MovieChat Forums > Nightwatching (2007) Discussion > absurd conspiracy theory. no scholar sup...

absurd conspiracy theory. no scholar supports this ridiculous premise


there are just so many things wrong with this film's conspiracy hypothesis. yes, there are many unexplained mysteries in the painting. but no one, no "serious scholar or artists who is visually literate", to use the director's words, agrees with the director's premise. almost everything about this film is an invention *, pure speculation, other than that rembrandt painted these people.

and ethically, there is something off about accusing people of murder and pimping out orphans and your bastard children (there is no evidence kemp did this) without any actual evidence. if this painting was 100 years old instead of closer to 400 years old you would never get away with this. and if the painting was 50 years old you'd be guilty of libel.

that said, it is a very well written, beautifully lit, movie. it's actually very imaginative. but it is nothing more than the figment of the director's imagination. for the director to claim this is a valid, evidence based theory with historical veracity is absurd. it would be like saying "shakespeare in love" is a factual account of how romeo and juliette was written

( * the motive for murder, rembrandt's eye in the painting, the girl with the pot and chicken, the gun discharging, the shadow of the hand, the satirical italian histrionics of the mis en scene, the displeasure with the painting by the both the public and the militiamen who commissioned it, the reasons for rembrandt's later bankruptcy etc... )

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