The Spoils
(Canada, 104 min.)
Dir. Jamie Kastner
“Has anything changed in the city’s information or perception about the provenance of the painting?” director Jamie Kastner asks Düsseldorf cultural deputy Miriam Koch at the end of The Spoils.
“Nein,” she replies, barely containing a smirk.
As the camera holds on Koch while she suppresses her amusement, Kastner asks, “Then why give it back?” The image cuts as Koch’s grin loses its restraint and nearly cracks into a laugh.
The non-verbal answer that Kastner (Nobody Wants to Talk About Jacob Applebaum) receives arguably says more than any bureaucratic PR-spin could provide. It’s an odd but fitting end to this chapter in the ongoing quest to recover the lost artworks from the collection of late Jewish-German art deal Max Stern. The Spoils chronicles the efforts of the Max Stern Art Restitution Project and a major culture clash with the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. It’s a complicated, convoluted, and often downright dizzying story.
The Max Stern Art Restitution Project has, according to the film’s credits, returned 25 pieces of the collection to Stern’s name over a 23-year effort. One painting annually might not seem like the batting average with 400-500 pieces still missing, but some cases are especially hard fought. (The project’s website bumps the number to 26.) Just look at a key quest in The Spoils as project leaders Clarence Epstein and Will Korte spend a decade hunting for Wilhelm von Schadow’s portrait of his two children. The art historians trace the provenance—the history of ownership—of the painting to prove its place in Stern’s collection. Kastner observes as they endure years of negotiations with the painting’s owner and the Düsseldorf City Museum that houses it.
Another controversy that weaves throughout the hunt for the paintings is the contentious fight for Düsseldorf to acknowledge the significance of restitution as part of the greater act of atonement for the sins of the Holocaust. The Spoils illustrates this debate through the absence of the Düsseldorf City Museum’s director, Dr. Susanne Anne, who only appears in a 2014 interview in 2014 and dodges Kastner’s follow-ups. That 2014 footage contextualizes a decade-long debacle to showcase Stern’s story in the Düsseldorf museum. Following the restitution of one of his artworks that year, the collection loaned the artwork back to the museum in a ceremony of self-congratulatory pomp. What ultimately transpires in this case is an acknowledgement that Stern sold his artwork under duress. Nothing’s being “taken” from the museum, save perhaps the value of the painting from its assets.
Dr. Anne, circa 2014, talks a good game about an exhibit to honour Stern. That show gets a date for 2018, but the city abruptly axes it without giving an official reason. Apparently, the Germans found the exhibit to be overly driven by Canadian interests, as the curators were Canucks. (Stern established himself anew in Montreal after fleeing Nazi Germany.) From that point, Kastner wades into the increasingly murky politics of restitution as Dr. Anne becomes muzzled, but it’s unclear if her silence is self-imposed. When Kastner returns to the museum in 2021 for a half-hearted exhibit that involves neither the Canadians nor the local Jewish community, she takes him on a brisk tour without even acknowledging the presence of pieces from the Stern collection. His questions go unanswered.
Something’s rotten in the city of Düsseldorf, but Kastner finds many participants willing to give their side. The colourful rogues’ gallery includes Ludwig won Pufendorf, a lively speaker doesn’t hide his opposition to restitution. He considers the idea that lost paintings are “victims” of war to be appalling. Meanwhile, Henrik Hanstein, current owner of the Lempertz Auction House that sold Stern’s collection, fumbles when asked if Stern got a fair price. Hanstein makes evasive claims about the dollar value during wartime Germany, but doesn’t even acknowledge that the process of “Jew auctions” that unloaded the collections of Jewish people inevitably short-changed folks like Stern who were liquidating everything while fleeing for their lives. He, too, finds restitution a needless exercise. His excuse? That Stern’s last will didn’t specify a desire for it.
Details become fairly difficult to follow as The Spoils jumps around chronologically to tell Stern’s tale, but also that of the environment he escaped. The film digresses a bit too much into a history-lesson tangent to explain the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany that describe the duress that undermines the veracity of any sales Stern might have been forced to make. That the context needs repeating, however, proves surprisingly distressing. Many of the Germans interviewed in The Spoils have amnesia when it comes to cultural memory. A heavy whiff of antisemitism arises, too, as several cultural figureheads suggest that the wronged parties are the ones who bought the paintings and must facilitate their restitution. The whole conversation seems like a nuisance to them. That’s probably horrifying for the restitution project, but it delivers some great material for Kastner.
Dahomey, this is not though, as The Spoils illustrates the very different attitudes that two countries can have to their histories. But Kastner’s caper and Mati Diop’s experimental odyssey align in their underlying arguments. Artworks hold value greater than their monetary worth. The recognition of harms done, of lives upturned, and of culture stolen remains priceless. And, unfortunately, a tougher sell for victors who long enjoyed the spoils.
