Interesting discussion, thanks to all readers.

I neglected to mention Elizabeth Cohen of the Binghamton daily paper, the Press and News-Bulletin, who wrote the first piece about Marla and serves as the conscience of the film, challenging Bar-Lev at several points about what he is doing and whether it might be better to walk away. Of course, she can't help herself either; she wrote another article this week (about the movie and her role in it).

Secondly, I think it's very interesting to ask -- as several of you have -- how the art would have been received if it had been presented from the beginning as a collaboration between Mark and Marla Olmstead. The funny thing here is that the postmodernist art establishment, exactly the institution that Marla's success supposedly "exposes," in some people's eyes, might have been open to that. Collaboration is very big these days, and the whole idea of a solitary artist producing great work more or less ex nihilo is sort of a relic of the past.

On the other hand, would the mainstream media have been interested, along with the kinds of middle-American collectors who saw Marla as embodying some kind of pure and innocent spirituality and drove up her prices to ludicrous levels? I doubt it. (It's important to understand that it *wasn't* the New York gallery world that embraced Marla, but an entirely different demographic.)

In any case, *if* the story is that Mark "helped" Marla extensively, as seems plausible, it isn't that fact that got the family into this predicament. It's their insistence on a somewhat old-fashioned mythology of what an artist is and how s/he works.

For so eloquently saying what I am not quite qualified to say. I'm really grateful for that thoughtful and articulate response, which captures in many ways the complicated and painful spirit of Tony Kaye's film.

Now for the angry papists. Check out my last name, people! Wouldn't you speculate that I might have some connection to Catholic tradition? I am very well aware of traditional RC dogma on both the death penalty and abortion and yes, it certainly has the (theoretical) virtue of moral consistency. Pretty much the only thing I respect about Bill O'Reilly is his Catholic-motivated opposition to the death penalty. He even once asked GWB, on air, whether he believed Jesus would support capital punishment. (To his credit, Bush said probably not.)

In fairness, JP2 spoke out strongly on the death penalty and social justice for the poor, but I don't think any Catholic can deny that over the last few decades the focus of church teachings has swung steadily and inexorably toward sexual and reproductive questions. I certainly have a soft spot in my heart for Catholic Worker types, and for the classic "liberation theology" of the '60s and '70s. While I don't think the state should ever be in the business of regulating sexual activity or reproductive choice, there are certainly Catholics whose overall social view encompasses a pro-life position with clarity and consistency. I think one has to acknowledge that.

But. Isn't it funny how often the American bishops talk about the death penalty? They just yammer on and on about it and refuse to shut up about how immoral it is, don't they? And the way they refuse communion to politicians who support the execution of juveniles -- now that's principle! OK, point being it's not accurate to say that Catholics hold a consistent position on these issues, any more than other people. Recent polls suggest that American Catholics divide almost 50-50 on the death penalty, which seems to be pretty close to the general public. (Opinion on the subject has shifted rapidly in recent years, with all the publicity on wrongful convictions.) See this article:

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0607423.htm

The church fathers are getting on the anti-death penalty train as it's leaving the station, but abortion and gay marriage has obsessed them in recent years, virtually to the exclusion of all other topics. And they don't talk about the death penalty much with their fundamentalist brethren in the big-tent anti-abortion movement, do they?

So that's my long-winded answer to Bryson K.: Yes, there is an enormous difference between principled opposition to abortion and the mouth-breathing creepazoids who murder doctors and blow up clinics, and I applaud your efforts to reach out beyond caricature, engage in dialogue, etc. But the 2,000 year old tradition you speak of, founded as it is on sexual exclusion and domination (and on an especially perverse division between body and spirit) is not quite the pinnacle of moral clarity you make it out to be.