This season of the Robert
Burns Centre Film Club was concluded with the screening of the 2015
British/American film Woman in Gold directed by Simon
Curtis who you may remember as the director of My
Week with Marilyn (2011) and also the award winning 2008 TV drama starring Julie Walters A
Short Stay in Switzerland. This season has included some very good
movies from World Cinema, America and this season two very different films from
the UK, Still
Life (2013) directed by Uberto Passolini and starring Eddie Marsan and
Peter Strickland’s The
Duke of Burgundy (2015) starring Sidse Babett Knudsen which in my
humble opinion was the highlight of the season.
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| The young maria with her Aunt Adele Bloch-Bauer. |
Getting back to Curtis’s latest outing we were informed by our host for
the evening, Alec Barclay, that the movie was based on a true story and Alec
gave us some very interesting background to a story that involved a famous
painting and the women who eventually took the country of Austria to court in
an attempt to get this valuable piece of art work back to its rightful
owner. I have replicated Alec’s
introduction for your information something I believe will enhance your
understanding and enjoyment of the movie adaptation:
‘Tonight’s film is based
on a true story, which deals with the struggle to return valuable property
looted by the Nazis during World War Two. The Nazis were highly organised in
that scouts were sent into countries before they were invaded and works of art
identified in private and public collections. Gestapo teams then moved in and
removed the chosen works.
The film’s title refers to
the portrait originally entitled ‘Adele Bloch-Bauer’. The subject was the
Jewish wife of a successful Austrian banker and industrialist Ferdinand
Bloch-Bauer. She was a socialite living in Vienna, the cultural centre of
Austria, and achieved intellectual stimulation by surrounding herself with some
of the great writers and artists of the day. Ferdinand wanted a portrait of his
wife. Gustav Klimt was chosen for the work, who at that time was a successful
painter at the height of his artistic powers. It is estimated that what
Ferdinand paid for the finished article could have purchased a reasonable sized
villa in the suburbs. Frank Whitford in his book entitled ‘Klimt’ puts the work
into perspective. ‘The painting creates an impression of wealth, influence and
sensuality by means of its rich and polished surface. Klimt shows Adele
Bloch-Bauer not as she really was, nor even as she might have wished herself to
be, but rather as her husband desired her to be seen by others. The portrait is
adorned with ornament for much the same reason that she wore the gowns, furs
and jewellery her husband gave her – not only to enhance her beauty but also to
exhibit his taste and affluence: the painting, after all, was hung in a
prominent position in the sitter’s home, where it proclaimed her husband’s
artistic discernment and status. Itself one of Ferdinand Bloch’s possessions,
the portrait depicts the other: his wife.’
The painting forms part of
Klimt’s gold period, along with perhaps the more famous work, ‘The Kiss’. (Both
these paintings reached a wide audience in the 70’s reproduced as posters and
prints). A second portrait of Adele,
executed in a different style, was completed in 1912.
The work on the painting
featured in the film was started around 1903/04 and took till 1907 to complete.
There were around 200 working sketches produced during this time. The painting
measures 54 inches by 54 inches and uses oil and gesso along with gold and silver
leaf.
Affairs seemed to be
common amongst the upper class in Vienna, and it was strongly rumoured that
Adele and Klimt had a 12-year affair. Allegedly only her maid and physician
were in on the secret. Testimony to this could be the fact that Adele appears
as one of the figures in ‘The Kiss’, and also semi-clad in various other
paintings. Like most notable artists, Klimt caused controversy and outrage, in
his case by showing women in what was regarded to be highly provocative poses,
sometimes verging on pornographic.
In January of 1925 Adele
died suddenly of meningitis. Ferdinand turned her room into a shrine, the only
decorations being the collection of Klimt paintings, which were the 2 portraits
and 4 landscapes, and a photograph of Klimt at the bedside, along with fresh
flowers. In her Will Adele had asked her husband to donate the paintings to the
Belvedere, which is the Austrian State Gallery, but Ferdinand revoked this.
However, the Belvedere was soon to become the keepers of the work when Hitler
came to power.
As a renowned collector,
Ferdinand also had some old German masters in his possession. A Doctor
Friedrich Fuhrer, from the Gestapo, was tasked with collecting the Bloch-Bauer
paintings. He knew that Hitler and Goering would be interested in the German
work but not in the Klimt’s, so he sold the two portraits and a landscape to
the Belvedere (and kept a landscape for himself). The gallery were keen to
display the work, so as ‘Adele Bloch-Bauer’ was an easily recognised Jewish
name, this was changed to ‘Lady in Gold’.
After the war all the Klimt’s were reunited in
the Belvedere, where they stayed for many years, with the ‘Lady in Gold’
becoming the Austrian equivalent of the ‘Mona Lisa’ and attracting many
visitors. The painting was eventually sold to Ronald Lauder in 2006 for $135
million”.[1]
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| Maria and her husband attempt to escape the Nazis. |
The film not only deals with
the struggle Adele’s niece Maria had in trying to recover what once belonged to
her family but also goes back to when Maria Altman was a very young girl and
takes you through her life starting in Vienna, demonstrating how the German
National Socialists were accepted by the Austrians, the treatment of the
Austrian Jewish families and how the Nazis took their belongings, valuables and
their apartments, leading to Maria’s eventual escape to America with her
husband leaving behind her beloved mother and father. This period of history is
cleverly intercut with the present day where we find Maria living in Los
Angeles and working in her dress shop. Its not until she discovers letters in
her dead sisters belongings, which reveal an unsuccessful attempt to get the
famous painting back, that she enlists the help of an inexperienced young
lawyer, Randol (Randy) Schoenberg, to make a claim to the art restitution board
in Austria which will eventually take this elderly Jewish lady on a ten year legal journey.
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| Maria with her Lawyer Randy Schoenberg. |
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| Hubertus Czernin the Investigative Journalist. |
The film feature’s
exceptional performances from Helen Mirren as Maria Altmann, Ryan Reynolds as
Schoenberg with German actor Daniel Bruhl as the left leaning Austrian
Investigative Journalist Hubertus Czernin. Also in significant, but small roles
are Curtis’s wife Elizabeth McGovern and Jonathan Pryce. Some critics have
accused the film of being dull but I found it quite the opposite in that it was
a very interesting and thought-provoking film. Perhaps these critics did not
have the benefit of Mr Barclay’s introduction?
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| The real Maria Altmann in front of 'that painting' |
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