Taking Venice

Ever watch a movie that isn’t what it should have been? Such is the case with writer-director Amei Wallach’s third feature documentary, which is supposed to be an account of the US government-backed campaign to capture the grand prize for painting at the 1964 Venice Biennale, the world’s most influential art exhibition. The thinking behind this effort was to showcase the supposedly superior nature of the nation’s art and culture, one in a series of comparable American propaganda initiatives aimed at winning over the hearts and minds of the citizens of the world at the height of the Cold War. The plan here was to secure top honors for the works of artist Robert Rauschenbach (1925-2008), one of the most influential innovators of the emerging pop art movement, who was best known at the time for his “combines,” three-dimensional creations that straddled the line between painting and sculpture. This venture thus helped enable the US to become a major player on the international arts scene and did much to change the ways that fine art was exhibited, marketed and appreciated. The problem with this film, though, is that it frequently deviates from its stated intent; its unfocused storyline often jumps about wildly, straying from the thrust of the narrative. In fact, the picture actually works best – and ultimately would have worked better overall – as a biography of Rauschenbach. Indeed, that’s the story that should have been told here, given that the artist’s life and career are far more interesting than this largely anemic chronicle of the exhibition, a tale that often comes across as scattered, shallow, gossipy and not especially insightful. In short, this is a project that should have been significantly retooled right from the outset. While a segment about the Biennale certainly should have been included as part of such a hypothetical production, there’s not enough worthwhile material to make it into a standalone work of its own (at least based on what’s presented here). A biography of the artist, on the other hand, would have made for a release worth watching, especially since ‘Taking Venice” frequently veers off onto tangents about its principal that are much more engaging than what the film is supposed to be about. In watching this offering, I was reminded of an anecdote I heard in one of my journalism school classes: A cub reporter was assigned to cover a speech by a public official but returned from the event with nothing to report. When his editor asked him about it, the young journalist said there was no story to tell, because the official didn’t give his talk, having been shot by a gunman in the audience. Now there’s a message the filmmaker here obviously should have taken to heart.