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Talking about how heists are inherently cool and sexy is really not helping you beat the “a core problem of our age is that too many people think movies are real” charges, tbh

yes, heists are very cool and sexy in movies. as in works of fiction

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Anyway, I am a museum enthusiast and stealing from public institutions then selling those historic works of art to evil, rich people who will stash them away where no one can see them makes me very angry

Of course, Indiana Jones destroyed around three UNESCO World Heritage Sites per movie so he might not be the best role model for ethical stewardship of historic objects either.

One of the advantages of them being fiction is we can root for conveniently unproblematic options to arise. If we ever get the granddaughter of Indiana Jones stealing artifacts from museums and repatriating to their cultures of origin, sign me up.

Why not instead working officially and legally as a museum to museum artifact recovery agreements by day, and heisting on rich people's secret private collections by night?

I have had the experience of watching a heist movie with someone who concluded, "But what was the POINT? What's the good in owning real art if you can't have a little "on loan from the collection of..." plaque hanging next to it at a museum?"

The painting "Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue" was damaged twice, by the same person, with a knive. The first restorer got a huge amount of money to restore it. But when the artwork had to be restored the 2nd time they found out that cheap house paint was used to restore it the first time.

they're doing a thomas crowne affair remake and as much as i love that movie it feels like the wrong cultural moment to make a bored billionaire who steals priceless works of art from the public into a hero

Perfect! Or a Matthew Bomer reboot where he steals back individual stolen works of arts from hidden illicit collections and then breaks into the museum they were stolen from and rehangs them in their old position I really think we all deserve this!

I once heard someone suggest a reverse-Indiana-Jones plot where the heist was at a museum and the holdings were returned to the peoples from whom they were originally plundered. I’d watch that, probably.

DON LaFONTAINE: In a world where billionaires are hoarding art, museums demand justice. In a world where priceless works are kept under lock and key, one group dares to strike back for the people. No one knows who they are. No one knows where they come from. All the police have is a name: The Met.

In the university special collections system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the faculty who investigate artifacts, and the National Art Crime Team who retrieve the stolen pieces. These are their stories.

DOCTOR: there's no way we can take any more of this KIEFER SOUTHERLAND: shut up! do whatever you have to do to stabilize him. hey asshole: all this can stop real soon if you GIVE ME A NAME HEIST TORTURE VICTIM, struggling to breathe: "Gau...Gaugain"

two-stage heist movie Part I: colonial appropriation c.1960 (the ugly heist) [decades pass] Part II: grad student figures out provenance of item in friend's dad's mansion c.2010 and tricks friend's dad into Nathan Jessup-style "yes I stole it!" confession into recording device

Growing up during the Satanic panic when the music and horror movies(later see porn) i kept hearing how all that would desensitize me, and that led me to always defend the idea that people understand the difference between reality and movies, and now many decades later i really don't know anymore.

It helps of you remind yourself that all art is political and flreframe your understanding of art to be "propaganda" for a certain worldview, then take a look around and try to see the narrative being pushed by mainstream art (like US pro-militarism or meritocracy).

ironically, the Gabriel Allon spy books were interesting in this regard, because art is always a big focus, but they make clear that the Russians or whoever is stealing/forging/etc are locking these in the Geneva Freeport and no one ever sees the Van Gogh.

also i might look for an interview with Daniel Silva because the last few have steered *hard* away from the mossad angle. interesting set of fiction, worth blowing a weekend on if folks have the time

If you can afford to hire a crack team of art thieves to steal a famous painting so you can put it on private display somewhere only you and your rich asshole friends can see it, then you can hire a talented craftsperson to make a near-perfect replica of said painting and leave the original alone.

Most stolen art doesn't end up in secret rich people galleries either. It's more often used as collateral for organized crime and either gets ransomed back within a year or two or can't really be moved and is only found decades later or never.

They are also very violent more often than not. Like not with propriety but physically violent. There’s no way to safely knock someone out that doesn’t result in medical damage.

I didn't see the earlier post about thefts from museums. I agree with the point that it's stealing from the public for the benefit of the wealthy (as do auctions of clearly relevant works) but maintain my position on KitKat heists.

Dead Presidents handles this pretty well IMO. There’s like 5 minutes where you think maybe it’ll be a sexy heist and then uh, it definitely isn’t

I used to work in an art museum and my only art theft story is a guy got drunk at a nearby street fest, ran out of cash, walked over to our museum and grabbed a sculpture off a pedestal and immediately tried to sell it at an antique store for quick cash

Like in Persona 5 Joker continuing to be a Phantom Thief by taking the deal at the endgame is positioned as a bad thing. The good ending sees the PTs resolve to change society in more mundane ways than channeling Arsène Lupin.