Ever since reading The Feather Thief last summer and learning about Edwin Rist’s burglary of the Natural History Museum at Tring, I’ve been interested in those individuals that have stolen valuable natural history specimens. In the case of Rist, this was a large number of bird skins. American Animals is based on a real life library heist at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky that occurred in 2004. Whilst some of the events have been dramatised slightly (you know what filmmakers are like), it is a pretty true representation of what happened.
So what exactly did happen? After one of the students (Spencer Reinhard) is given a tour of Transylvania University library’s rare book collection, he becomes aware of the presence of a first edition of John James Audubon’s The Birds of America. This doesn’t sound that impressive but Audubon travelled the country with his paintbrush to paint a life-size representation of every species of bird found in the United States. Only 120 of these books are known to exist and one sold for ~$12 million in 2010. This then provides the motivation for Reinhard and his friend Warren Lipka to steal The Birds of America and other valuable books, in order to acquire a life-changing sum of money.
The duo enlist two additional people (old childhood friends) to help provide support including a getaway driver. On the day of the planned robbery, they disguise themselves as elderly gentlemen and enter the library. Unfortunately they notice that there are too many people in the library for the heist to be successful and so they abort. The next day they come back to try again (without the disguises) to attempt the job for a second time. The restriction of the librarian it botched whilst tying her up. Lipka who has gone into the special collections library with Eric Borsuk take the rare books and fail to find an exit. In the panic of the moment (and probably due to frustration), they have to ditch the two enormous Audubon books but manage to escape with a smaller number of other valuable books.
With the books they were able to escape with, they visit Christie’s auction house in New York in order to get the books authenticated and to verify their value. It is here when everything starts to come undone as Reinhard leaves his mobile phone number as he is told to return the next day. This is where things start to unravel and the clock starts ticking. It isn’t lon gbefoe tensions are strained between the conspirators and the FBI are able to track them down. Unsurprisingly, they each were sentenced to seven years incarceration. What is surprising is throughout the film, the real life conspirators appear multiple times to tell their side of the story. They clearly show remorse for their actions and despite everything are now following different careers.
Despite the fact that things have been dramatised slightly, I’d recommend American Animals to anyone interested in natural history due to the significance of this heist. I wonder if a movie regarding Rist’s bulgary is planned?
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