ABSTRACT
Amir Bar-Lev tried to follow his initial plan, which was to make the film with an observational frame; that is, an uncomplicated window onto a story that simply reveals itself to the audience. My Kid Could Paint That is a 2007 documentary that tells the story of Marla Olmstead, a 4-year-old girl whose abstract paintings begin selling for tens of thousands of dollars on the New York art market. The film, as rendered by its director Bar-Lev and editors John Walter and Michael Levine, contains a fascinating narrative about what happens when the true authorship of the paintings is questioned; it also becomes a meditation on authenticity, meaning, and value in modern art. The film builds up to a highly dramatic final scene, in which Bar-Lev finally confronts the parents on camera regarding his doubts about the provenance of the paintings.
