White Lies - Life is too short to be honest

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title White Lies - Life is too short to be honest
Original title White lies
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1997
length 94 minutes
Age rating FSK without
Rod
Director Ken Selden
script Paul Chart , Ken Selden
production Arthur Cohn
music Donald Markowitz
camera Robert D. Yeoman
cut Michael Berenbaum
occupation

White Lies - Life is too short to be honest is an American comedy film of Ken Selden from the year 1997 .

action

Leon Turner, colored in his early 20s, lives with his mother, works in a museum as a guard. He often speaks to good-looking women by passing phrases and sayings about pictures and artists he has picked up in the museum as his own, with the aim of getting women to bed.

In order to approach the (in relation to him) older, white gallery owner Mimi Furst in a similar way, Leon even pretends to be a painter. When she asked him to show her some of his works, he had no idea what the consequences would be, so he got a female junkie who was at an art college to paint self-portraits on which he signed his name overpainted and Mimi introduces under the umbrella term "cultural supremacy" (the self-portraits of the junkie show a white, slim, blonde, long-haired woman who, from his "point of view", represents the omnipresent woman, because you can see on catalogs, posters, yes everywhere such women). Mimi is enthusiastic about the pictures.

When he loses his job due to an attempt to train himself in painting and is thrown out at home, Mimi offers him to live with her and her friend Richard, which Leon gladly accepts.

Between Richard and Leon there is a tense atmosphere from the beginning, because firstly Richard is afraid of losing his wife (Mimi says to Leon in a sense: "Since you've lived here, Richard wants sex every day."), And secondly, the artistic one for him Leon's abilities seem strange, as Leon's pictures contain all stylistic devices of art and he uses terms like "cultural supremacy", but by his own account never went to college, and when Richard asked what colors he paints with, answers "with normal colors" .

So he gets more and more entangled in his story of lies, which, when he and Mimi begin to fall in love, becomes a serious problem. So they become a couple, and before he knows it, she thinks that he has recognized such great talent that she quits her job as a gallery owner to open her own gallery with all her savings and sell his pictures. This works well initially too, as the art collector Art immediately buys 6 of 8 paintings for $ 30,000.

Despite having a bad feeling about how to get out of there, he gets more pictures of the junkie woman.

However, in the meantime, Mimi's friend Richard finds out that Leon did not paint the pictures himself.

Mimi is disappointed at first and doesn't want anything more to do with Leon, but neither gives Richard another chance.

In order not to completely ruin the upcoming vernissage , Leon decides, together with the art collector Art, who was himself a painter and was planning to buy some works by "Leons", to trim his old, unknown pictures a little in the direction of "cultural dominance" and then as To sell Leon's works in place of further, quasi fake, self-portraits of the junkie woman.

Mimi is very indifferent during this time and lets the others do it, because she has put all her resources and strength into a liar and is now at the end of her strength.

The vernissage was a complete success, the visitors were fascinated by the pictures and bought several. Mimi wants to hand over his financial share to Leon, but he makes it clear to her that, at least later, it was about her and not about the money, and crumples the check and leaves. He also makes it clear to her that at the beginning both of them only took advantage of the other, he sensed a quick deal and an entertaining affair, she sensed the big deal with a black artist. Both just wanted to take advantage of the other until feelings came into play.

Towards the end Mimi realizes that neither of them had the purest intentions at the beginning, but these have changed, and so she seeks up Leon, after a short conversation they kiss, and she says she really wants to find out more about him, which suggests that they will get back together.

Reviews

  • The lexicon of international films means that the amusing romantic social comedy with swipes against "well-intentioned racism" also acts as a satire on the art market.
  • Cinema 5/1997 wrote that the comedy was "mediocre".
  • film-dienst 10/1997 wrote that the comedy was "amusing" and "an accurate satire".
  • TV Today 10/1997 wrote that the comedy was "harmless".
  • Save.tv wrote that the comedy was "peppy".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ White Lies - Life is too short to be honest. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 3, 2015 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.save.tv