Educational Media Reviews Online

Stolen Art starts out with a mysterious art show that took place in SoHo New York back in 1978. This particular art show was held by an unknown Czech artist by the name of Pavel Novak, and featured paintings of amazing technical accuracy by Van Gogh, Courbet, Rembrandt, Malick and others. During the run of the show, a wealthy private art collector came to view the paintings, spending several hours looking at one particular painting by Courbet. Then he returned home, called the FBI and claimed that the Courbet was an original that had been stolen from his collection. The FBI shut down the show and Pavel Novak disappeared. Simon Backès, the film producer/director has created a documentary in the style of a “roman policier” or detective movie to follow his attempts to track down Pavel Novak, with a clever ending that leaves the viewer with unanswered questions to ponder.

During his interview with Karel Michalik, who wrote the essay found in the “Stolen Art” catalogue, Backès is advised to look at the art used in the show and that will lead him to Novak. As Backès heads to various museums in different countries, he examines several philosophical questions about art while creating an atmosphere of mystery around Pavel Novak. He explores questions such as: is a copy the same as the original? Does a good copy have as much value as the original? Can the beauty of the original be copied? Should original art be privately held and never available to the public? All these questions are examined as he tries to answer the more obvious questions of whether or not Novak is an art thief and forger, or if Novak actually exists.

The film has 7 chapters and is primarily in French with good subtitles in English. Although there are individual chapters, this film needs to be seen in its entirety to understand the story. It will be of interest to those studying art, filmmaking and philosophy.