COLD OPEN Alex: Big question. Big question. Okay. Naomi: Oh boy. Okay. Oh boy. Alex: Should you be called upon? Naomi: Mm-hmm. Alex: To perform a heist, what would you target? Naomi: Okay. The first thing that comes to mind is the Charles Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa, California. Beautiful. That has all the original like peanuts strips. Yeah. Wow, wow, wow. Alex: And what a heist it would be. Yeah. It would be an adorable heist. Naomi: It would be an absolutely adorable heist. Alex: I think I would do like a bit of a classic heist, like probably a mummy from the Met or something. You know, something that was already stolen and Yes. So just steal it again. Right. What's the harm? Naomi: Right. Alex: Vincent. Vinson: I would heist the big institution that I know. Best, which is the Macy's on 34th Street. Naomi: Wow. Vinson: I know the escalators, the wooden old ones in the back of the store. Every inch of the fragrance floor in the middle of the first floor. I just feel that I know the building well enough that I could develop. Naomi: A plan Vinson: with, with an airtight plan, with the help of a team of experts, don't get me wrong. Right. We could get together and Italian job the fuck out of that? Macy's, I think. Naomi: Would you steal like, I don't know, Calvin Klein Eaternity. Or would you steal like cash? Vinson: I think clothes are a good bet for a heist. you don't, you don't need a special guy to be like, Hey, do you like this painting? It's like, right. It's Naomi: not like a Vermeer. I Vinson: got a Nautica puffy jacket. Do you want it Nica? Alex: Yeah. And you could probably sell it right in front of that Macy's too. Vinson: That's right. Alex: So it would, it's a perfect scheme. MUX Naomi: This is Critics At Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. I'm Nomi Fry. Vinson: I'm Vincent Cunningham. Alex: And I'm Alex Schwartz. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. Hello Critics? Hello. What? What's up? Did you get here in a getaway car? Vinson: I mean, I wish. I wish I still can't drive. I need to be gotten away with, so. Alex: Oh wow. Naomi: Well, you are New York kid, so that Yeah. Alex: Well we are feeling something in the air. We're feeling a little bit of, dare I say, fun. Some excitement. Some, some. For the first time in a long time, there's a story that has. Captured the attention of people all around the world and not in a terrible, we're being crushed. Life is horrible. It's the end of everything kind of way. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm talking of course, about the heist of the Louvre, Naomi: right? It's like Zorn's election. No, it's going right to the heist. Alex: Right. On Sunday, October 19th at precisely 9:34 AM four masked thieves broke into the Louvre. And stole over a hundred million dollars worth of French crown jewels, God damn, eight pieces of crown jewels, and they dropped one and the crown eugenie's crown is somewhere dented getting repaired. The story has just gotten more and more elaborate and layered and frankly hilarious. As more details have come in. I would like to know if either of you, have you been following the heist? Do you have some heist details that you've been particularly enjoying? Naomi: I've been following the heist because it's kind of, it feels like, I know it's like a serious thing on the one hand, but on the, on the other hand, it's kind of a trifle and it has these trifling details. You know, for instance, that, um, the, the criminals, the heister, the robbers pulled up like a truck with a ladder mm-hmm. To go up and dressed up as like. You know, workmen and the camera that would've captured them was conveniently, like, turned away from them. I, I, you know what, actually, scratch that. I think my favorite, my favorite detail. apparently the password of the security system of the Louvre that you know is hosted like untold treasures from around the world of many centuries is. Louvre beautiful. It's like a very like Keystone Co. You know, just very kind of like clown show. Alex: It's gorgeous. Yeah. Vincent, any favorite heist details? Vinson: Well, besides the sort of just brazenness of the timing and the sort of the ladder, which is like, you know, just such a great visual. I always like the, the parts of the plan that don't come together, You know, they were thinking they were gonna blow everything up and instead they leave back behind all the evidence that's in the truck. Um, leading it seems to some parts of the capture. It's just such a pathetic detail of, you know, human frailty. Yeah, this was not a perfect crime. It was not, you know? Yeah, Alex: indeed it was not. And we will be talking more about that. And heists are on our brains in general because there is a film about a much smaller scale museum heist that's out in theaters right now. Kelly Reihart, the Mastermind. It's about an art school dropout who steals four paintings from a small local museum in Massachusetts, and it does not go well. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Heists and why we are drawn to all the sorted details, whether they be fictional or in real life. There's certainly a glamor to some of the places that Heister are robbing. Of course, there are the three casinos in Oceans 11. There's, you know, the Louvre and there's something really satisfying, or there can be about watching a group of people execute on a complicated plan and maybe some Schadenfreude involved when things go wrong. But the way people are talking about this latest heist, there's an almost Robinhood like angle. We're sticking it to the man, you know, in the form of big institutions, And so the big question I have for us is what do we the audience get from a heist? That's today on critics at large, the Art of the Heist ________________ Alex: Let's start, of course, with the lieu of heist. We've talked about the basics, and I wanna talk now about the Internet's response to this because it's been everywhere. I think I will say that one thing I deeply enjoy about online culture is when, uh, it's a bunch of different people come together and just meme the shit out of something. Yes. In a way that's very satisfying and can be like a real. Collective experience. Yes. I'm aware that this is not, you know, the highest form. Of culture, but I love it. I love it. So are there any good memes and such that, that you guys have seen that can give us a clue into how the culture has been interpreting this heist? Naomi: Yeah, I think one of the things that distinguishes this heist in the popular imagination as I've seen it so far is its frenchness, right? I mean, Alex: yeah. Naomi: But there was one funny Video that I saw on Instagram. It's a girl. Um, oh yes. Stella Webb. Hmm. My impression of the Lure Heist creative director. Right. So she's, she's sitting there, uh, wearing a black turtleneck, of course, uh, clutching a cigarette between two fingers CLIP - STELLA WEBB Naomi: The idea that this is something beyond, um, a criminal endeavor. It's an aesthetic endeavor, right? It's something that kind of like. Inflames our imaginations. Um, and in a way that links to a kind of like national character, right? It's a French daytime heist in the Louvre. Alex: Vincent, anything that's caught your eye, Vinson: you know, usually I don't like memes that are sort of. Put forward by brands. 'cause it's like, so they, they're always so pandering. Yeah. And silly. But the company that made the lift that was used in the heist with the, the, the truck ladder. With the ladder. Ladder. The truck with the ladder, yeah. Um, put out a picture of their machine outside the Louvre and said. If you're in a hurry, the Barker alo carries your treasures up to 400 kilograms at 42 meters per minute. Quiet as a whisper. It's just, it just funny, like, um, I mean, you can't buy this kind of adv a, it's great advertisement and it's, it's interesting, you know, usually if you product is used in something bad, you run away from it. But I thought that meme was interesting insofar as it really described how. Much fun people are having with this, Um, I thought it was a very cheeky move by them. Bucker. Shout out to you Alex: also, if you guys have, have you guys seen the video of the thieves descending in that? Lyft, it's comically slow. Like they could have run down much faster. They're just going Z, Z, Z, Z, Z. As normal cars pass by as security guards inside the museum starting to talk about something, these guys are just descending very slowly and safely down. Vinson: Yeah. Alex, how about you? Alex: I've seen a number I enjoy including, you know, some variations on the get Ready with me trope on social media where it's get ready with me to rob the louv, but the one that's truly won my heart. Is by, uh, a young creator, shall we say. Who goes by Jake? Amazing. And his name is Jake Schroeder. He writes songs like pop style songs around ridiculous events like this. There are headshots of these two guys. Have you seen these headshot circulating? Yeah. I'm not even clear on whether these headshots are Naomi: real or not, right? Yeah, it's, I Alex: don't, I France doesn't release headshot in the way there is. There is no kind of pur walk InShot mug and mugshots. Thank you. Mugshots. Of course this is right. Um, but I guess I call them headshot because they do look like actors, these two guys, so here's a little pop song by Jake. Amazing. CLIP - Louvre song Naomi: This is good, not me, Alex: I love this. I will say why. It's because this guy is clearly talented. He can write a song that frankly I might like to hear in a long-term developed Broadway show. You know, for. 15 years later when all of us have forgotten this heist. It's very Broadway. I can see this appearing on Broadway. Yeah. But I just look, Naomi: Alex, why don't you write it? Alex: Wow. That would be a chance. Wonderful use of my Naomi: time. This is a chance Alex: to strike it rich. I, I, I truly can't think of a better endeavor for real bus for me personally. Yeah. Thank you for suggesting it. Um, I just, I just love the combo of actual talent and absurdity that's going on here. Mm-hmm. It is perfect. It's almost like it was engineered. For these ridiculous memes. But no, we must recall that in fact this heist was engineered to make a small handful of people very, very rich. Mm-hmm. If only they could figure out how to fence their stolen items. So we have much more to say and discuss about the Lou of Highest, but I wanna move us to the Mastermind. Vinson: Yes. Alex: Which is Kelly Reichardt's new movie, starring. The ubiquitous Josh O'Connor. I'm not sad that he's ubiquitous. He's great. He's all over the place for a reason. Vincent, could you just tell us a little bit about the plot of this film? Vinson: Um, the Mastermind begins with the sort of sad. But sort of like intriguingly, I don't know, hangdog existence of JB or James Mooney, who is the sort of wayward son of a, uh, very prominent judge. His wife is, uh, played by Alana Heim, he has two sons and it starts with them in a museum. We see them hanging around a museum. Um, and he surreptitiously. Unlocks a museum case and takes a, a small trinket. Then we see him getting together with a bunch of people planning to steal a bunch of paintings from a specific room. Paintings by Arthur Dove. Abstract works that still have something to do with landscape and the outdoors, but mostly, um, abstractions the heist. It happens and it's like a shit show at one point there. And Alex: it's also a day heist. It's a, it's a, I just wanted say it's, it's a day Vinson: heist. It prominently figures a museum guard who's always asleep and eventually one of the heister brings out a gun, unplanned. They get out, barely. And from there forward. He has to go on the run. CLIP - THE MASTERMIND TRAILER it is like a lot of Kelly Riker films reminds me a little bit of a, of an Eric Romer film of sort of a, a quotidian movie of the extreme emotion. Alex: And now I just wanna know, did you like it? Vinson: Sort of. Alex: Okay. Say more. Vinson: I really found lots of the, the first half of the movie. Very funny. And I will admit that after that first half, I kept speculating as to, I won't say hoping, but speculating as to when it might end. Alex: Ah, ah, I got it. Um, I got it. Vinson: Kelly Ret admirably gets these arty, interesting films made, and the bargain that she has to make is getting famous people in the movies and like Josh O'Connor does not belong in this movie. I think it's it's got a, it's got a casting problem. Oh, that's interesting. He's like, he's too famous and he is not actually like. This movie calls for anonymity, and yet I enjoyed it and thought it had a lot to offer, but I do think that the Sleeping museum guard had a point. Alex: Wow. Wha Yeah. No, me. What did you think? Naomi: Okay. I usually really love Kelly Reer movies. Oh my Alex: God. Look at the consensus forming. No, me. Well, Naomi: it's not. I was of two minds about this movie, much like Vincent, I appreciate. Admire and I'm thankful for Riker's ability to get through in this current, you know, commercial climate, movies that aren't commercial. I do think that's, that's important and I usually like it. Like for instance, I love showing up or last movie. I do feel. That a movie about a heist and a heist gone wrong and a heist whose aims are not completely apparent. And I again appreciate this about Kelly Riker's movies, that there is no necessary explanation or point. Mm-hmm. Because life doesn't necessarily proceed to any climax or explanation. Mm-hmm. Right. Or epiphany. And that's fine. But I do think. Here that got kind of stretched a little bit too far into like, who is this guy? Like I get that. The point is, this is, the movie takes place in the early seventies. It's a moment of great ideological, you know, foment and people who are kind of, of the generation of, of this character, you know, youngish are feeling very strongly, you know, against the Vietnam war, against the institutions around them. He is sort of like, doesn't seem to be part of that. But then also it's unclear what drives this heist. You know, why are we following this person? Why Arthur Dove? Again, it doesn't need to be some like great spiritual revelation or some, but, but the kind of like pointlessness of the whole thing, which I know was the point, was like stretched a little bit beyond comprehension for me. Alex: You guys ready? Naomi: Oh my God. Give it to us. Alex: Loved every second of this movie. Vinson: Awesome. Alex: Every frame, incredible, every minute, every music cue. Loved it. Vinson: Music was very good. Alex: Guys. I will say it's a beautiful movie. I'm here to speak for it, and I see your criticisms. Mm-hmm. And I understand your criticisms, and I'm here to defend the movie from them. Okay. Sorry that came on really strong. Nope. I love, I love your points of view. No, we need emotion. I love your points of view. I'm just, I just happened to love this movie and I was very surprised by loving this movie because Vincent, you're right, Kelly Recart can be a bit of a slow burn, but I was on the absolute edge of my seat at 11:00 AM with all of the other four people at the Angelika Cinema. What I love about this movie is all the, there are a few things. One is that I just love an escape story or where the noose is tightening and you're desperate. The guy is desperate. Yeah. How are they gonna get out of this situation? But the other thing I do like about it is the apparent aimlessness of it, which if you think about it and you poke at it, I think there are some answers. Like there is an answer in the movie itself about why he chose these paintings because they were important to his mentor in art school. But like it doesn't matter that much. I think it's about someone in search of a life and in search of. An identity in, in search of something to do. He is a dropout, but he's not a political dropout in the ways mm-hmm. Of so many of the people of the time. Mm-hmm. And I, there's so much political that happens in this movie. There's constant reference to the Vietnam War. It takes place in the year 1970. There's a reference to the bombings in Cambodia. There's, there's a big climactic protest march, and this guy is just kind of. A regular failure. I loved how the attentiveness that Kelly Reihart showed to the mechanics of the heist because that, and we'll get to this in a second, is what can be so exciting about a great heist movie. And here all those mechanics just show you what goes awry. There's also a long sequence of him trying to hide the paintings in a barn. The camera does not cut. You're just watching it look up. I love that scene. I love that scene and down a ladder. As a pig snorts away trying to hide these works of art with no idea what he's gonna do with them. It is a film about a gross incompetent who could have been a contender, and I love that The heist has been a staple of movies since the very beginning of the 20th century. What keeps us coming back to stories of elaborate robberies, that's after the break on critics at large from the New Yorker. :: MIDROLL :: Alex: So we've been talking about two Heists, the Loof heist, which every single person on planet Earth is following, and the Mastermind, which as we say is a bit more selective. Um, I would urge people to see it. Mm-hmm. Part of the fun, I would say of especially the heist memes around the Louvre, is the fact that the tropes and the story beats they're playing off of are so familiar. I mean, all heists have three components. You gotta get a gang together. Mm-hmm. You gotta do the robbery and then you gotta get away. So I think we're all following it in a lot of ways, knowing those beats because of the movies. Mm-hmm. So I wanted to ask you guys, what are some of your favorite. Heist movies, your personal heist canon, if you will. Naomi: So as, as I was prepping for this, for this episode, I was like, yeah, of course. I've watched like Oceans 11 to, and then like the, you know, 11 sequels, 12 to 13, yeah. Eight to, to that movie. Um. And the Italian job. you know, the kind of classic like, kind of like gentleman's, like a glamorous gentleman's occupation. Right? The kind of like, oh, it's glamorous. You know, these people are all like the best at what they do. Right. And I suddenly remember this movie from childhood. Mm-hmm. I don't know if you guys. Are familiar with it. It's from 1980. It's a minor comedy. It's called How To Beat The High Cost of Living. Alex: I don't know this movie. Mm-hmm. Naomi: It's like so random. Suddenly I was like, wait, that was actually really like fascinated me when I was a child. Like I watch it on TV in the eighties sometime. It's three women, A young Jessica Lang. Alex: Okay. Naomi: Jane Curtain and Susan St. James. Alex: Alright. Naomi: It's about these three women living in Oregon, suburban moms who are all struggling in their way. So it's 1980, it's, you know, seventies feminism, you know, second wave feminism is in the air. But women are still fucked over, right? So these are all women who have been fucked over and they can't make ends meet, CLIP - HOW TO…COST OF LIVING (TRAILER) and they decide to pull off a heist, and the heist happens in the local mall. Alex: So I have a question. Is it good? Naomi: It's, you know, it's a minor movie. Okay. But I remember it. It looms large in my memory as something… kind of fun and games and kind of stupid and silly and they, they manage to, they, they carry it off. Like it's, it's fine, but it also shows kind of a, the real kind of like socioeconomic and kind of gender desperation that's behind this endeavor. In a way that's very true to the moment it came out in. And so I think that is something that sometimes, not always, but sometimes happens with depictions of heists. Vinson: One of my favorites, a kind of smaller scale picture that I really like is the movie Drive 2011. Um, starring, go Starring, starring Ryan Gosling Gosling, directed by Nicholas Vending. Rein. Rein. Yeah. Um. And it is about a stunt driver called Driver throughout the movie who also sort of moonlights as a getaway driver. CLIP - DRIVE (TRAILER) Interestingly, I think the Heist movie as a sub-genre of the crime movie is sort of about skirting the legit world and the illegitimate world, and often using the skills and talents that are developed in one and importing it to the other. In this case, very talented driver is sort of. Deep in this underworld that's just a part of it. He just is a hired gun as a, as a getaway driver. He is sort of getting to know this woman, uh, one of his neighbors and her kid, but her ex gets out of jail and he's pulled into a, um, a high situation with the ex whose name is standard, and they go out to try to, um, rob a pawn shop of like, so tens of thousands of dollars. There's a heist including, um, another accomplice, uh, who was played by Christina Hendricks. Naomi: I forgot about that part. It goes Vinson: wrong. It goes bad. And the rest of the picture is a kind of aftermath of the failed heist. So again, the sort of sorrow of an underworld and its inhabitants, people who are desperate, but it's also just a very, very, very stylish movie. The cars look great. The lights are all very sort of like ambient and glowy. It's a really beautiful movie about a really desperate, situation. Love it. Sounds great. How about you, Alex? Alex: Well. I do think Oceans 11, which we keep mentioning, is one of the great films. I rewatched it this weekend. Yeah, it is so fun and so good and so satisfying and just like oozes charisma from every shot. But the film I wanna talk about is another tremendous film that I really think everyone should see. If you're in New York City, you can go see it soon at Film Forum, which is doing Oh wow. A series about French heists, which I think will be really fun. And it's called Le Cercle Rouge, the Red Circle. Oh yes. Alain Delon. So this movie is so fantastic and complex and. Brilliantly plotted and timed that I think it will really scratch the itch of anyone who loves a heist film. it starts with a criminal corre who's played by a land law who's about to get out of jail after five years. He gets a tip from his guard that there is a fancy jewelry store in Paris that this prison guard has an in at that could be robbed. Mm-hmm. Should one be willing to do such a thing. This plot line crosses with a criminal who is running away from a police inspector And their paths cross and they begin to put a team together for this jewelry store heist. And at the same time, they're being hunted. They're being hunted by the police inspector who's after the criminal who got away. So it's layers on layers on layers. And one thing I love about this movie is the way time works in it, because of course. A heist happens, like we all are so fixated on the loof heist, the three minutes and 54 seconds. Mm-hmm. Whatever it was that they were actually inside. Mm-hmm. You know, it's, it's, for film, it's great because it's a real time endeavor. You're trying to show how long this crazy thing takes, because it all needs to be very precisely timed. And Oceans 11, there's the whole thing where. They have, um, the Chinese acrobat who's inside of this sealed container, who will actually suffocate after 30 minutes if they can't get him out. So one thing I love about Lu is. You just feel the weight of time, you feel it during the heist itself. It's a beautiful long, I would say maybe almost 30 minute sequence of how they're gonna get in and out of this jewelry store.And in that sense, it's very satisfying in the sense that you sympathize with everyone, including the police inspector who has no, you would love this. Three cats who he dotes on, Naomi: not Alex: cats who he calls his babies. Oh baby. So there's precisely Alicia. Alicia. It's very stylish and it's beautiful. And I also really felt like it would be a good double viewing, I think with the mastermind. One was actually made in 1970. The other takes place in 1970 mm. And there's a kind of, there's a sort of jazzy rhythm to each, the way silence works in Nas Rouge. It's not a movie that over soundtracks. Music is not playing at all times, but when music goes, something significant is happening. And the same is true in the Mastermind with this kind of jazzy score that peters out as things go increasingly wrong. It's fabulous, it's satisfying, and it's also philosophical about. The darker nature of man, what leads someone to commit crime. Naomi: Mm-hmm. Alex: And that's also what I'm wondering for you guys. You know, we talked before about. How fun heists are. I think generally, because they're often seen as being a victimless crime. Like Oceans 11 is again the perfect example. They're hitting three casinos who are run by the guy who took George Clooney's Girl. We don't like him. We want him to lose, but we also feel very satisfied that this $160 million take right, is not coming out of, you know, other people's wallets. No one is going to have to starve because of this heist. Just Andy Garcia. Just Andy Garcia. So. Is there something about the criminality of the heist film that makes us sympathize more with the criminal? Is it like a way into the criminal mind? Is that uncomfortable? Is that okay? Vinson: It's about the criminal mind, but it's also about, um, exactly what you mentioned. What is the nature of an establishment? And it seems that the competencies. Involved in the planning of the highest, sort of interestingly rival the nature of the establishments against which the crimes are committed. Maybe the way to understand the heist movie is that the only way to understand, uh, society or the establishments that symbolize that society are to understand the holes in them, at which the, the heist is sort of laser targeted, right? It's designed to expose them. It's a double mirror that that gives us a, a greater. Picture of society because it shows the crannies, like what are the blind spots in the society, right? The highest picture forensically, uh, attacks those things, Naomi: attacks, and in that way provides a possible. Figure to believe in, in a kind of like twisted way, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, you know how I have the bit where I'm like, we need a strong leader, which obviously I don't mean per se, but like the, the notion that no one's in charge and everyone's an idiot. Alex: Mm-hmm. Naomi: Or like that the people who are in charge are idiots. Alex: Yeah. Naomi: I think there is a certain satisfaction, and this is like in a heist, gone well. Mm-hmm. In a heist gone, right? That you're like, oh. Someone can carry something off. Yeah. I mean, no matter that it's like stealing the crown jewels or something, it's not necessarily, you know, at all socially redeeming or, but it's like, okay. It's like someone else, just like me, is seeing that everybody is an idiot, but unlike me, they're able to. To sort of best those people in charge. So it's like an alternative morality or something. It's the morality of like wits. Yeah. Yeah. Vinson: And like the underworld generally is a way of saying, I reject the morays of the wider culture. Even the totally legit, even the, the competent. Heist that is totally welcome in the light, right? Like you think about sort of corporate takeovers, mergers, acquisitions, the big, these have the structure of heists and they're told by wealthy, powerful people. And then, you know, we, you know, we, whatever, I, I don't the star or whatever the fuck. I don't know. Um. maybe this is more broadly, the sort of, the idea of the underworld is that there are rival hierarchies to this. That there are, there are ways to sort of achieve a different kind of glamor and esteem and to accomplish something equally impressive and Titanic, but sort of. On the total flip side of everything that we're taught to glamorize and admire Alex: successful heists may be fun to watch, but the ones that go awry might tell us more about who we are. This is critics at Large from the New Yorker. We'll be right back. :: MIDROLL :: Alex: We've been talking about some of our favorite heist movies and the things that go right in some of them, and also the things that go wrong, I should say. Quite often things do go wrong, and in the case of the Louvre robbery. They seem to have gone very wrong. Someone was apprehended at the airport trying to fly back to his native Algeria. Four people have been arrested, three of whom are suspected to be the ones who actually were on site the day of the heist. It's not like they're getting away with it. Yeah. Um, so do you feel that this question of getting away with it is central to the heist, do we actually wanna see Heister caught? Yeah, Vinson: as always, you know, it depends in, in the big vaunted institution and the, the goods are even gotten by that institution by sort of like doubtful, provenance or whatever. I think, yeah, we want to see the end of Shawshank Redemption, like, you know, somebody on the beach with sand between their toes and like, okay, you know, this worked out. For the person. Um, but it always depends about the sort of legitimacy. Maybe that's another big theme of the Heist movie. It's like, how did this institution come by? Its power, the museum, the government, the casino, and do we all agree that that is legitimate? You know, we all live in these contexts. And kind of accept a lot of their premises. Everybody has to do this just to be alive. Yes. This bank that I get my money from may have some, but you know what? They have my money and I trust them and I'll take out, go to the ATM. Yeah, I'm gonna get on the train and however the it's finances are run. You, you can, like all this, this premise is humming under all of our everyday lives. Right. The heist movie says, I wanna interrupt that. And so the success or failure of the heist, sort of in our attitudes toward it, start to describe for us how we feel about the great big totems of our everyday lives. I think that's very useful. Alex: Yeah. You know, that's interesting to me. Um, I did once see a rather enjoyable Netflixy movie about the heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I mean, I dunno why I added the why. I think it was on Netflix, but it was also Netflix. It was both. Netflix isn't at, it was both. It doesn't Vinson: have to be on Netflix to be Netflix. I know what you mean. Yeah. Alex: I mean, one crazy thing about that heist Barley Key Netflix. Do, do you guys know about that heist?, it Naomi:Um, tell us, give, give us the Alex: nine 19, it took place on March 18th, 1990 and at like 12:30 AM And the date is relevant because it was the night of St. Patrick's Day. So the thieves had. Known Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is in Boston. They knew that a night of absolute drunken revelry would be consuming the city and its police force, and they dressed as cops. And so a couple years ago, I was at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum after having seen this movie And what I had forgotten in the time in between was that the objects, the paintings that were stolen. Have not been replaced, not only by themselves, but by anything else. They're just blank spaces on the wall. Mm-hmm. You know, where the frame should go. I will tell you that had quite an emotional effect on me. Naomi: Yeah. Alex: I felt, um, quite, quite bereft to see the absence of these things, which should be seen. Because. Yes, it was this one very rich woman, Isabella Stewart Gardner, who acquired them, but they're there for the viewing of the general public, and they're there to be entered into our own lives and shared among us. Mm-hmm. Because that is another community. The people who see things and watch things and listened to things together over generations, like, you know, we all know we believe in this stuff. So seeing that gone for. Like, who knows? Were they sold? Was it a particular collector who just had to have these things? Who's now living with them staring evilly and you know, his evil layer under a snowy mountain? Mm-hmm. Yeah, extremely. Or are they just under a bed because no one could get rid of them? I don't know. But it did have an effect on me, and I think that's part of what people have enjoyed about the Louvre heist. I don't think anyone has personally felt like not the emeralds. Vinson: Yeah. Oh Alex: my goodness. They are fascinating objects. Mm-hmm. They're beautiful objects. They're spectacular objects. It didn't seem to me the same thing as a work of art that people have a profound emotional connection to. Naomi: I think that, I think these two different paths that a heist might take, they scratch different itches for us. Like if I'm watching Brad Pitt and Clooney. You know, pull the wool over Andy Garcia's eyes in a well cut suit. You know, like in Oceans 11, that scratches one inch for me. Whereas if I'm watching, you know, the Mastermind or I'm watching like, you know, the ies good time or something where Robert Pattinson plays like a desperate. Petty criminal who convinces his mentally disabled brother to rob a bank and they plan it, and of course it all goes incredibly awry. And then it's just like on the run, very kind of like ugly. The depressing life that shows like all the current ills of society. It's clear from the start that any plan that springs from this guy's head is gonna be a failure. You know, that scratches a different inch for me, which is it's turning a mirror to society in a way in which I can identify and worry about. Whereas a successful heist is pure escapism. You know, it's like the difference between pure entertainment. Versus like the lowest stakes. Yeah. You know, sad individuals trying to scramble in like the dirty subway for scraps. Yeah. You know, the pulled off Heist movie and Yeah. The Failed Heist movie. It's almost like two different. Separate genres. Alex: Yeah, that's, I think that's a very good point. And often with the failed heist movie, the, the failure for obvious reasons, but still, it might be worth noting the failure happens early on so that you can see the sordid aftermath, you know, good time. It's certainly the case. Yes. Reservoir Dogs, it's the case. Mm-hmm. Um, even in the Mastermind, even though. The Mastermind takes a lot of attention to show you, you know, how, how the box was made that the paintings are gonna be slipped into. It's almost, it's not almost, it's in service of the chaos that follows when everything starts to fall apart. Um, you know, I think another, that just reminds me that I think another pleasure of the Heist movie in the heist in general is competency porn. Careful planning, making sure, I mean that's ocean's 11 all over. Um, but there's something else that occurs to me, a kind of literary point to your social point mm-hmm. Vincent, that you're making about the holes that the heist exposes and institutions mm-hmm. Making us question the institutions. I'm always interested when I just get attached to a character and when that phenomenon, that human phenomenon of caring starts. Yeah. Caring about. Another person and their fate. And of course a good movie makes you care. It makes you wanna care. A good novel does the same thing. That for me, has not happened with the Louvre Heisters. I just noting my own feelings. I feel indifferent to their fate, Vinson: individual plight or yes, Alex: I feel I maybe that will change the more we know about them, but that fictional element, that element of. Character and investing in someone else's success or failure. Mm-hmm. I think part of what's fun, and I use that word now with a kind of barbed meaning like, I don't know if a heist should be fun, like a real one. I don't know. No, it's, it's, there is something sordid even about finding it fun and part of it is my sort of indifference to. The people behind it, but that may well change the more we know. I wanted to ask you guys also, you know, it occurs to me that we live in a time of widespread criminality at the highest levels. Mm-hmm. There's a lot of, uh. What normally would be very illegal activity happening in broad daylight at all times. You know, as we're recording the day that we're recording this, a pre pardon was handed out to Rudy Giuliani, friend of friend of the show. Vinson: Of course, yes, of course. Alex: Um, and. As we all know, George Santos, whom we spoke about in, I would call it a companion episode to this one, our scammers episode. Very, very Vinson: similar Scammers Alex: and heister similar, but one just feels a lot grosser than the other. Um, you know, and there was this, I'm sorry that I have to know this and I only know it, not because I'm on truth social all times, but because one of our beloved producers has, has enlightened me that, um. What Trump said about Santos was that he was something of a rogue, but there are many rogues throughout our country that aren't forced to serve seven years in prison. And it's like, what? Okay. Well, you know, now I feel like we're sitting around talking about hesters. We're loving on And law, you know, but, but somewhere someone else is applying George Santos. It makes me feel, it makes me feel dirty. Yeah. And when we are, Vincent, and you were talking about institutions in a very different way. The holes of all the institutions around us are now being exposed, not by a daring mastermind, but by the bluntest tools of power. Mm-hmm. How much will you pay to make your problem go away? Is a question that universities are answering, law firms are answering. We're gonna see more and more institutions answering this question, I'm sure. Um, so. Does this connect to you? To our feelings about the Luv heist? To me, it's a little bit of a sense, again, of that fictional character sense of wanting to invest a Robin Hoodish, like quality, not a moral quality, but just a character quality.Mm-hmm. At a time when we are really helpless against much bigger forces. Vinson: Yeah. Well, you know, yes. In the case of at least the United States. I can imagine myself or imagine the mind of someone who is a fan of Donald Trump and says, yep, he's getting in there and enriching himself and his kids, just like Nancy Pelosi, who recently announced her retirement and others like her, have steadily enriched themselves by being in Congress. That again, the society has given itself a kind of dark funhouse mirror that, um, the, the, the. Supposedly minor criminality or benign criminality of the establishment has now been doubled down upon, made, um, sort of buff, foolishly pushed to its final extent, et cetera. Um, on the other hand, you could say from someone who abhors the, um, the Trump phenomenon, uh, yeah, it exposes what was always, uh, exploitable. Alex: Right. I mean, you're making me think of the White House. Naomi: Yeah, absolutely. I was just thinking that. I'm suddenly feeling very connected to the White House as it was. Whereas, you know, I didn't really ca, you know what I mean? It's not like I think about like the structure of the White House every day and how important it's to me as an American, but now that it's like being torn down willy-nilly to build like a gilded $300 million. Ballroom. I'm like, fuck, I miss like the, the, the George W. Bush White House or something, you know what I mean? Like, it's making me think, think things that I never thought I'd really care about. Alex: Well, there's something about it I think that is like a bad heist because the other thing I love about a heist is restraint. You have to know what you can get away with. Yes. And when you get too greedy mm-hmm. The whole thing is li liable to fall apart. And what is so repulsive among many things about what's happening. What makes it seem like a bad heist about what's happening at the White House is it's also daytime heist. It's in broad daylight, but it's by the people in power, right. So there's no sense of aha. We're going to just, you know, take from you a little bit and reverse who holds power versus power. Naomi: It's punching down. Alex: It's just, it's just taking something that is actually collective and making it individual. And that's also what I don't like about a lot of art crime. I don't like it. So do you guys think that. Heister will now be emboldened by this utterly brazen heist. Vinson: I think Heister will always be with us. I don't think that they will be, I don't think they will be emboldened. You'll always be famous. Yeah. Heister heist will, you'll always be. I think that like, you know, the sort of the darker kinds of, uh, crime that we come to like associate with a kind of like thirst for fame, like assassinations. I feel like those people are always like our trend, but I think the heist is. We often think of the Heister as a very sane person who just has a big idea. Naomi: What if it's like smash cut to like. A month from now me on the cover of the New York Times, like being dragged into custody after, like having attempted to like rob the, the, you know, the Charles Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa, California for their original peanut strips. Alex: If that happens, I will write a Broadway musical about it and it will be out in 15 years and we'll all get to go together hopefully by then. No me. It'll, Naomi: I'll be be out. I'll be out of the slammer. Alex: You'll be out then. This has been Critics at Large. This week's episode was produced by Michelle O'Brien. Alex Barish is our consulting editor. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Conde Nast's Head of Global Audio is Chris Bannon. Alexis Quadra composed our theme music and we had engineering help today from James Yost with Mixing by Mike Kuman. You can find every episode of critics at large at New yorker.com/critics.