“Fascinating”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

TIM’S VERMEER is an absolutely fascinating documentary of how Tim Jenison went to all the time, trouble, and expense of investigating and eventually reproducing one of the works of art of 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer.

Vermeer was not widely appreciated in his own time, and authorities have proclaimed that he painted only between 30 and 35 works, but also that he was one of the greatest painters of all time because of his microscopic observation of objects and meticulous depiction of gradation of daylight on varied shapes and surfaces.

His paintings show details and perspectives found in photographs, and Jenison believes that Vermeer could have used a camera obscura to make his paintings, which is Latin for “dark chamber” and is a darkened enclosure with a pinhole on one side through which light enters to form an image of the outside objects on the opposite surface.

Jenison asks, “How did Vermeer do it?” and decides that he is going to paint a Vermeer even though it seems impossible and Jenison is not a painter, but is an inventor.

So, Jenison went around the world to study Vermeer’s paintings, which he says was a “revelation,” and he realized that Vermeer could have used a small mirror to paint his pictures, which allowed him to match colors perfectly.

Jenison demonstrates his theory to Martin Mull, an entertainer and artist in his own right, and Mull is impressed with what Jenison demonstrates.

Then Jenison decides to reproduce a painting by Vermeer called “The Music Lesson,” which is owned by Queen Elizabeth in England, saying that the process is objective and any painter who uses it would get the same result.

He built the room in the painting himself in 213 working days in a warehouse and says that he wasn’t trying to make the painting look like a Vermeer, but it was looking like a Vermeer.

We see Jenison at work day by day, and he says that the project is a lot like watching paint dry, which implies that it is boring, but watching this documentary is anything but boring.

At one point Jenison was ready to quit, but because a film was being made, he completed the painting.

TIM’S VERMEER, written and narrated by Penn Jillette, directed by partner Teller, is magic to watch.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”