You'd be forgiven for griping that documentaries about art can be snoozy. Yet you'd be doing yourself a disservice to let such prejudice keep you from discovering recent works that do the subgenre proud. Try Ballet 422, Dior and I and Art and Craft, all intriguing examples that premiered at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival. How else would you gain backstage access at the New York City Ballet? Hang out in a top French fashion studio? Or enter the fevered head of a world-class art forgerer? Here's a word on these three trumpeted titles that will take you behind art's protected scenes:

Ballet 422

You don't have to be a ballet fan to be a fan of Ballet 422. The invitation to snoop backstage at the venerable New York City Ballet is alluring enough, but the film does more than barge into the dancers' dressing rooms. 

It charts the creative act of choreographing the company's 422nd ballet, with dance student and budding choreographer Justin Peck as your gracious guide. He may be a swan, but he's just quirky and awkward enough to be Greta Gerwig's dark-haired twin, and when Peck is onscreen, you feel that this rarified art form is accessible after all.

As Ballet 422 gets underway, the cinematography tells of the immense collaboration that goes into a NYCB production. At first the truncated, off-centered shots of Peck and his dancers may catch you off guard; and the conceit carries beyond the studio. Yet as director/cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes makes the rounds among key departments -- from costume, lighting design and administration to orchestra and physical therapy -- the frame progressively expands as all facets of the show start to gel. It's then that the camera logic becomes clear: these elements all form a greater artistic whole. Get ready to applaud when the curtain rises to reveal the full spectacle of Peck and his colleagues' ensemble work. Verité pioneer and Lipes's hero Frederick Wiseman probably would.

At the film's Tribeca premiere Lipes marveled with me over "how amazingly calm and together Justin is despite the fact that he's a pretty young guy working at such a high level." What was the story's big reveal for the filmmaker? "After all of that, Justin just went  straght back to work."

Dior and I

Christian Dior hated noise and sudden changes, as you learn from his recorded memoir in Dior and I. Monsieur may not have appreciated this film. But Tribeca audiences adored seeing the jangling debut of artistic director Raf Simons as he rushes his first Dior collection in a breathless two months.

Welcome to the House of Dior, where Simons seeks to make the haute brand more hip. His work is cut out for him. Coming from Jil Sander, the minimalist Belgian designer must prove that he's not out to shred the feminine Dior silhouette. Dior's "flouncy" New Look made post-war history as he declared war on the "boxy war uniform" and turned women into femme fleurs. More than a century on, the brand meets with Simons' idea of today's "dynamic" woman. "This house has so much DNA that it'll be hard to find creative freedom," worries his right-hand man Pieter Mulier.

The unfolding tug between tradition and innovation lends Frédéric Tcheng's documentary a touch of dramatic frisson. Yet audiences seeking pitched battle will be dissapointed by Simons and his inherited staff's general civility and will to make things work. Tensions inevitably flare but are resolved just as readily as the dedicated seamstresses and craftsmen get on with the show. Like Ballet 422, the film steals behind the atalier scenes to track an unraveling process of executing a head creative's vision. Adding a welcome dimension to Dior and I is the link drawn between past and present. The House of Dior is haunted by its founder's friendly ghost, who manifests through archival footage and narrations. In a particularly poignant summoning, an image of a Dior original is superimposed on a current design.

Yet somehow a less flattering historical thread gets snipped: not a peep is heard of the anti-Semitic rants of Simons' predecessor, John Galliano. Also overlooked is the nuanced story of Dior's family during World War II. Instead, Tcheng keeps his focus on the looming runway deadline and emotional ordeal of Simons' very public stepping out. You'd have to be a manequin not to well up as he reveals both his vulnerabilities and visions. 

Art and Craft

Remember that New York Times article of three years ago about an art forger who donated -- not sold -- his dupes? Filmmaker Jennifer Grausman certainly does, because it was the spark that ignited her fascination with Mark Landis, who anchors the new documentary Grausman jointly made with Sam Cullman and Mark Becker.

No doubt Landis cuts a curious subject. Looking a bit like Ray Walston of "My Favorite Martian," the Laurel, Mississippi resident has made it his calling to scam leading art institutions that fall for his bogus largesse. Landis's preferred make-believe front is as a philanthropist executing his deceased mother's will to begift a work from her private estate; for a fallback, he'll do a Jesuit priest. With his disarming nasal drawl and couldn't-hurt-a-fly demeanor, he scored his first success when the New Orleans Museum of Art took a Landis replica in 1987. Three decades later, in 2008, he was finally nabbed en flagrant délit. The fruits of his 30-year exploits have adorned 46 art bastions in 20 states.

One of those great halls was the Cincinnati Museum of Art. Its then chief registrar, Matthew Leininger, became suspicious upon realizing that his establishment wasn't the sole holder of a particular precious painting received from Landis. Art and Craft gains momentum as Leininger presses his crusade to bust Landis' cover and put him out of business -- even if he's not cashing in on his bequests.

That Landis was hospitalized for a year due to a nervous breakdown comes as little surprise. Nor is it a shock to learn that the then 17-year-old was given a diagnosis of schizophrenia, with symptoms ranging from incoherence to catatonia. The real astonishment is that it took so long for cultural gatekeepers to get wise to his con. One black-light glimpse of his materials reveals the tawdry stuff his tableaux are made of. You can't help but shake your head as you see the "artist" at work: a classic Landis technique is to dab Xeroxed copies with paint and mount them in Walmart frames. "The back's easy: you just pour coffee on it," says Landis. A climactic moment in the film takes the balding 59-year-old to an exhibition of his work at the very Cincinnati museum that outed him. You don't know whether to feel sorry for the conjurer or toast his success.

But either way -- especially in the digital era -- the film raises compelling issues concerning the artistic merits of mashing previous creations. Can Landis be considered a true artist? You decide. The filmmakers have withheld their judgement. 

Photo credits:

Choreographer Justin Peck in rehearsal for his work-­‐in-­‐progress with New York City Ballet principal dancers Sterling Hytlin, Tiler Peck, and Amar Ramasar. Photographer: Jody Lee Lipes

New Dior designer Raf Simons looks at a vintage Dior dress from the documentary DIOR & I, directed by Frédéric Tcheng. Courtesy of CIM Productions.

Mark Landis at home, showing off recent works. Photographer: Sam Cullman