the first time. And then there are people that know a little about it, or at least thought they knew a little about it, and are genuinely surprised."

The Art of the Steal is a chronicle of the decades-long fight for control over the Barnes and its trove of Cezannes, Matisses, Picassos, Renoirs, and Van Goghs - and the legal wrangling, political maneuvering, and power plays that led to the Barnes' planned 2012 relocation from suburban Merion to a site on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia.

Acquired by IFC Films after its Toronto premiere, The Art of the Steal opens at the Ritz Five on Friday. Argott and Joyce will field questions at showings on Friday and Sunday. On Saturday, they'll head to New York, where the film also opens. Eventually, the picture will roll out to more than 70 markets nationwide.

The film boasts rare archival footage of the millionaire art collector traipsing around Europe in the 1940s. And it features interviews with controversial former Barnes head Richard Glanton, Gov. Rendell, art historians, other politicians, and fervent members of the Friends of the Barnes, the group that struggled mightily to keep the foundation in its leafy setting just outside the city.

The film describes an epic art vs. commerce conflict, between those striving to honor the ofttimes eccentric wishes of Dr. Barnes and those trying to make his collection available to more people - and, not coincidentally, bring more tourist dollars into the city. Barnes, who died in a car accident in 1951, left his estate in the hands of Lincoln University trustees; today his collection is valued at more than $25 billion.

The documentary plays like a conspiracy caper. The Saul Bass-inspired poster makes The Art of the Steal look like a heist pic, which Argott and Joyce will tell you it is.

"People are fired up after they see the film," says Joyce. "No matter what side of the fence they sit on, they get fired up, and people seem appalled that [the Barnes] would be allowed to move."

"And then," adds Argott, "there are the people on the other side saying, 'Well, you know, I've never seen the collection and I'd like to be able to see it. So, I'm glad it's moving to Philadelphia.'

"And our response to that is, of course, you can see it [in Merion]. It's very interesting, the amount of misinformation. . . . Someone said to us, last night, that they heard that it was only open to African American Lincoln University students, and that nobody else could get into it. And somebody else had said that they heard it wasn't open at all. . . .

"So, it's incredible, the amount of people that have the wrong information."

Argott and Joyce have been a team - professionally, and domestically - for more than a decade now. A cinematographer and director who graduated from the Art Institute of Philadelphia in 1994, Argott made Rock School, the doc about the Paul Green School of Rock. Joyce left her job with the Greater Philadelphia Film Office to work on Rock School - a festival and theatrical hit in 2004 and 2005. The duo's production company, 9.14 Picture, is based in the Rittenhouse Square area.

"There's always a debate over where you can, quote-unquote, make it, and I just didn't buy into any of that," he explains. "And I felt validated by our first film, Rock School, which we made in Philadelphia, and that we sold at the Los Angeles Film Festival. . . . You don't have to move anywhere, you just have to find a great story and make the best film you can - you don't have to be in Los Angeles or New York. . . .

"We love being in Philadelphia, and, hopefully, we can continue living and working here."

As for the controversy over The Art of the Steal, the filmmakers welcome it. "Everybody comes to this with their own baggage, whether they know the story or not," says Argott. "The film challenges people. Some people like it, some people get angry. . . . And that's all you can ask for when you make a film like this, is that people care enough to want to continue the conversation afterwards.

"The worst thing that could happen is for people to just get up and leave and say, 'OK, why don't we go see Valentine's Day?' "

Porn-com at Bryn Mawr. Lots going on at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, including a screening Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. of Slippery Slope, from writer-director Sarah Schenck. It's a comedy about a feminist filmmaker (Kelly Hutchinson) who takes a job making a porn movie in order to finance her feminist documentary. Romantic misunderstandings and mistaken-identity scenarios ensue. Schenck, currently the Bryn Mawr College Hepburn Center Fellow, will be there for a Q&A.

Other BMFI events include a screening of Karen Shakhnazarov's Russian drama The Vanished Empire (March 2); the operatic 1963 Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton extravaganza Cleopatra (March 10); and Stanley Kubrick's awesome stab at horror, The Shining (March 16). For more information on these and other programs, go to www.brynmawrfilm.org, or call 610-527-9898.

French cinema - encore! La Cinematheque, the program bringing new French films to the Prince Music Theater via a partnership of the Philadelphia Cinema Alliance, the Embassy of France, and the French-American Cultural Foundation, has four films in the coming months, beginning with Les Bureaux de Dieu (God's Offices) this Thursday - rescheduled from a snow-inundated Feb. 11. The film stars Natalie Baye and Beatrice Dalle, and is set in a family planning clinic in Paris.

For information on the film and the others in the series, visit phillycinema.org or phone 267-765-9800.