IN THE span of only a few months, four-year-old Marla Olmstead rocketed from total obscurity into international stardom in America – and sold over $300,000 dollars worth of paintings.

But five months into Marla’s new life as a celebrity painter, a bombshell dropped in the form of CBS’ 60 Minutes, which aired an exposé suggesting that the paintings were the work of her father, himself an amateur painter.

The Olmsteads subsequently turned to documentary filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev to clear their name, having previously invited him into their home to tell their story.

Torn between his own responsibility as a journalist and the family’s desire to see their integrity restored, the director found himself drawn deeper into a situation that had no easy answers. Amir talks about some of the conclusions he has subsequently drawn from the ensuing documentary, My Kid Could Paint That.

My Kid Could Paint That throws up so many questions and seems to have affected you very deeply personally. How has it changed your life?
Amir Bar-Lev: Well, it was two years of time and I’d hope that any two years would change anybody’s life. I’m hoping that when people watch the film, it feels like a film but that people are reminded of the fact that it actually happened. There’s this complicated set of demands we make on documentaries where we want it to feel like a film, like a dramatic film in a way. We want to leave the theatre feeling like we went on a three act arc and the characters were people and relief. But we also want to have this voyeuristic pleasure of feeling like we also experienced somebody’s real life. Those things are not always commensurate with one another. The reason I put in that line “documentary gold” is because I want people to be experiencing that in two ways at the same time: on the one hand it is documentary gold, it’s a great film moment. But at the same time, it really happened and it was really hard personally.

So, if you ask me has it changed my life. Well, the film has changed my life in one way; I’ve learned a lot through the film. But it’s been tough. I’m not asking for sympathy. It’s been tough for everybody involved. Even Elizabeth Cohen, the print journalist, that if she had it over to do again, she never would have written that article. I’ve never found myself involved in anything remotely like this. And I do occasionally have to remind myself – more so now. When I was in it, I didn’t have to remind myself for a minute that this was real people and a real sad thing to be around.

Now that the film has its own life and I’m talking about it, every once in a while I just have to remind myself, I have to reconnect with that period of time and those relationships and remember that it actually happened and there just happened to be a camera around! It’s an interesting thing, you know, there happened to be a camera around, so now there’s a record of it. But in reality, I had this relationship with these people and there was a lot of questions about who was telling the truth. If you can just imagine putting yourself in that situation without a camera, you would look back on those years and say: “Whoah, to hell with that!”

Do you still find yourself questioning who was telling the truth?
Amir Bar-Lev: Absolutely I do, because there’s no one scenario that makes total sense. There’s not one single scenario that makes total sense. I would say that an abundance of people conclude… if you matched it out, you’d probably find that a slim majority of people draw the conclusion that Mark had a hand in some of the paintings and Laura didn’t know. But that conclusion has its own impossibilities and impossible ramifications actually. So, it takes you on this rollercoaster of conclusions and then impossible ramifications.

It really puts human nature in the spotlight as well. Do you naturally go to the darker conclusion about this? Or do you believe that this girl did those paintings?
Amir Bar-Lev: Right. The paintings are like raw shocks, the film is like a raw shock and the story is like a raw shock because you find yourself examining your own perspective about things based on what you think might be happening. And even had there never been a question of authenticity there would be this raw shock element because some people look at those paintings and saw a genius, and other people looked at those paintings and saw a fraud – not a fraud, but a little girl painting. So yeah, it’s a litmus test I think and it changes every time you look at it. I think there’s a quote from Matisse, or about Matisse, that somebody said: “A Matisse is never the same every time you look at it.” And I think the film is that way too a little bit.

Do you think perhaps that art itself is part of the problem in this case, given the money involved and the high cost of those paintings?
Amir Bar-Lev: I’ll tell you. We can all agree – maybe not everybody – but most people who aren’t spending ridiculous amounts of money on paintings, we can all agree that the art market is crazy. But what interests me more is whether art is crazy. In my mind, what I like to do is just not think about money and then ask myself questions about whether certain pieces of art are valuable in my mind. I think it’s much more interesting thinking that way about art – just sequester of the money issues and ask yourself the same questions about the validity of art. One question that comes up a lot is: “Is it the same painting whether a four-year-old or a 40-year-old did it?” And my answer to that is: “No, it isn’t the same painting.”

I had an experience a month or so ago that illuminated this for me. Somebody came by my house and said: “I borrowed your Swiss Army knife and I’m bringing it back.” And so I took the Swiss Army Knife and I opened up the drawer and I see this other Swiss Army knife there and suddenly I’m trying to figure out whether he really did borrow my knife, or did he think he borrowed it because I now have two Swiss Army knives when I know I only ever had one. The one that I have is my grandfather’s – he died, but it’s really important to me. It’s my keepsake from my grandfather. He was a carpenter, so his knife was always very important to him even though it was a dull Swiss Army knife. So, I suddenly found myself looking at these two Swiss Army knives and my heart was in my throat thinking: “Now I’m not going to know which one belonged to my grandfather and I’ll have to cherish them both maybe….” Or something like that.

I worked it out but it began to remind me of my film a little bit because we imbue things with significance. There’s nothing special about that knife, it’s just I viewed it with significance. It’s a different Swiss Army knife to me, even if they look exactly the same. In fact, even if somebody came along and said: “Forget those two Swiss Army knives, take a better knife, it works better, it’s got a better blade…” I would say: “No, I want my grandfather’s…” So, stories are more important than things in a way. Stories are a part of things and if somebody bought a painting thinking it was created by a four-year-old, and they had a certain story associated with it, it’s it different even if these things aren’t visible. It’s a different painting because of the story that was imbued upon it. So, that’s what I think interests me about modern art. We imbue things with stories. It’s only ridiculous when you start to think about huge sums of money, so then don’t spend the money. But if you understand that Swiss Army story, then you do understand how certain things have special value, irrespective of art. I like thinking about that stuff.

What’s next for you?
Amir Bar-Lev: I’d like to work with characters that aren’t real people. That way I can do with them what I wish [laughs], instead of having all these ethical dilemmas. So I’m looking at scripts and there’s a memoir that a friend of mine has written called The Royal Nonesuch, it’s about the internet bubble, and that’s what I’m working on adapting right now.

Read our review of My Kid Could Paint That

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