死ぬまで嘘をつき続ける

Big Eyesの映画を見てきました。映画の出来としては平均点ではないかと思うのですが、Christoph Waltzのすごさが印象に残りました。どうしても日本だと例の作曲家や科学者に結びつけて見てしまいますね。

現に“Nobody could paint eyes like El Greco, and nobody can paint eyes like Walter Keane”と自分を巨匠と比較したり、"My psyche was scarred in my art student days in Europe, just after World War II, by an ineradicable memory of war-wracked innocents. In their eyes lurk all of mankind's questions and answers. ”と世界の悲惨さを引き受けようとしたり、日本の作曲家を連想させるものがあります。

The Man Who Paints Those Big Eyes: The Phenomenal Success of Walter Keane
Howard, Jane (August 27, 1965) Life Magazine.

映画に盛り込まれている内容は以下のガーディアンの記事を読むといいかもしれません。

The big-eyed children: the extraordinary story of an epic art fraud
In the 1960s, Walter Keane was feted for his sentimental portraits that sold by the million. But in fact, his wife Margaret was the artist, working in virtual slavery to maintain his success. She tells her story, now the subject of a Tim Burton biopic
Jon Ronson
Sunday 26 October 2014 17.59 GMT

動画でも裁判のシーンは信じられないかもしれないだけど実話なんだと言っていますが、当時の記事を読んでもそうだったようです。

June 23, 1986 Vol. 25 No. 25
Margaret Keane's Artful Case Proves That She—and Not Her Ex-Husband—made Waifs
By James S. Kunen

Margaret, 58, and Walter, 70, hadn't laid eyes on each other for nearly 20 years when they walked into federal court in Honolulu last month. They proceeded to have at it in an often heated 3½-week trial. Margaret acknowledged that she had gone along with Walter's claims during their marriage, but only because he threatened to kill her and her daughter by a prior marriage if she revealed the truth. At the behest of her attorney, Margaret sat before the jurors and in 53 minutes painted a small boy's face with those unmistakable outsize orbs. The painting, Exhibit 224 of the trial, may be her greatest artistic triumph.

Challenged by Margaret's attorneys to show the jury his stuff, Walter, who acted as his own lawyer, pleaded that he was taking medication for a painfully injured shoulder and declined to put brush to canvas.

ある意味すごいと感心してしまったのが、映画のエンドロールで出てきた旦那だったKeaneは最後まで自分が描いたと主張していたということです。下記のObituary記事でも触れています。

Keane, Artist Associated With Big-Eyed Portraits
Dan Levy Published 4:00 am, Thursday, January 4, 2001

The dispute came to a climax in a 1986 lawsuit, when a federal judge in Honolulu ordered both Walter and Margaret Keane to paint pictures for the jury.

Margaret produced a likeness of a big-eyed child in 54 minutes. Mr. Keane declined to paint, saying he had a sore shoulder.

There was also a scheduled Union Square "paint-off" in 1970, covered in Life magazine, where Margaret again produced a painting but Walter failed to attend.

Herb Caen, who knew Mr. Keane from his North Beach days, concluded in a 1991 column that Margaret Keane was the real painter.

Until the end, though, Mr. Keane insisted he was the creator of the big- eyed children. In 1991, he told The Chronicle, "I painted the waifs of the world."

小保方さんも墓場まで真相を持っていくのではという気がしてきました。