MovieChat Forums > My Kid Could Paint That (2007) Discussion > Who painted the dining room?

Who painted the dining room?

posted 16 years ago by lazlo_buddy
6 replies | jump to latest

Okay, so here's what I saw:
1. The mum and dad kept different schedules, as the mother explained in the beginning, as she was talking about the decision-making. She didn't know Mark was finishing Marla's paintings, or doing them altogether. She actually believed this was all real from the start. By the end of the film, you see the light coming on in her head.
2. I thought from the very beginning something was wrong. Because the same brush strokes that were featured in the paintings were on the walls in the house, particularly the orange room, which was the dining room I think. It's clear as day there. Marla didn't paint the dining room. Mark did.
3. The mum -- Laura, right? -- was pretty damn heroic in my opinion. I am completely guessing here, but this is what I think happened. She thought it was real, she let herself get talked into doing the exhibitions and the news shows. Then, the 60 Minutes piece came down, and slowly doubt crept into her mind. She began to put it together. (She may have suspected before.) But she protected her child from most of the bad. I never really saw Marla being unhappy. The truth is, Laura was suffering, probably, and she never let her kid suffer with her. She ate it, and she distanced herself a bit from the process. You can see in the interview on the couch in her eyes that she's pretty much just figured it out. And she hates herself for it. I feel bad for her. It was an easy mistake to make, a mistake based on trust and love, which is well, the most blameless mistake a person could make.
4. The interview on the couch at the end reveals Mark completely, in light of everything we saw. He can't answer questions directly. When Laura says she wishes she could take a polygraph test, he covers his mouth. She blames the documentary maker by saying it's documentary gold (the crying), but she's angry at and feels betrayed by her husband.

I also felt bad for Amir Bar-Lev. You could see throughout that he wanted to vindicate the family, and the film just didn't happen that way. I respect him for his pursuit of the truth. I don't even think he needed to put the part in where he was driving home, explaining how this was tearing him up. But I understand why he did it. The film speaks for itself, without the disclaimers about what it means to take a person's picture, without the art critic saying everything we make is lies. I think they desperately want to defend an innocent and feel as if they are attacking or disclaiming her. But the truth is, they're disclaiming Mark, and it's really just the film itself that does that.

On Mark: I think the guy wanted a little credit for his work and got in over his head. If he were a total and complete scumbag, then you wouldn't be able to see his guilt. And you most certainly can see his guilt. IF he were telling the truth, and it just so happened that Marla's paintings were not as aesthetically pleasing (my opinion) when she was being filmed, and he had absolutely nothing whatever to do with her other paintings, which people were calling more polished, THEN I would have to say that his is the most exquisite hell one could probably live in. From what I saw, though, he was lying and got in too deep.

The Sun reporter was brilliant. Cogent, salient, insightful, compassionate, intelligent. Some of the simple but elegantly true things she said just made my jaw drop. Bar-Lev edited her bit well too.

Sorry for the long post. It was keeping me up.

[–] krazyphool 16 years ago

great post. really lines up with how i felt about the film!

[–] Flashing-Lights 15 years ago

lol, agreed the dining room strokes matched some of her paintings

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[–] ringudeath 15 years ago

For one, on the commentary they clearly state the paint on the walls in the dining room was done by the mother, Laura. This isn't debatable and completely destroys the rest of your argument (if you still believe the mother didn't know & that the brush strokes were in line with the ones on the more polished Marla paintings)

Also, they asked for no compensation at all from Bar-Lev for the documentary and actually became quite close with him. IF Mark truly had something to hide, there would be no reason for the family to invite him and his crew to stay over all the time. You can read a great Q&A with Bar-Lev called "The Unseen Hand" where he explains all of this. This doesn't change his mind (he's still pretty much undecided, but you can tell he leans toward them telling the truth). Just google the unseen hand and Amir Bar-Lev

The whole idea of Laura as a heroic figure is completely unfounded. Sure there's scenes where Mark and the art dealer talk about convincing her to do certain shows (today show, etc.) but if you look at the additional footage on the DVD you can see that she went out of her way to submit Marla's painting and an Artist Statement to some women art convention in Florida I believe. It's called Bold and Rude Women or something like that. If you pause it and read the Artist Statement that Laura obviously wrote for Marla, it's as the narrator says "seriously offensive." This statement Laura wrote completely overshadows any sort of manipulation Mark and the art dealer committed against Laura.

There's no way she wouldn't have known if there was manipulation going on in the artwork. She even says in the final interview that she wouldn't let Mark intrude on Marla's life (not exact quote). He does laugh which makes it awkward and all, but there's no reason for us to not believe her. Plus, these are good parents, whether or not they "polished" her other works. You can see this evidence in the scenes of them together as a family. They truly love their daughter and son. There's no one doubting that.

As far as Mark "polishing" her work. Yes, when I first saw it, at the end I did get that impression that that's what would make sense. And I believe most of this is due to editing (watch additional footage on the DVD to see the parts of the interview that were edited out, which I have no idea why, I'd love to see the whole thing uncut, one shot). Mark did not polish her work. Seriously, there's not a doubt in my mind after seeing it 3 times now. You can see his artwork in the basement in the film. There's no way he could have created the complexities in some of the works (mosquito bite, asian sun, and the one with the door, i think it was called bottom feeder). And if you truly believe that maybe he's grown as an artist and can now polish Marla's works to become this magnificent, why wouldn't he just do it himself? Would he really need to start with a Marla painting like Ocean or the 60 minutes interview one in order to turn it into the amazing "more polished" ones. He obviously had some dream of being an artist. The art is amazing regardless of who did it, he could have just made it himself instead of trying to turn a random mess (like Ocean, I'll admit seems "less polished" (doesn't mean others were manipulated)) into something great. He literally says this in the additional footage "why wouldn't I just do it myself if I could paint something that great?"

Also, the polygraph test comment was immediately shot down by Bar-Lev in the additional footage. He just cut it out for some reason. I think it would work well in making him seem a lot less abraisive and intrusive.

Seriously look into listening to the commentary or watching additional footage as well as reading the unseen hand article before you go making some bold claim about how Mark manipulated his wife and daughter.

i am the voice inside your head, and i control you.

[–] CalendarGirl 14 years ago

>>>"And if you truly believe that maybe he's grown as an artist and can now polish Marla's works to become this magnificent, why wouldn't he just do it himself?" <<<<
It's a much better story to say, "this was painted by a 4yr old" than "this was painted by a 40yr old."

I hope that "college fund" money has been saved so Marla can emancipate herself from that family, use it for therapy for her and her sweet little (seemingly ignored) brother.

[–] star_power 14 years ago

Zane was having it consistently made clear to him that he didn't matter. Marla was the only one who would acknowledge him, especially with that oh so priceless moment when she says out loud plain and simple that Zane did one of the paintings on display in her exhibition and she knows she didn't touch it. The Green One..as she referred to it as. "The Green One is Zane's." And Mr Guilty Daddy was trying his best to talk over her and change the subject but there it is. Kids always blurt out the truth. And the look on his face as she kept insisting and he couldn't quite shut her up..oh dear. Busted!

[–] star_power 14 years ago

I hope you're not one of the fools who bought one of these paintings. Maybe you are one of the couple in the hummer. Oh those two really made me laugh. That scene was just one of the many priceless scenes in the movie. If you are one of the fans out there who bought this story and even bought a bunch of the paintings...well..let's just say you make Marla's dad and the guy staging her exhibitions very happy. And I'm sure they are still selling..to whomever. Fools, money, you know the rest.