When I idly caught Teller’s documentary “Tim’s Vermeer” at Telluride back in August, it was an instant sensation. I adored its vision of art as ingenuity and the profound places it went. The film’s subject, Tim Jenison, received one of the most enthusiastic standing ovations I’ve ever seen at Telluride, and the film, thankfully, made the cut with the Academy’s list of documentary feature finalists earlier this week.
“Tim’s Vermeer” is “mostly an awe-inspiring curiosity,” I wrote from Telluride. “But it ends up dipping into the profound. What is art if not the height of ingenuity? If Vermeer and certain contemporaries used methods asserted by the Hockney-Falco thesis, is that ‘cheating?’ Or is it as majestic a note on the human spirit as something born purely of imagination?”
Sony Pictures Classics has provided us with the film’s quirky poster for an exclusive premiere today. Check it out below.
“Tim’s Vermeer” opens in limited release on Friday.