Argott simplifies the institution's convoluted, colorful history into stark black and white, smearing villains and cheering heroes. As he tells it, the Barnes is an orphan in Philadelphia's most infamous custody battle.
The bad guys are a shadowy "cabal" of Philadelphia foundations (Annenberg, Pew, Lenfest) conspiring to break Barnes' will and abduct his babies in order to exploit them purely for touristic purposes. The good guys are the Friends of the Barnes, a group that seeks to preserve the collector's babies as he intended, in the villa especially built for them.
One would not know from the movie that the so-called bad guys' plan would keep the foundation's holdings intact, maintain its educational mission, and bring Barnes' underknown collection to a greater number of people. (Suspicious of Argott's agenda, the "baddies" declined to present their case; Lenny Feinberg, the film's executive producer, is a Barnes alum who opposes the move.)
Steal's so-called good guys - Barnes chronicler John Anderson, NAACP chair Julian Bond, and L.A. Times art critic Christopher Knight - have many excellent points, and they make them passionately, heatedly, and repeatedly.
Instead of asking hard questions, Argott's film poses a rhetorical: "Isn't it awful that this jaw-dropping collection will be moved from its jewel box in Merion?" And to this, anyone who has experienced the Barnes - with its sublime juxtapositions of masterworks and commonplace objects - has to answer, yes, awful.
But the second time Drexel professor Robert Zaller, a Friend of the Barnes, is heard insisting that the proposed move downtown is "the greatest act of cultural vandalism since World War II," you think: Really?
