lasttimeisaw
This USA comedy/magic duo Penn & Teller's passion project is an intriguing documentary attempts to reappraisal the fine line between an artist and an artisan, through Tim Jenison, a successful American inventor, engineer, but an amateur of painting, who pulls his back into precisely duplicating Dutch Golden Age luminary Johannes Vermeer's masterpiece THE MUSIC ROOM with the help of a simple optic gizmo which he believes Vermeer also secretly utilized, or at least in a similar way in his creation. Vermeer was perversely cagey about his painting technique, there is no extant documents where one can sieve through to find any evidence, the only stratagem is from his oeuvres, mostly depicting domestic interior scenes, as the watchword of the film is "every paint is a document of its own". So Tom's hypothesis, which also bolstered by books such as British artist David Hockney's SECRET KNOWLEDGE and VERMEER'S CAMERA written by British architecture professor Philip Steadman, is bold and contentious, if he successes in producing a Vermeer-calibre painting through his experiment, does it debase Vermeer from a masterful artist who is celebrated for his divine treatment of light and capturing a beguiling verisimilitude of reality, to a mere inventor who laboriously but accurately duplicating real-life image onto the canvas thanks to an ingenious gadget borne out of a scientific discovery? Maybe, the art firmament itself has been longly misjudged as this venerable, superior godsend reflecting human's uttermost self-importance has been proverbially and obstinately holds a dismissive slant towards the progress of modern science, where subjectivity always trumps objectivity. The film is conventionally arranged in a simple and linear narrative centers on Tim's painstaking process, spanning over 5 years, from the exhaustive preparation of the paraphernalia which should be exclusively limited within 17th century's knowledgeability, to the reproduce of the entire tableaux exactly like that in THE MUSIC ROOM, until his four-month-long endeavor to create his own Vermeer, certain longueur is inevitable, since his technique is plainly a one-trick-pony and extremely time-consuming (plus, none too many galvanizing vignettes are included), but Conrad Pope's soothing score always comes timely to diffuse the lurking fatigue. When Tim finally finishes his work, circumscribed by film's inherent attribute, audience doesn't have the access to make the judgement by one's own eyes through the screen, so it is somewhat a bit disappointing, the film doesn't include the appraisal from a more canonical collective of voices apart from Steadman and Hockney, nevertheless, it surely tallies with the fact that Vermeer's output is not as prolific as others, by this method, he could maximally produce 3 pieces a year. Due to the fact that any concrete proof is simply not available, this documentary cannot make Tim's viewpoint indisputable, although, in the eye of an art layman, it is remarkably persuasive, or maybe that is not the whole point at all, after all, it is Tim's strenuous perseverance, questioning inclination, scrutinising method and can-do attitude feels more affecting and encouraging in the end of the story.
MartinHafer
"Tim's Vermeer" is probably not a documentary that the average person would ever watch. Me being a huge Penn & Teller fan, however, I was the perfect audience. My wife, however, is not such a huge fan--but she ended up enjoying the film even more than me!This documentary was produced by Penn Gillette and he narrates it as well. His silent partner, Teller, directed the film. It's a strange story about a guy with too much time on his hands who has an obsession--to test out the theory that Jan Vermeer (the super-famous Dutch painter) actually might have used advanced technology (specifically a camera obscura-sort of device) to help him make such a super-realistic painting. Fortunately Tim Jenison appears to be very rich due to some of his inventions and has the time and obsessive drive to test out his idea. Through the course of the film, you see him exactingly replicate the studio room used by Vermeer and actually paint a Vermeer-style painting using this technique. What makes it even more amazing is that Jenison is NOT a painter and has novice skills in that department.While this probably sounds a bit boring, it really isn't. I love just about all of Penn & Teller's work--and this is no exception. As for the wife, she is an engineer and the way that science and engineering was used in the show REALLY got her excited--and it's rare to ever see my wife get his excited about a film. She loved it. Well worth seeing.
kalibeans
I am writing this review purely to say "thank you" to all involved in the making of this documentary. 80 of the best spent minutes of my time recently! To Tim Jenison - What a visionary to solve this puzzle and the generosity to share it with the world. To Penn and Teller - For seeing Tim's project as the incredibly fascinating subject it is and taking the time to document it and share it with us. I know nothing at all about art or invention, but that is not necessary to appreciate the brilliance and patience of this project. An incredible lesson as well for this "want it in an instant" world of the pleasure, benefits and wonderment of taking the time to think and create. Excellent, first class documentary!!
dbborroughs
Tim Jenison works out how it was possible for Vermeer to paint what amounts to photo realistic paintings with a great deal of ease. He then builds a full scale room that matches one in a Vermeer painting in order to further prove it.I'm mixed on this film. While I think Tim pretty much proves Vermeer could have used this method to paint the film, I'm still pondering why the film runs 80 minutes especially after 15 he's proved his point. Yes I completely understand that seeing Tim paint the copy is the point but taking it that far raises more questions than are healthy such as how Tim learned to paint and mix colors and how it would be possible for a regular guy to just do it.Don't get me wrong but at a certain point I just wanted to know why this film was longer than say a half an hour.Worth a look but its little more than a Discovery Channel documentary.
