 Now, welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fiedel. This is Gutman's Garage and it's a movie review course. And we're going to talk to Steve Gutman about a couple of movies. We're going to compare movies about art and the Holocaust. They're both very interesting, but one, and I'll tell you later which one, is better than the other. Okay, in a moment we'll get right into it. The art dealer and the woman in gold with Steve Gutman. So Steve, you know, we're going to just do the art dealer, but you said, hey, why don't we compare the two, the art dealer and the woman in gold, which are both very interesting movies. Let's go to the one we originally discussed, the art dealer. What's the story there? Well, the story actually, in one sense, is the same in both films in that you've got a family that owned extensive amount of art and the Nazis basically stole the art. And now after the war is over, many years after the war is over, the family is trying to recover the art, or at least some members of the family in the art dealer. Because one of the differences between the two films is that the search for the art, it was really the granddaughter, the one individual's efforts, where in the woman in gold, while focusing on the granddaughter, it is more of a family being united in terms of what they're trying to do. But the art dealer is a French family and the film is, in a lot of ways, very much like the very French film. And the way it goes about presenting the issue is extremely different than what appears in women in gold. Is the art dealer true? It's based on a particular family, but it is significantly fiction. Both films modify the reality that actually was occurring. So my view of the art dealer was, I was not particularly excited about it. I thought that the woman who does the investigation, she's not all that persuasive to me as an investigator. But one review I saw put it in one sentence, which I thought was interesting. This is the story. The art dealer is the story of a French Jewish family eating itself. It wasn't just against the backdrop of the Holocaust. It was against the backdrop of this French family. They were cheating themselves. They were stealing, keeping secrets from each other. They were trying to capitalize on the Holocaust. And that was a bit of a surprise. Usually the recipe is the Nazi stole the art. It wasn't that simple in the art dealer because one guy got a corner on the art, didn't tell the others, and he lied about it. And ultimately this journalist woman kept on investigating and she found out that he was the culprit and that he had benefited and became very wealthy by effectively stealing the art from the others. Yeah, the family itself is a very divided family, to say the least. And there's also an element in terms of what's going on with the whole French government and just the interplay between acknowledging the fact that significant numbers of people cooperated with the chieftain as opposed to they're just simply being popular yet that majority of French people were opposed to the Nazis. You have a bit of that same argument in presenting women and go to that the present feeling is that people want to feel that the Austrians were opposed to the Nazis when the film makes it clear in a lot of ways that significant numbers, probably a majority, were actually very supportive of what was happening with the Nazis. It was pretty sinister as I remember. The guy was related to the true owner of the art, a Jewish fellow owned it, and he turned them in, he collaborated on them and turned them into the Nazis, set them up. And then the fellow who would get turned in had a wife and this bad guy part of the family, he had designs on the wife and the art and he wound up courting the wife after the fellow he turned in got sent to a prison camp or a death camp. And so now he's courting the wife and he marries the wife and he inherits the art from the wife. It's all really awful and he becomes an art dealer and he makes these grandiose gestures about giving away a small fraction of it, but he doesn't tell the family about how much more he has. And when she starts peeling off the layers on this, it's really awful. It's an awful story. I mean, he killed his relative so he could marry a wife he coveted and then steal the art from the husband and the wife. What a guy. I guess it's much more than the pulp Nazi story about the Nazis stealing the art. Yeah, that's what I was saying. It's a very French story, I mean with the text element into it, but the whole focus is on a very limited number of people and their interactions where women in gold is kind of telling the broader story in terms of the contrast between the two. Yeah, but you have to admire the, I guess she was a journalist, her determination to find out what happened and nobody would cooperate with her. As a matter of fact, the thief who was very wealthy and powerful decades later had her terminated from her job because she was getting at a newspaper because she was getting too close to the truth and he wanted to stop her and then he tried to kind of buy her off by telling her that he could get her job back for her because he was friendly with the fellow who owned the newspaper. It was all very totally manipulative and what you had was a kind of, you know, a conspiracy of silence then and later where this one person, this one man was guilty of so many offenses. It was discomforting. It wasn't what you expected. That's for sure. And she was no big deal. I didn't think she was all that good and actress or pretty. I didn't think that this was a travelogue for life in Paris, that's for sure. It was a dark movie. Right, and with the subtitles, I mean, though you had to really keep concentrating in order to really know what was happening unless you spoke French, you really had to keep your eyes on the camera. I had the same experience, Steve. I mean, I know a little French and I usually use a French movie as a way to pick out the words and learn and feel the beat of the language. But in this case, they were talking so fast and mumbling all the time and having these kind of private conversations that, you know, you couldn't really hear the French at all. And the subtitles were the only way you'd understand any of it. But the subtitles were moving so fast that it was imperfect. Your understanding of what they were saying and what they were doing was imperfect. I get it. Mark Golan was a fellow who made the movie. He's controversial, Mark Golan, as a movie maker and as a political animal. So you have to take all of that into account. So I guess it was interesting. It was interesting to see it. It was a little bit surprising about where it took you. I guess if I had to think of the takeaway, it would be something like even ordinary people who want to find out what happened, who are courageous and determined, they can find out what happened. And Lord knows there's plenty of things to discover about what happened with valuable art during World War II. Yeah. I mean, there's still an awful lot of art that is in people's hands that really it's not really theirs. And the way in which they got it was really tied back to the Nazi. I think there's still a fair amount of work being done trying to, by various families, trying to recover artwork. What's interesting about the woman in gold is they know they knew exactly where the art piece was. And in fact, all the art that was in question. And it was the end issue of how do you get it away from the Austrian government and the control that they had over the art. So it was a little bit different as opposed to the art dealer where it was all in private hands. Steve, let's talk now about the second movie. We've alluded to it and certainly there are common denominators that have to be mentioned. But the woman in gold is an American movie, also made within the last few years. And it was quite a remarkable movie. It was popular. I don't know if it won awards, but it certainly was an excellent movie. And it's an excellent story. And it's a story with an ending that is somewhat gratifying. And it involved real people. I mean, I know it's fictionalized to some extent. But to a large extent, it's a true story about a woman called Maria Altman, who was part of the family that owned a bunch of very valuable paintings in the early part of the 20th century. And it's not that the Nazis stole them. The Nazis made it so hard for people to keep them that at the end of the day, they had to give it up under pressure. And then when did its way through the market for 50, 60 years until justice could be done? And Maria Altman was a part of that family. And I must say that she was the star of the show. But she was so determined that she was the star of the story, too. And it strikes me per our conversation a minute ago that it's remarkable in that you know this happened many times over in Europe, in Austria, in Germany, where art was somehow dislocated because of the Nazis, if not directly. In this case, there was a happy ending. But in so many other cases, that art is out there somewhere untraceable. And the people who should own it have no clue where it is and they can't do much about it. So the other thing I wanted to, you know, ask you to wend into this is the story of Schoenberg, the lawyer, which is repeated in many YouTube videos. He's a lawyer in California now in Los Angeles. He was a young lawyer right out of school when this happened. And Maria Altman was, I guess, his relative. Well, not legally, but she was the best friend of his mother. And they both escaped and got to Southern California in the early stages of the war, World War II. And they remained friends. And so when Austria enacted a statue that was here to give an opening as to people getting their art back, she then contacted her friend who then said, talk, talk to my son. And he was pretty fresh, apparently, out of law school. The movie's not really clear, exactly how long he'd been practicing, but you get the sense that he was pretty much a novice. But he scored quite a victory in his first major case. He goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And in fact, the interaction with the scene with the U.S. Supreme Court was, that was kind of entertaining. Actually, it had some almost comedy to it, which was not so much true throughout the film. But it was a nice sense of relief in those scenes. Well, he was a great speaker in the YouTube that I saw and that you saw, I think. One thing I'm nervous about, excuse me, University of California, San Diego, I think. So he told the story factually and well. And when you compare the story he told, and he told you when the movie went off the side, when it was fictionalized, it wasn't that many times. It wasn't for that many points. So when you heard it from the horse's mouth with him, you realize that the movie was pretty accurate. And the people, those were the people. And that's how they conducted themselves. And that's how it wended its way through the courts. So in the Schoenberg speeches, and there's more than one, there's a number of them, he's been a popular speaker in California. And nationally, is a great roadmap for the movie. And the movie is essentially true. My wife and I went to the gallery in New York, where Louder, Louder, Louder, you know, Chris, the Louder, the mega company, S.T. Louder, bought the, ultimately bought this painting. He must have spent a fortune. Nobody told, nobody says how much he spent, but he must have spent a fortune with all the notoriety his painting has had. And we saw it. And it's very interesting because they have two places in the gallery where you can see it. One is the real painting, which is framed by some statues they found that were that framed it in the original presentation in Vienna in the house of the family. And the other is a copy. And there are so many people coming around to this Louder gallery that they go and see the copy because it's not so crowded. It's very interesting how popular it is. And it is a beautiful painting, for sure. And it tells, you know, it tells the story of the time of the early 20th century and the kind of literati of Jewish community, the intelligentsia of the Jewish community in Vienna at the time. They really lived a good life. And he, Schoenberg talks about, you know, how long did that go on? And the answer is there was a period, yes, well, there was a period of enlightenment for the Jews in Austria. And they were not really permitted to do business. And at some point, I guess it was the fall of the Austrian, Austrian Empire, that they all of a sudden now they could do business. They started, you know, doing business and they did well. But the fall of the empire, you know, in World War I and then II, it wasn't that long. So that, you know, what you get is a bunch of people who were essentially bourgeoisie, because they had recent wealth. And the rest of the wealth was impressive. And they focused on, you know, this family anyway, they focused on this art. And Klimt was a favorite. And he was a favorite even then. And they bought up a lot of his art. And they had him paint, you know, some of their family members. This was, you know, old fashioned aristocratic salon, where they were, you know, befriending the artist. One of the small things that they did change, when they focused totally on the women in gold painting, in reality, there were five paintings that the fight was about. And all five paintings were recovered as a result of the lawsuit. And the arbitration award. That was pretty gutsy of the attorney to really be willing to go back to Austria and do the arbitration in Austria. But he also points out that he had a client who at that point was 88 or 89 years old. And whether she really would live it, he did a traditional legal fight in the United States. The odds were still being alive, where we're not that good. Well, also, you know, you're not fighting small fry. You're fighting the country of Austria. And in the country of Austria, the museums belong to the country of Austria. And the museum wanted this. And in fact, you know, the painting had, at that point, never left Austria. It was painted in Austria. It was shown in these private homes in Vienna. And it was kept in the war in Austria. So that Austria felt that it had a real connection with these paintings. And it wasn't about to give them up easy. So it fought Schoenberg at every turn. And it was remarkable. The State Department had joined in. Yeah, the State Department was on the other side. Yeah. Yeah. So here's this young lawyer not only finding the Austrian government, but also has to be fighting against it against the US government, who was not pleased with how he was interpreting the US statute on suing foreign countries. Yeah. And it's also an interpretation question on exactly what the will of what was her name, Adela, right, said, and how the language in the will worked and who, whether she owned the paintings or her husband owned the paintings. And there was the law in Austria about, you know, primacy in favor of the husband and the language in the will was ambiguous. And he really had to go through every issue in the book, aside from the jurisdictional questions. But somehow, you know, and it makes it clear in the movie how remarkable this was, somehow the country of Austria decided that they would arbitrate. They could have held him up, as you said, until his client died. But no, they agreed to arbitrate and to an arbitration by a panel of arbitrators in Austria. And and he won the arbitration, which was remarkable because, you know, Austria was actually, you know, again, it was against the Austrian interest. And they were against themselves. Yeah, right. It was a three nothing vote. It was one of those things where the arbitration was one side picks an arbitrary other side picks an arbitrator. Those two arbitrators pick the third one. But not only did they went over the independent and the one that he picked, I mean, the actual one that the Austrian government had assigned and a voting in his favor. So I mean, that that was one heck of a presentation. Yeah, well, surprising, you know, to him anyway, that the Australians would be so tolerant understanding, considerate of his client, he thought they would, you know, take every possible step to keep the art. And remember to the Angeles and the feelings of the Austrians about the Germans. In those days, you know, they were not unfriendly to them. Angeles was a voluntary surrender of territory. It's not like the Blitzkrieg or anything. Oh, no. And so there were Nazis in the crowd, you know, and there are a lot of conservative people had stayed in Austria, still are in Austria, and we're tolerant of the, you know, the Nazi legacy. So, you know, it was a surprise. But as you said, his client Maria was, you know, aging out here. He didn't want to take the chance of losing her. It was remarkable. The whole legal experience for him was remarkable. It should stand as a, you know, a beacon for every young lawyer. And I do remember what, you know, he was with a big law firm somewhere in the West Coast. Well, it was the LA branch of the New York City law firm. Yeah. Sergeant Sy's driver. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And he was working on this case and they didn't like it. They thought it was pie in the sky. He was never going to, you know, make any money with it. And he said, I'm sorry, I really care about this case. I'm out of here. So he quit the law firm and did it solo. Later on, you know, he created another law firm and he's with that law firm today. He's still a young man. This all happens, you know, over the last, what, 20 years, if that. So he's a hero. And his comments that he made in the one YouTube video that I so enjoyed, which was in what the San Diego Museum, I think it was, was so articulate, so easy to listen to. My wife and I were, you know, watching it, entranced by how this guy would tell a story. Usually lawyers tell technical stories about their adventures in the law, you know, you fall asleep. Not this case. No, he talked about the family itself and just the other artwork that they had. They had that porcelain collection. The family had the largest porcelain collection of anybody anywhere. I mean, that's one heck of a lot of wealth. The tello was, it was a Stravinsky and it was, I mean, the amount that they had acquired, amount of wealth. It's hard to imagine. But you know, the whole experience with World War II and the Nazis and the way they were treated in, you know, Kristallnacht or after and all those people in the family being murdered in the camps and separated from their property, from their homes. A number of them, you know, couldn't, wouldn't go back. It was one relative he talked about who went to Switzerland, never returned to Austria, never regained his property, his home, any of his personal effects, his art. So, I mean, the discobobulation was huge to this family. If they were nouveau, you know, in the early part of the 20th century, life in the salons of, you know, Vienna, by the time the war was over, they were, they were just middle class. They didn't have it left. And, you know, Maria Oakman, middle class, she didn't have any significant wealth. She couldn't afford Schoenberg. Right. Well, that was part of her problem. I mean, and now she ended up doing the U.S. lawsuit was that the amount of money she was going to have to post to pursue the legal litigation in Austria was $1.8 million. That's the lady that's collecting, oh, she's over so security, but she had a little dress shop. You know, how much money could she possibly have been making? She was marginal. And so that's what makes the story so interesting when you see them, you know, as a turn of the century, so successful and such a, you know, an integrated family and buying art in Porcelain and what have you and then all of a sudden reduced to, you know, nothing. They were happy to get out with their lives. And many of them didn't. Many of them were killed. So that's, it makes the story, it roots the story in the Nazi takeover in Austria. It roots the story in great art. It roots the story in the Holocaust. And it roots the story in modern day law, international law, which is, you and I know, it's unpredictable, you know, it's hard to find international, it's elusive. And he managed to find it. I mean, it was a matter of luck, I think, both at the Supreme Court level and ultimately at the arbitration in Austria. Exciting for a lawyer to watch, but I think exciting for everybody to watch it. It's a classic history. I mean, the law is totally integrated with the storytelling, but it's not a legal drama. It's much more about a family and how to regain what had been lost. I've stolen this case, not lost. Well, but remember the thing they were forced to sell? That was the big issue there. They were under pressure to sell. Oh, I remember now, they had been taxed. And the tax was a exorbitant tax. Yeah, the fellow who left for Switzerland had was able to get the various people that owned the company they all picked up all that had money. And the Nazis weren't, weren't at all happy about that. So they basically were claiming a tax liability. And then that was their excuse for taking the various properties that they took. Yeah. So there was so much pressure on them. They had to sell at giveaway prices. And they, Schoenberg argued later that those, the pressure to sell was tantamount to taking the art away from them because the tax was really ill-lawful, unlawful. And it was confiscatory and it left the family with no options but to sell. It's a sad story, but I'm sure it played out many times in Austria and in Germany and other countries in Poland, for example. Yeah. I loved the movie. I loved The Woman in Gold. I loved it when I saw it. I loved going to see, that's why my wife and I went to see the one in the Lauer Museum in New York. We wanted to, you know, we wanted to sort of touch that, I don't mean touch it physically, but we wanted to be close to it and enjoy it and see what it really looked like. And it was worth the trip going to that museum and seeing that art. So the whole thing, you know, it's like you and me are lifetimes. There's something relevant about this movie about, you know, knowing people studying what happened in the war, studying the law, seeing how things work now. It sort of brought the whole century together, didn't it? Right. No, it was. And there was, as you said, there were little things that they changed from the reality. But I don't think it really makes a big difference in terms of major story they were telling. The reality was in the movie Maria leaves before her father dies. The reality was she did stay in Austria until the father died. And then she and her husband did the escape. But it's like one piece, five pieces, in terms of the art. You know, the central story is about the family itself and how they interacted. It's very different than the French version. Isn't that true? This is a family that was so tight before, during, and after. And you really cared about them. They cared about each other. And Schoenberg had all these old-time photographs of the family together, you know, the group shots of various members of the family. And it was very touching to see how they lived and cared for each other. And you wanted to meet them. Oh, yeah. You wanted to know these people. Which is exactly the opposite of the French family. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, who do you want to go have a beer with afterward? Yeah, exactly. After the French family or the class of wine in the French. There was so mean to each other in the case of The Woman and Gold. So what did you think of the acting in, you know, in the movie as, you know, production values question? How did you think that the Woman and Gold did? Well, the lady played Maria. I think, you know, she did, you know, Helen, with Helen's last name. Helen Merlin. Yeah. She did just an excellent job. You know, she did get nominated for the Spiritus Award, you know, for her performance in the film. The actor, it was very believable, played the lawyer. You know, that came across. The acting was, I think, a very good quote. As opposed to the art dealer. I agree with your comments about the lead actors. You know, you really, you like what she was trying to do. But you really never felt very, very strongly about her personally. Yeah, there were no heroes, really. I mean, the women, the art dealer, the investigator woman, you had to admire her for her determination. But she wasn't, she wasn't a heroine to me. In the case of The Woman and Gold, there was a bunch of heroes there and you could care about them and feel them and be with them and so forth. Yeah. Because Helen Merlin is a fantastic actress. Yes, she is. And the fact that, you know, she was at various points, you know, with one to give up, just got tired of it. It was a very human reaction to where we're occurring. You can just imagine somebody, after all those years, at that age, just saying enough already. In fact, one of the few things that really bothered me about the film is the fact that when he filed the lawsuit and the way they presented it, he didn't have her authority to file the lawsuit in her name. That was one of the few little, that was the lawyer in me saying, that's not how you do it. If she hadn't changed her mind, you could have had serious repercussions. You could have had a very short legal client. He's, to me, he's the star of the show because he found an impossible situation and undertook to write it right down to the end. And that was, that was really fantastic that he did that. And he, you know, to the extent that he's achieved a claim among the profession, and among the public, he deserves it. He deserves it because he's stuck to it. And I think, you know, for most of the time he put in, he had no real prospect of being paid. Oh, no, no. He ended up being paid because it worked out. He paid pretty answerably. So, you know, I mean, I think it's clear from my discussion that it's a worthy comparison, really an important comparison to compare these two movies. And, you know, I hope we've done a decent job at it. There's more, if you look at Mark Golan, you know, versus the, I mean, the filmmaker of the French movie. And as against the players and organizers of the, you know, producers and directors of the American movie. It's a lot different. Totally different stylistically. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, so I think from our discussion, it would seem to me that we are likely to rate the woman in gold, the American movie, Helen Merritt has a much better movie and story and viewing experience and all that than the French movie. But what, how would you rate them comparatively, Steve? Well, no, I think you just summed it up. I mean, the, because the characters in the French film, there really isn't anybody that you truly like your respect with the, with the woman who's doing. But, but there isn't any character in there who you, at the end of the film, go, gee, that was really an interesting person. I'm glad I had an interaction with them, where in the women in gold, Maria herself is a fascinating woman and the lawyer, it's just a difference between the two is quite different. You know, maybe the French film is like a C plus, as opposed to an A minor for women in gold. Yeah. Well, on a scale of 10, what would you give the one, what would you give the other? Maybe a six to the art dealer and a nine to women in gold. I'm close. I would give a six, or possibly a five and a half to the art dealer, only because I I thought it was there was something so cold about the film, even in the one moment where she, if you remember, she burst out in the cemetery. And she revealed, you know, the fellow who had stolen the art told everyone in the family the story. That was that was the most powerful part of that movie. But it wasn't all that powerful. And then they all walked away and and all the characters, you know, remained the same. You know, that's the thing. That's the thing about literature and movies in general. You want to see a dynamic in the character. You want to see the character learn something. You want to see the character change, evolve. You want to handle on that. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't with the end of that art dealer movie, I think they were all they all went back to where they had been. The only difference was the who had possession of the art change. But yeah, in terms of the individuals, no, I mean, there really wasn't in any growth where you could even the women goes, I mean, the lawyer clearly grew a lot during the course, he matured a lot as the movie went along. And Maria Altman, you know, found herself in a way. And she was on a search all her life to try to you know, recover something out of the family life in Vienna. And she did and get it into the United States and she did. So there's a dynamic there. The Austrians, you know, I mean, you never really met them. But the Austrians had a dynamic they, they, they ruled in her favor. There was a dynamic there that was saying, look, you know, we recognize, we understand, we acknowledge, and we will give her the benefit. And that was the dynamic there for sure. So I thought, I thought that was a 10 movie, Woman and Gold. And I think it's even better than a 10. But your idea to compare them, Steve, and I'm so glad we did. And I hope we can find other comparisons going forward. Because this kind of discussion is very valuable, especially when the movies are covering the same, you know, the same general area of history, human activity, but they are so different in so many ways. A great comparison. And of course, the underlying subject matter, the monument meant about what the US government itself did during World War II, to try to preserve the art. That was a very entertaining movie, not the usual World War II movie. And they spoke of it, or Schoenberg spoke of it, you know, in his remarks, the monument meant. But I guess if you, if you, if you shake it and bake it, I come away with a perhaps a better understanding of the value of art to people and to museums. And how, and how it can be such a tremendous part of our society to have art, which, which is, you know, so important. Oh, yeah. And it reminds me that this, this art, when it was sold to louder, I guess, the one in gold, it was at an auction, right? And it was so very, very high price. I overbought hers, her version at auction, but wasn't that a private sale? And I don't know, you're right. There was one of them was an auction, the other was a private sale. Yeah. Suffice to say that you have to have plenty of money to enjoy art like this. And it goes, it really is through loudest credit that he puts it in a museum. Yeah. I think it was something in excess of 70 million, the big board. Yeah. And a lot of that is because it had such a history. Yeah. It was more than just a work of art. I mean, a very quality work of art. But it had interaction with, with, with the art in one of the positive things actually in the art theater is very early in the movie when, when the father sees the picture that he had seen as, as he was a three-year-old and how he brought back both of the memory. The early scenes in the art theater, before you really learn what the whole family is really about, actually are more entertaining than the latter part, you know, the moving ends with the recovery of the art, of the art. But at least you had a very human reaction, you know, because he hadn't seen it in 40 years or some extended timeline. So there, there it is. We'll have to close on that. And the point you, you raise is that art can be extraordinarily humanizing to a group, to a family, to a community, or it can be dehumanizing and just as easily. And we saw both sides of that. Thank you so much, Steve. Steve Goodman, our movie reviewer and lawyer. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with more. And I really enjoy this discussion. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Mahalo.