This movie recounts the efforts of the niece of the woman portrayed in painter Gustave Klimt's famous "The Woman in Gold" to have it restored to her in the 1990s, after it had been looted by the Nazis during World War II and then hung for decades in the great Belvedere Art Museum in Vienna. I recall when Ms. Altmann undertook her quest through the courts but, fortunately, I did not remember how it went or the outcome, so all that could be a surprise for me.
I have since read the book that serves as a point of departure for this feature film, Anne-Marie O'Connor's *The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer*. I now know that this movie often departs from the facts, especially in recounting the efforts of Altmann and her lawyer, Schoenberg, to get the painting. That doesn't influence my view of the movie, but movie-goers should know that it is not a documentary.
For me, one of the two outstanding aspects of this movie is Mirrin's portrayal of Maria Altmann. When the script gives her even half a chance, she develops an interesting and complex character. After seeing her last year as the owner of a rural French restaurant in *The Hundred Foot Journey*, it was fascinating to see her as an Austrian refugee. I knew such people when I was growing up in Milwaukee in the 1950s and 60s, and I found her portrayal very convincing.
The other aspect that was sometimes but not always good was the script. Yes, there were times when it gave in to sentiment or just dawdled. But sometimes it made a real and successful effort to present its two main characters as more than just two-dimensional figures. For what it's worth, it makes both of them, and especially the lawyer, far more sympathetic than they appear to have been in real life.
There were things it could have developed more that would have made this a richer experience to watch:
1) Near the end, Maria recalls her father saying to her that when their family came to Vienna, they made an effort to fit in and contribute to the city. It would have been nice if that had been developed more. We see presumably non-Jewish Viennese watching with pleasure the Nazis' humiliation of Jews, but we get no sense of whether this came as a surprise to Maria's family, whether they felt totally integrated, etc.
2) Whether or not the real Austrian officials were officious and cold, it would have been more interesting if their representatives in the movie had been less stereotypical and given more chance to express the complexity of the issues they were defending. O'Connor's book does that.
3) It might also have been interesting to have some insight into the Jewish Austrain refugee community in Los Angeles, of which Schönberg (the composer grandfather of the lawyer) was so important a part. The lawyer is given no chance to speak about what it must have been like to grow up in that community, what was talked about, etc. When he and Maria visit the Holocaust Memorial in Vienna and he is so moved that he has to excuse himself to hide his emotions, that would have been a moment to let us know WHY he was so moved, what memories from his childhood the Memorial reawakened.
4) Near the end, when Maria recalls her aunt talking to her about the Klimt painting, Adele says she hopes that Maria, when she grows up, won't have to devote her life to superficial things. Given the surface glimmer of the painting in question, which seems to suggest something of the sort itself, the movie could have done a lot more with the implications of the painting as a depiction of a certain type of beautiful but ultimately superficial life. Was there a conflict between Maria's father's love of playing the cello, with its deep, rich sounds, and Klimt's use of gold leaf to portray Adele and her sad eyes? What was the culture like that Maria wanted the world to remember? If she is going to use the painting to make us remember it, what is the painting saying about that culture? That one line near the end of the movie should either have been cut or developed throughout the movie.
When I got home and thought about this, I remembered that Adele died in 1923. At that point Maria, born in 1916, was only 7. The Bloch-Bauers would have been driven from their Vienna home in 1938, when the Nazis took over Austria. All of which to say that, by 1938 Maria would have lived with her Aunt Adele only 7 years, but the painting 22 years. Much more could have been made of the relationship with her Aunt - there is really only that one scene at the end - and the role the painting played for Maria as a memento of her aunt and that relationship during the 15 years after Adele's death that Maria lived with the painting. Also how that very distinctive painting shaped Maria's memories of Adele.
It's true: as I develop this review, I am coming to realize that while the script has some good scenes in it, it really could have been a lot better developed.
Still and all, the movie held me, and sometimes moved me very much. Very frankly, I found it did a better job than *Monuments Men*, which deals with a similar topic - Nazi pillaging of art during World War II - but in a more diffuse way that focuses on the American efforts to rescue the art rather than the meaning the art had to some of its owners. In that sense, this is closer to *The Train*, which remains, to my mind, the best movie treatment of the topic.
I have since read the book that serves as a point of departure for this feature film, Anne-Marie O'Connor's *The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer*. I now know that this movie often departs from the facts, especially in recounting the efforts of Altmann and her lawyer, Schoenberg, to get the painting. That doesn't influence my view of the movie, but movie-goers should know that it is not a documentary.
For me, one of the two outstanding aspects of this movie is Mirrin's portrayal of Maria Altmann. When the script gives her even half a chance, she develops an interesting and complex character. After seeing her last year as the owner of a rural French restaurant in *The Hundred Foot Journey*, it was fascinating to see her as an Austrian refugee. I knew such people when I was growing up in Milwaukee in the 1950s and 60s, and I found her portrayal very convincing.
The other aspect that was sometimes but not always good was the script. Yes, there were times when it gave in to sentiment or just dawdled. But sometimes it made a real and successful effort to present its two main characters as more than just two-dimensional figures. For what it's worth, it makes both of them, and especially the lawyer, far more sympathetic than they appear to have been in real life.
There were things it could have developed more that would have made this a richer experience to watch:
1) Near the end, Maria recalls her father saying to her that when their family came to Vienna, they made an effort to fit in and contribute to the city. It would have been nice if that had been developed more. We see presumably non-Jewish Viennese watching with pleasure the Nazis' humiliation of Jews, but we get no sense of whether this came as a surprise to Maria's family, whether they felt totally integrated, etc.
2) Whether or not the real Austrian officials were officious and cold, it would have been more interesting if their representatives in the movie had been less stereotypical and given more chance to express the complexity of the issues they were defending. O'Connor's book does that.
3) It might also have been interesting to have some insight into the Jewish Austrain refugee community in Los Angeles, of which Schönberg (the composer grandfather of the lawyer) was so important a part. The lawyer is given no chance to speak about what it must have been like to grow up in that community, what was talked about, etc. When he and Maria visit the Holocaust Memorial in Vienna and he is so moved that he has to excuse himself to hide his emotions, that would have been a moment to let us know WHY he was so moved, what memories from his childhood the Memorial reawakened.
4) Near the end, when Maria recalls her aunt talking to her about the Klimt painting, Adele says she hopes that Maria, when she grows up, won't have to devote her life to superficial things. Given the surface glimmer of the painting in question, which seems to suggest something of the sort itself, the movie could have done a lot more with the implications of the painting as a depiction of a certain type of beautiful but ultimately superficial life. Was there a conflict between Maria's father's love of playing the cello, with its deep, rich sounds, and Klimt's use of gold leaf to portray Adele and her sad eyes? What was the culture like that Maria wanted the world to remember? If she is going to use the painting to make us remember it, what is the painting saying about that culture? That one line near the end of the movie should either have been cut or developed throughout the movie.
When I got home and thought about this, I remembered that Adele died in 1923. At that point Maria, born in 1916, was only 7. The Bloch-Bauers would have been driven from their Vienna home in 1938, when the Nazis took over Austria. All of which to say that, by 1938 Maria would have lived with her Aunt Adele only 7 years, but the painting 22 years. Much more could have been made of the relationship with her Aunt - there is really only that one scene at the end - and the role the painting played for Maria as a memento of her aunt and that relationship during the 15 years after Adele's death that Maria lived with the painting. Also how that very distinctive painting shaped Maria's memories of Adele.
It's true: as I develop this review, I am coming to realize that while the script has some good scenes in it, it really could have been a lot better developed.
Still and all, the movie held me, and sometimes moved me very much. Very frankly, I found it did a better job than *Monuments Men*, which deals with a similar topic - Nazi pillaging of art during World War II - but in a more diffuse way that focuses on the American efforts to rescue the art rather than the meaning the art had to some of its owners. In that sense, this is closer to *The Train*, which remains, to my mind, the best movie treatment of the topic.