MCN: Stolen

The Caper Documentary:
A Conversation with "Stolen" Director
Rebecca Dreyfus

The Los Angeles Film Festival is proving an essential stop on the road to worthy indies' Stolen, a lively documentary by Rebecca Dreyfus, The director was only 19 when she first encountered "The Concert," one of Vermeer's best-loved paintings that had long been a jewel in the eclectic collection of the renowned Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston. But on March 18, 1990, perhaps taking advantage of Beantown's post-St. Patrick's Day fog, two thieves disguised as police officers gained entrance to the museum, overpowered the guards, and made off with "The Concert" and 12 other works, including Rembrandt's "The Sea of Galilee." Vermeer, the $300 million robbery and the efforts to retrieve the Gardner's treasures form the subject of Dreyfus' engaging whodunit.

ANDREA GRONVALL: As soon as I read the festival lineup when it was posted online, I knew that if there was one documentary I absolutely had to see here, it was Stolen. My hunch was right; it's been one of the high points of the festival. How did you come to make a film about one of the world's greatest art heists? Did you lean toward art history when you were younger?

REBECCA DREYFUS: I'd have to say no. My attraction to "The Concert" was non-intellectual; it was very emotional. To say "it called out to me" sounds a little hokey, but it really kind of took me by the back of the neck and pulled me in. At the time, I wanted to step into the world of the painting. [After the theft] what attracted me to making a film about this - aside from my feelings about the painting and the Gardner museum - were the unlikely characters that wound up in the same story. It's not usual to find leaders of 19th century high society in the same story with modern-day underworld figures and 17th century painters. The crime was what drew them all together, and I wanted to make sure everyone had equal screen time.

AG: Your film details how you came across [the late] famed art detective Harold Smith, but were you prepared for what a force of nature he was? He almost shanghaied your movie! You must be a very strong director to have maintained your vision in the face of such a take-charge guy.

RD: It's funny, actually, because when you're working on a film and you need to get things done, generally you have to follow up with people and make sure they've done what they said they were going to do. Harold had very good connections to law enforcement, and because a lot of the stuff we were doing was sensitive and political, we used him as a go-between. And sometimes, when we were pondering an idea, I regarded it as being in the thinking process, but Harold would call me back 20 minutes later and say, "Well, I called them!" I learned very quickly that if you didn't want him to act on something just yet, you had to tell him so.

AG: Stolen is a movie about various individuals' obsessions. One almost gets the sense that Smith, who'd been battling skin cancer for decades, felt time was running out. Here was his last big chance to solve one of the art world's great art mysteries, a case then-open for 14 years. And the way that this septugenarian roped everyone into going along on the hunt for the missing paintings gives a wonderful vitality to your film-which was shot by another equally vital septugenarian, your mentor, the documentary master Albert Maysles. How did he get involved?

RD: Well, actually, Albert and I share another obsession: we're both Russophiles. He had seen my first feature documentary, Bye-Bye, Babushka, and admired it. When I told him my ideas for this new film, he wanted to get on board. I'm really lucky; he's great!

AG: Smith's agenda in signing on is clear, but what do you make of the candor of some of the criminals who agreed to be interviewed? Obviously, William Youngworth was out to hustle you for some cash, but you were too smart for him. But why should Irish-American gangster Myles Connor and reformed British con Paul "Turbocharger" Hendry open up for you? What's in it for them?

RD: Well, to really know you'd of course have to ask them. In Boston Connor is something of a celebrity, so I suspect he enjoys getting press. As for the Turbocharger, since Smith's death he's taken up Harold's mission of trying to locate the missing Gardner paintings. I hear from him with updates on his research.

AG: It 's an effective structural device to introduce two of the greatest luminaries in American art history, the collector Isabella Stewart Gardner and her close friend, the critic and dealer Bernard Berenson, through their correspondence [voiced over by Blythe Danner and Campbell Scott]. Especially intriguing is the exchange you chose where Berenson and Gardner debate smuggling the paintings they purchased out of Europe. It seems to suggest there was something a bit shady in how Berenson acquired art treasures for his clients-and acts sort of as a parallel to the contemporary thread about the museum theft.

RD: At the time Isabella and Bernard were collecting in the 19th century, honestly, the laws were very vague. The laws are much more concrete now, particularly in a country like Italy, which has such rich cultural heritage. There's no grey area anymore, but at that time there was; the laws were changing a lot about what you could bring in, and what the duties were. Not many people were moving art; it wasn't clear what was or wasn't allowed. And so it's interesting, when you start to think about what it takes to move a piece of art, and who gets to see it. Just look at the situation now in London, with the Elgin Marbles [ancient Greek sculptures from the Parthenon on display at the British Museum] and Greece's attempts to get them back. It's a fascinating question, who gets to possess art.