Norval Morrisseau was once called “the Picasso of the North.” The Anishinaabe artist was a stylist whose unique vision created a new kind of visual storytelling. His bright colours and bold illustration brought traditional Indigenous stories to life in a way that made him famous and today he thought of as the grandfather of contemporary First Nations art in Canada.
A new documentary, “There Are No Fakes” from director Jamie Kastner, starts with the purchase of a $20,000 Morrisseau called “The Spirit Energy of Mother Earth.” Barenaked Ladies member and art collector Kevin Hearn purchased the painting in 2005, the same year the artist established a foundation to catalogue and authenticate all legitimate copies of his work. The painting hung on Hearn’s wall for five years until he loaned it to the Art Gallery of Ontario for public display. When the AGO raised doubts about the painting’s legitimacy, it was taken down. When Hearn questioned the dealer he bought the forgery from he was met with the phrase that gives the film its name, “There are no fakes.” Except there are. Possibly thousands of them.
The lawsuit Hearn filed against the dealer provides Kastner with the bedrock of the story. The film’s first half introduces a cast of characters worthy of any story of intrigue. From angry art dealers and Morrisseau’s earnest apprentice to lawyers under siege and an out-of-pocket Barenaked Lady, “There Are No Fakes” examines the murky world of high stakes art.
It’s in the movie’s second half that Kastner, through his investigative work, uncovers the sordid story behind the underground trafficking of fake Morrisseau art. It’s a journey that veers away from the tony galleries of Toronto’s Yorkville neighborhood to Thunder Bay and shocking revelations involving sex, drugs and exploitation.
“There Are No Fakes” is more than a simple procedural. Kastner carefully lays out the story, finding the rich corners in the personalities of his subject before slowing the film’s pace and tone for the explosive final disclosures. What begins as a document of a court case and its countersuits turns into something more important, more vital, as it underlines how Indigenous artists, even world-famous ones, have been exploited.
ICYMI Pop Life for April 21, 2018: Inheriting and creating legacies. The Pop Life panel, wine making legend Alessia Antinori, documentary filmmaker Jamie Kastner and ReelWorld Film Festival founder and actor Tonya Williams, weigh in on the responsibility of keeping a legacy alive and the efforts to create one.
Documentarian Jamie Kastner attempts to place the “boogie oogie oogie” of disco music in a political context, trotting out academics who describe a Donna Summer hit as “the feminist critique of three minute sex,” and noting how the music provided liberation for gays, African-Americans and women. It’s an interesting thesis, but one that is presented, rather than proven. It is however, fun to see the grainy archival footage–Bob Hope jiving with the Village People while Henry Kissinger watches from the audience is a sign of the apocalypse for sure—and hear the legends of the music chime in on the heady days when shaking your booty could still be considered subversive.
“I knew it was a no-brainer of a subject,” says director Jamie Kastner about the “boogie oogie oogie” topic of his latest documentary, The Secret Disco Revolution.
“Great pictures, great music. Kitschy, funny fashions.”
As the words come out of his mouth he glances at the person sitting near him at the table; disco diva and co-star of the film, Thelma Houston.
“Thelma was never kitschy!” he corrects himself. “I didn’t mean Thelma. That is an adjective that could never be applied to the woman sitting here. And, I’ve seen many of her hairstyles over the years.”
Houston, the singer of the hit disco anthem Don’t Leave Me This Way, doesn’t think kitschy when she thinks about disco.
“I look back at it as a time when my record was at the height and a lot was going on, and everyone was having a good time,” says Houston.
The song that made her a star, almost didn’t happen, however.
“I was on the Motown label and everyone was trying to get that elusive R&B smash hit,” she says. “I was there almost everyday, in the studio trying to come up with something. Then someone, Suzanne de Passe who was the A&R person at the time, came up with the song Don’t Leave Me This Way and thought it would be a good dance song. We thought maybe this is the way to go.
“But then we had to take it to the chairman, Mr. (Berry)Gordy to have him listen to it and give us notes. Because I was friendly with Suzanne and her assistant they allowed me to go with them up to Berry’s house. We were so sure of it. I’d be there, and he would see it was going to be a hit. I was so excited.
“Early in the morning we went up there to the mansion up in Bel Air. They played a couple of things, saving mine to the end. They put the song on. He listened and I’m sitting there looking at him. When he finished hearing it, he said, ‘Hmmmm, no. I don’t get it. I don’t hear a hit.’ I was so disappointed coming down off that hill but Suzanne felt very strongly about it and she put it out anyway and it was a hit.
“For me it wasn’t just the disco era, it was like, ‘Wow, I finally had a hit.’”
