Adele Bloch-Bower, a Nazi war crime and an art critic

Adele Bloch-Bower, 1907

We went to see Woman in Gold on Saturday.

It is a film about the restitution of stolen paintings by the Nazis from an Austrian Jewish family and as such raises a whole shed full of issues.

First there will be those who question how far a film can ever faithfully reproduce a moment in history.

After all we have all seen films which mix events, telescope whole decades into a single year and both air brush out key historical figures as well as making bits up, all for dramatic effect.

And on reading the life of Maria Altmann who started a legal battle to have her family paintings returned after their confiscation by the Nazis there are a fair few details which did not make it to the film.

More importantly there is that thorny issue of returning art works, which in the case of many great museums and art galleries would mean the loss of exhibits which have come to be seen as national treasures.

From the Elgin Marbles to Egyptian grave goods and African war masks and countless other priceless objects which were spirited away from their place of origin would vanish from where they have sat for a century or more.

In the case of Maria Altmann it was a collection of fine paintings by Gustav Klimt of which the most important was the stunning portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer which was painted in 1907.

It had belonged to Maria Altmann’s family from when it was commissioned and had the further connection that Adele Bloch-Bauer was Maria’s aunt.

But the painting had also become an important Austrian national art treasure and there hung the issue.

The rest is there to follow in the 109 minutes of the film or in countless articles.

Now we enjoyed the film, and those missing bits from the family history would not have added anything to the story.

As for the issue of the National treasure that was straightforward.

It was a clear case of theft from a family who could still be identified and who had like so many other Jewish families suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

The surprise is that there are so many other items which were stolen and which have yet to be returned and while some will never be able to be claimed others have yet go back to their rightful owners.

All of which just leaves the film itself.  I enjoyed it, not only because of its subject matter but also because I thought it was well acted and had pace humour and depth.

Not so the critics, and not for the first time I had to wonder if I had seen the same film or was just not up to the job of appreciating what makes a good film.

Worse still like so many critics the piece was almost just a vehicle for a clever turn of phrase and less about the film.

But maybe I got that wrong.

What I am sure about is that the film got to the heart of an issue.

Picture; Adele Bloch-Bauer, Gustav Klimt, Wikipedia Commons,The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. 2. Neue Galerie New York