BY BEN WINTERS
On Aug. 28, there was a minor media murmur over the theft of Madonna and the Yardwinder. That painting, by Leonardo da Vinci, is (according to an article in The Scotsman) 'the jewel of the Duke of Buccleuch's £403 million art collection''or was the jewel, anyway. Now it belongs to two thieves who sauntered into the Duke's castle on a guided tour and walked out with the painting. 'It is worth upwards of £30 million,' the Scotsman notes, 'but it can never be sold legitimately, nor is it likely to disappear into the secret underwater world of some demented Dr. No-type.'
The reference is to the original Bond villain, who squared off in the original Bond movie with the original Bond, namely Sean Connery, a Scotsman (coincidence?). The Scotsman article also gives a detailed description of the crime, which is definitely up to Bond villain standards: The pair of brigands, posing as simple tourists, ditched their tour group, overcame the 20-year old guide 'guarding' the painting, and lifted it brazenly from its place on the wall. Then, in the 15 minutes before the automatic alarm would have the place 'swarming with police,' they 'calmly walked back through the main doors and entered a white Golf GTI in the car park, which already had two other occupants. They drove away and'just beyond the castle's perimeter'they threw the frame, which was later recovered, from the car.'
Boy, these guys must love 17th century painting, huh? Or maybe just money. Both The Scotsman and a detailed report in the weekly Art Newspaper detail the various ways the thieves might profit from their heist, even though the piece will be impossible to pawn. The Art Newspaper calls the theft 'the latest in a series of robberies of art works so famous that they would be impossible to sell on the open market.' So why would anyone take the considerable risk of heisting a multi-million dollar painting when there's little chance of pawning it?
The Art Newspaper provides one answer: blackmail. 'Benvenuto Cellini's salt, a masterpiece of 16th-century goldwork, was stolen in May from Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum,' they remind us. 'An Austrian radio station, State Radio Austria, recently received a ransom letter for the salt which contained fragments of enamel scratched from its surface and a demand for '10 million.'
The Scotsman provides other possibilities. 'If the letter of credit scenario is enacted, the masterpiece may go underground for 20 years, passed from one major criminal to another, in exchange for illicit products'If it is the photograph scenario, a ransom demand will be quickly presented to the insurance company for a 'reward,' which, by yesterday, had reached £100,000 on the orders of the loss adjustor.'
In the meantime, shed a tear for the Duke of Buccleuch; 'It's well known,' according to one source in the Scotsman, 'that he is so deeply attached to the painting that he cannot bear to be parted from it.'
VENETIAN BLINDERS
Moritz de Hadeln, director of this year's Venice Film Festival, had an admirable goal in mind when selecting works for inclusion, according to a Reuter's report of Sept. 2. He 'said he had purposely singled out films about Islam and the Middle East so those voices could be heard in the West.' Unfortunately, this admirable goal was thwarted, at least in part, by the government of Iran 'after one Iranian director was blocked from leaving his country and another had his film seized.'
The two artists in question were Babak Payami, 'who managed to smuggle a digital video copy of his movie out of the Islamic republic' after the prints were taken from him by his government, and Abolfazl Jalili.
The latter director, whose film Abjad deals with forbidden love between a Muslim boy and a Jewish girl, is assumed to be under the control of the Iranian government. 'We haven't heard from him for two days now,' his press agent told Reuter's, 'but we don't think he's been arrested, we think he is just worried about his family and has decided it's best not to talk to us.'
On a lighter (and stupider) note, still on the theme of the Iranian presence in Venice, 'The 14-year-old Iranian girl, Hana Makhmalbaf, whose first feature film debuted at the 60th Venice Film Festival Thursday, was almost barred from attending her own premiere,' writes Shasta Darlington on Yahoo.com news. But this time the government malfeasance is on the part of the Italians. 'Under Italian law, minors cannot see movies which have no rating'even if they directed them.' A special dispensation was made for Makmalbaf, who, according to Darlington's piece, 'comes from Iran's leading filmmaking family;' indeed, her movie, Joy of Madness, 'follows her sister in Afghanistan as she shoots At Five in the Afternoon, [which] won the Jury Prize at Cannes this year.'
SESAME SEEDS
A new CD release has given arts journalists a chance to praise Sesame Street, which for 30 years has introduced children all over America to music as much as to their ABCs. Songs from the Street is no perfunctory look at the music of the world's favorite children's show; it's a three-disc box set. 'These 63 tracks, culled from more than 4,000 shows, recall the program's history in melody and song,' writes Renee Graham in her review in the Boston Globe, 'from Kermit's melancholy '(It's Not Easy) Bein' Green,' to R.E.M.'s 'Furry Happy Monsters,' a revamped version of their hit 'Shiny Happy People.'
The reviews, like the obits on Fred 'Mr.' Rogers earlier in the year, reveal a deep nostalgia on the part of many journalists for the TV of their childhood days.
Far and away the biggest hit that Sesame Street ever scored, of course, was with 'Rubber Duckie,' Ernie's earnest paean to his favorite bath time companion. In the summer of 1970, writes Mark Wolf in the Rocky Mountain news, the song 'was a radio fixture, spending seven weeks on the top 40 chart, where it peaked at No. 16.'