My Kid Could Paint That
My Kid Could Paint That is a 2007 documentary film by director Amir BarLev. The movie follows the early artistic career of Marla Olmstead, a young girl from Binghamton, New York who gains fame first as a child prodigy painter of abstract art, and then becomes the subject of controversy concerning whether she truly completed the paintings herself or did so with her parents assistance andor direction. The film was bought by Sony Pictures Classics in 2007 after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.
The tone of the documentary turns with a scene of Marlas parents watching a February 2005 report by CBS News 60 Minutes II that questions whether Marla painted the works attributed to her. 60 Minutes enlisted the help of Ellen Winner, a child psychologist who studies cognition in the arts and gifted children. Seeing video images of some of the paintings attributed to Marla, Winner initially reacts positively, stating Its absolutely beautiful. You could slip it into the Museum of Modern Art and absolutely get away with it. The 60 Minutes reporter, Charlie Rose, then shows Winner what he describes as 50 minutes of videotape shot by us and by Marlas parents. After seeing this footage, Winner states This is eyeopening to me, to see her actually painting. Rose asks her how this is eyeopening. Winner responds Because shes not doing anything that a normal child wouldnt do. Shes just kind of slowly pushing the paint around.Rose then states that after our interview, the Olmsteads agreed to permit CBS crews to set up a hidden camera in their home to tape their daughter painting a single piece in five hours over the course of a month. When Winner reviewed the tapes, the psychologist said, I saw no evidence that she was a child prodigy in painting. I saw a normal, charming, adorable child painting the way preschool children paint, except that she had a coach that kept her going. Winner also indicated that the painting created before CBSs hidden camera looked less polished than some of Marlas previous works. Asked to explain the difference, Winner states I can only speculate. I dont see Marla as having made, or at least completed, the more polished looking paintings, because they look like a different painter. Either somebody else painted them start to finish, or somebody else doctored them up. Or, Marla just miraculously paints in a completely different way than we see on her home video. ........
Source: Wikipedia