Rhapsodies

My original plan for this week was art theft. Unfortunately I didn’t do  my homework quite as well as I should have, so that was not completely accurate. Instead I went with the slightly more general description of scams and heists.

I had never heard of the  first film on my list, The Best Offer (La migliore offerta) but I was drawn by the presence of Geoffrey Rush, and Donald Sutherland in the cast. The Best Offer is an english language, Italian Film that tells the story of antiques auctioneer and valuer Virgil Oldman, played by Rush. Oldman is a fastidious and obsessive man who doesn’t play well with others, and doesn’t have much of a life outside of his chosen profession. He does have the pleasure of his routine and a secret collection of priceless portraits which he has amassed by passing them off as lesser works at the auctions where they are bought cheap by his accomplice, Billy played by Donald Sutherland.

Everything changes when he is contacted by a mysterious woman named Claire (played by Sylvia Hoeks) who wants to sell the furniture in her mansion. At first we don’t even see her. Eventually she’s revealed to be an extreme agoraphobe who spends much of her time hiding in a large wardrobed (this is later revealed to be the entrance to a small suite) Oldman becomes fascinated by her and gradually the two draw each other out of their shells… But things are not quite what they seem.

This was an interesting film with a great performance from Rush. I liked the first half which presents a wonderful portrait of Oldman’s character (in fact I think this might have made an interesting double feature with Coppella’s The Conversation) The second half felt a little slow for me but did a good job at putting the final peices in place of rat final reveal.

I had chosen The Thomas Crown Affair as my second film as a way to continue the art theft film. It turned out that only applied to the 1999 remake starring Pierce Brosnan. The original stars Steve McQueen and no Art is involved.

McQueen plays our tile character, Thomas Crown, a brilliant millionaire businessman who is bored out of his mind. To challenge himself he plans a perfect bank heist using complete strangers hired anonymously (kind of like Reservoir Dogs except here the plan works) While the police are baffled, brilliant insurance investigator Vickie Anderson, played by Faye Dunaway pretty much has him figured out in no time at all… Now all she has to do is prove it.

The rest of the movie is a cat and mouse game between McQueen and Anderson and the dance draws them together in more ways then one.

This was a fun and stylish quintessential sixties thriller doing interesting things with split screens and a hip sound track. On a more serious note McQueen and Dunaway have great chemistry together and the choreography of the heist is fantastic.