Tim's Vermeer [Blu-ray]

Extremely interesting experiment and amazing dedication to a very daunting task. After watching this film, I completely agree with Tim Jenison's hypothesis about Johannes Vermeer's techniques.

Tim Denison is a successful inventor and businessman with eclectic interests. Painting, though, is not one of them. Then his daughter, Lauren, gave him David Hockney's book "Secret Knowledge", and he was intrigued. I can't blame him. I have  Secret Knowledge (New and Expanded Edition): Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters  and it is fascinating. But Tim, being the curious fellow he is, took his fascination one very big step further. He decided to see if he could paint a Vermeer using a camera obscura and mirrors.Tim was thinking of a youtube video showing the results of his efforts. Fortunately for us, he told his friend, Penn Jillette, of Penn & Teller fame, about his project and suddenly it bloomed into a full-blown movie project, fully documented as an experiment which could stand the test of nay-saying scrutiny. It started with months of re-creating the room in Vermeer's "The Music Lesson", grinding his own paint pigments and even grinding the mirrors and lenses he'd use – now that was a stultifying job.Along the way, they showed David Hockney what they were up to, as well as Philip Steadman, whose later book,  Vermeer's Camera: Uncovering the Truth behind the Masterpieces , received as much disdain as was showered on Hockney. Other participants include Martin Mull (painter and entertainer) and Colin Blakemore (Oxford Professor specializing in vision & the brain).Wait 'til you see the part about "the seahorse smile". Tim's understated joy as he holds a print of "The Music Lesson" up to his eye lengthways and sees the exact optical distortion that he sees in his own mirrors. It's a beautiful moment.I really really enjoyed this show. They had me right from the beginning, when Jillette explains: "When you x-ray these intricate images [Vermeer's paintings] you don't find the usual artists' sketches underneath. It's as if Vermeer was some unfathomable genius who could just walk up to a canvas and magically paint with light."As Tim says in Bonus Feature #2, "I got a real sense, I think, of what Vermeer must have gone through, if I'm right about this. It's really really hard. It does not make it easy to paint. It's not a short cut. It's not cheating. It's just a way to get towards perfection.""Tim's Vermeer" originally aired in 2013. The show itself is 80 minutes. The Blu-Ray and DVD present the show in 1.78:1 aspect ratio and 5.1 Dolby Digital. The BluRay is 1080p High Definition. You can listen to it in English with Audio Descriptive Service. Also, subtitles are available in English, English SDH, Spanish, French, Korean, Thai, Chinese Traditional and Portuguese.Subtitles are not available on the Special Features, but I hope that doesn't mean you miss these bonuses, because they added to my enjoyment:....1. Commentary Track. Re-watch the show with commentary by Teller (director), Tim Jenison (the titular Tim), Penn Jillette (producer and narrator)and Farley Ziegler (producer). In the interest of making the show NOT "like watching paint dry", it was pared down from 2400 hours of film footage.During the sequence where Philip Steadman visits Tim's San Antonio warehouse, Teller (he talks!) mentions: "[Steadman] and his wife told us stories about how brutal some of the people in the art community can be on this particular topic. They have a kind of religious fervor about Vermeer."....2. "Toronto International Film Festival Q&A" (21 minutes) Moderated by Thom Powers, commentators on stage are Penn Jillette, Teller, Tim Jenison and Farley Ziegler. As Teller says, "This is a detective story. It's a 350 year-old detective story."Teller got involved in the project because "This is a real event that may really affect art history. You don't often actually have the documentary cameras in there during one of these personal amazing discoveries, that has repercussions down the line."....3. Deleted Scenes (16 minutes) These four scenes include an unused introduction starting with Jack the Ripper.....4. Extended & Alternate Sequences (76 minutes) Two scenes in their original expanded form. One includes the sequence (left in the film) where Tim has just finished the very difficult virginal, and says, "I think the rug is going to be a piece of cake compared to the virginal." Boy, did that turn out to be a wrong!....5. Theatrical Trailer. Tim says of Vermeer: "It's possible that he was more of a tinkerer, more of a geek. And in that way, I feel a kinship with him."....6. Previews. These are commercial trailers for five other movies.A very enjoyable show. Persistence and a Need to Know personified.Happy Reader

I always thought there was something more than just "raw talent" going on with the old masters. They are that good. I know several professional artists and have seen that painting accurate, realistic portraits is very, very difficult. Look up Richard Lack and the Atelier Lack for examples of talented portrait artists.Frankly, I didn't expect this film to be this good. I've seen some of Penn & Teller's other films and - well, I was pleasingly surprised. That's not to say it isn't without a few inappropriate words for some viewers, but probably no worse than any movie these days.I was very interested in the technical aspects of the use of optics by painters covered by the film. Think of this as an American version of a good BBC documentary. (And, yes, there is an older BBC documentary on the technical aspects of how Dutch 17th century Dutch painter used optics to assist them in painting. Personally, I think this is better, which is saying a lot.)I had previously read Philip Steadman and David Hockney's books on the camera obscura and camera lucida - and was pleasingly surprised that both of them played such an important part of this film. Tim Jenison used his technical background to substantially advance both of their theories.As to the critics who argue that the use of an optical aid is "cheating," I would disagree. Any tool that allows the artist to better see and execute their work, such as artificial light or glasses, is fair game in my opinion. I would agree with Hockney that the artist is still the one making decisions and physically putting paint to canvas (or what ever media is used). I also think that Tim Jenison showed just how hard it really was to execute a good quality painting. Well done Tim!

It's long been argued that Johannes Vermeer, a 17th century Dutch painter, used the camera obscurer, an optical device, to assist in painting his masterpieces. Essentially he created a studio sized camera and replaced the film with himself as the one who captured the image as clearly as possible and an exceedingly fine light. Tim Jenison, a successful inventor, set out to prove it by reproducing a Vermeer. He hoped to duplicate "the music Lesson" a well know Vermeer. To do it he reproduced the Vermeer studio including all the window lighting. He did all this in Texas. He replicated all of the props in the Vermeer painting and hired people to be the models dressed in exact period dress. The effort Tim made to exactly reproduce the scene is amazing.Then using his modified camera obscura with a mirror to reverse the image, he painstakingly painted the image as Vermeer must have seen it. His results were outstanding and this documentary shows every step he took including trips to the Netherlands and visits with other artists knowledgeable of the painter's work.While the process shows how Vermeer and probably many other painters created their work, it does little to diminish the genius of Vermeer. This is an excellent investigation and execution of an idea. Highly recommended.

Sono costretto a citare la nota di copertina perché descrive sinteticamente cosa abbiamo davanti. Un documentario splendido, divertente e appassionante, con una teoria alla base davvero intrigante.

Le DVD est en anglais mais ils y a des sous titres français. Le reportage est super. Je recommande définitivement!

I really wouldn't agree with the reviewer who said if you're not into the art, skip this movie. I have NEVER got why people raved about Vermeer, nothing in his paintings seemed very interesting to me. Of course I was looking at pictures in books or posters. Seeing a camera roving over the details of the highlights on a crusty loaf, a woven basket, the glaze of a vase gave me an "Oh, THAT'S what all the fuss is about!" feeling, and then the fantastical technical detail that Jenison goes into in his quest to reproduce the Music Lesson was a joy.To me this film had many appealing facets. The personality of Our Slightly OCD Hero is undeniably one of them. Anyone else would plan the furniture and give the detailed specs to a carpenter - certainly anyone with his money. But no. I almost wept when I saw what he did with his lathe - he has a good sense of theatre and does play to the camera like an experienced after-dinner raconteur. Then there was the science behind it. The camera obscura was familiar, but it the finer points were explained in decent detail without being either patronising or dumbed down. The filming of Jenison's set-up was well done, so you could see how it worked. So they covered the technical side seamlessly. And it was ovely to see Colin Blakemore in there on the biology and limitations of the eye. All documentaries should be like this.Another fascinating aspect was that of the artistic/historic implications. Artists didn't seem to have a problem with the idea of technical wizardry, and having seen David Hockney's iPad creations, I wasn't surprised to find him here banging the drum for the technical artist. At one point Jenison half-jokingly asks "Was Vermeeer a camera?" but really it's more like asking "Was Vermeer a photographer AND camera?" - because if he painted as Jenison does, he had to decide on his theme, choose his props and models, and arrange his scene, just like a photographer, and then the painting process was essentially the longest exposure in history.The people who didn't like the idea expressed in "Vermeer's Camera" were the art historians. To have someone say, not that Vermeer wasn't great, but that his particular gift lay perhaps more in creating a method than in wielding a brush, so potentially demystifying him, is essentially a competing theory, and one that could look a bit scary to a bunch of arts graduates (speaking as one myself).The film didn't really examine that side of things much. Just sort of raised the question and let it hang there, by showing what was possible through Jenison's technical set-up. Certainly his admiration of the work was undiminished by the end, and mine was greater than at the start of the film. Flaubert in his sarcastic 'Accepted Ideas' wrote "Learned (people): Poke fun at them when possible. All it takes to be “learned” is a good memory and hard work." Jenison seems to show that "all" it would take to be Vermeer is inventiveness and hard work. If you think he's right, you can stand in front of a Vermeer in a gallery and say "I could paint that". But the question is, WOULD you? Having followed Jenison through several painstaking months (not counting getting all the stuff made), your answer might well be no, not if there was a pleasanter alternative - like hoeing turnips, perhaps. And your admiration of Vermeer may well be the greater.

Painting ,blending dark with light,are documents ,it has been said and can become compelling .Such is the story related & realised ,in this very viewable 77 minute DVD.The search for a representation of colour by the use of camera obscura &mirror reflections certainly proves the capability of the theory (in an indoor environment at least)and plausibly explains why Vermeer produced relatively few ,& also maybe why he foundered into obscurity for two centuries.Notwithstanding,the conception of the image is inherent,& a unique frozen moment & thus why all Vermeer enthusiasts (such as your truly)will applaud & understand Tim's realisation of this dream

Questo é un film per scoprire Vermeer e la sua incredibile, misteriosa capacita di catturare la realta come se avesse una macchina fotografica (ma molto prima che venisse inventata): il tutto raccontato dalla passione di un geniale e sconosciuto personaggio, inventore, ingegnere, uomo rinascimentale dei giorni nostri, che segue la sua ossessione per Vermeer, provando a ricostruire la tecnica con cui dipingeva. Sulla carta, quindi, é un documentario che va molto sul tecnico e parte dall'assunto che ci interessi Vermeer e soprattutto che si abbia voglia di seguire il protagonista e la sua ricerca intorno al mistero del pittore. É per, se avete la pazienza di seguirlo, vi sapra sorpendere e catturare col suo contagioso entusiasmo. A quel punto vi aprirà un mondo che non conoscevate: quello di Vermeer ma anche quello di cosa c'e dietro a un'opera d'arte. Non un capolavoro (poteva essere meno pedissequo nella cronaca della ricerca del protagonista, e magari un po piu attento a coinvolgere il pubblico) ma se avete pazienza, alla fine, riuscira persino ad emozionarvi