Taglines: Deception is a fine art.
The Last Vermeer Movie Storyline. In Dan Friedkin’s directorial debut, a soldier and member of the Dutch resistance (Claes Bang) investigates stolen art in the wake of the Second World War, including a Vermeer sold to the Nazis by a flamboyant painter (Guy Pearce).
While Joseph Piller was fighting in the Dutch Resistance during the Second World War, Han van Meegeren was selling paintings to the Nazis. By the end of the war, Piller was identifying and redistributing stolen art, and van Meegeren had been accused of collaboration — a crime punishable by death.
Dan Friedkin’s engrossing directorial debut, based on this true story, follows van Meegeren (Guy Pearce), an affluent dandy famous for hosting hedonistic soirées, who is said to have profited from the sale of a Vermeer to Hermann Göring. That a sale was made to one of the highest-ranking Nazis, van Meegeren doesn’t deny. But just how deep are these ties to the clients?
While damning evidence accumulates, Piller (Claes Bang, also at the Festival in The Burnt Orange Heresy), with the aid of his brilliant assistant (Vicky Krieps), peels away layer after layer of a story that is far more than meets the eye. The stoic and even-headed Piller is at first immune to the crafty van Meegeren’s seeming tall tales until he finds his allegiances tested and goes to great lengths to fight for the suspect’s right to a fair trial.
Written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Children of Men) and James McGee, Friedkin’s film is an absorbing, suspenseful drama that reckons with the moral morass of postwar Europe and questions how we place value on art. Pearce delivers one of his finest turns here as van Meegeren, a larger-than-life character tailor-made for an actor whose talent for fusing flamboyance with inner substance remains unparalleled among his generation.
The Last Vermeer is a 2019 American drama film directed by Dan Friedkin from a screenplay by John Orloff (under the pen name James McGee), Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby. It is based on the 2008 book The Man Who Made Vermeers by Jonathan Lopez, and tells the story of Han van Meegeren (played by Guy Pearce), an art forger who swindles millions of dollars from the Nazis, alongside Dutch Resistance fighter Joseph Piller (Claes Bang). The film had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 20, 2020, by Sony Pictures Releasing.
The Last Vermeer (2020)
Directed by: Dan Friedkin
Starring: Guy Pearce, Claes Bang, Vicky Krieps, Roland Møller, August Diehl, Olivia Grant, Susannah Doyle, Adrian Scarborough
Screenplay by: John Orloff, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby
Production Design by: Arthur Max
Cinematography by: Remi Adefarasin
Film Editing by: Victoria Boydell
Costume Design by: Guy Speranza
Set Decoration by: Judy Farr
Art Direction by: James Hambidge, Arthur Max
Music by: Johan Söderqvist
MPAA Rating: R for some language, violence and nudity.
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Releasing
Release Date: August 31, 2019 (Telluride), November 20, 2020 (United States)
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