Framed

 

Watched ‘Framed’. Disconcerting, to watch a documentary where there are so many people I know, or half-know. One degree of separation. Half-knowing something is a leitmotif of the whole work. Half-knowing people. Everyone knows something, no one knows everything. Whoever stole ‘The Weeping Woman’ from the National Gallery of Victoria in 1986, the fallout of their crime caused much harm to many individual lives. Unexpectedly, I found Quigley, the detective inspector since retired to Phillip Island, the most sympathetic main character. He knows his role and never does role-playing, plays it by the book and, to his credit, he understands the cultural value of the Picasso. ‘Framed’ brings out the amateur sleuth in Melburnians. I question the film’s settled view that the thief took the painting out the front door. Having worked with Philip Hunter in the adjoining art college at that time, it seems perfectly plausible to me they took the Picasso out the back door, via the VCA. Trioli laughs at the outrageous wording of the letters sent to Mathews by the Australian Cultural Terrorists (ACT), but no literary analysis is pursued to narrow the authors to insiders driven by contempt. The reverse side of such comedy is anger. The wording is unorthodox but the layout mimics official bureaucratic memos; the author is familiar with such style concerns. Crawford can never be properly objective while his smug smiles, softly wreathed in cigarette smoke, say he has secrets he’s not going to tell, just yet. His performance reminds me of Quigley’s view that people just can’t help themselves, they are going to tell you things. Just not everything. McCaughey plays the sleight of hand. Two strong memories I have of 1986 are the Leunig or Tandberg cartoon ‘Weeping Director’, in which Dora Maar has morphed into someone with a flamboyant bowtie; and the news item reporting how McCaughey had visited someone in a North Melbourne studio. ‘Framed’ adds extra to the second memory, but is unforthcoming about whatever c-c-c-con-conversation actually transpired. His is not the only main role that refuses to deliver any more lines to the drama. Dixon, the conservator, is thoughtful and practical. It is a critical moment when he says his judgement of the authenticity of the recovered painting, one way or the other, put his career on the line. He is not the only actor where that was the case. Dixon reminds the amateur sleuths of another vital matter: security. All the time we think, why isn’t there footage of Locker 227 at Spencer Street Station? Because there wasn’t even CCTV in the Gallery, never mind railway stations. Unnervingly, I probably know who it was, and half-know any number of people who do know.