Basquiat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the biographical film of the artist. For the artist, see Jean-Michel Basquiat.
| Basquiat | |
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Julian Schnabel |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Peter Brant Joseph Allen |
| Written by | Lech J. Majewski Julian Schnabel |
| Starring | Jeffrey Wright David Bowie |
| Music by | John Cale Julian Schnabel |
| Cinematography | Ron Fortunato |
| Editing by | Michael Berenbaum |
| Distributed by | Miramax Films |
| Release date(s) | August 9, 1996 |
| Running time | 108 min. |
| Country |  |
| Language | English Spanish |
| Budget | $3.3 million |
| Gross revenue | $2,961,991 |
Basquiat is a 1996 film directed by Julian Schnabel which is based on the life of American postmodernist/neo expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Basquiat, born in Brooklyn, used his graffiti roots as a foundation to create collage-style paintings on canvas.
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[edit] Movie
Jeffrey Wright portrays Basquiat, and David Bowie plays Basquiat's friend and mentor Andy Warhol. Additional cast include Gary Oldman as a thinly disguised Schnabel, Michael Wincott as the poet and art critic Rene Ricard; Dennis Hopper as Bruno Bischofberger; Claire Forlani, Courtney Love and Benicio del Toro in supporting roles as "composite characters".
The film was written by Schnabel while Lech J. Majewski and John F. Bowe each receives a story credit and Michael Thomas Holman receives a story development credit.
[edit] Schnabel's art in film
As director, Schnabel is often found painting himself into the film by adding the fictional stand-in character, Albert Milo (Gary Oldman), based on Schnabel. Schnabel also leaves a bit more of himself in the film by adding cameo appearances by his own mother, father, and daughter (as Milo's family.) Schnabel himself is an extra as a waiter.
"Basquiat" was the first commercial feature film about a painter made by a painter. The director said:
“I know what it's like to be attacked as an artist. I know what it's like to be judged as an artist. I know what it's like to arrive as an artist and have fame and notoriety. I know what it's like to be accused of things that you never said or did. I know what it's like to be described as a piece of hype. I know what it's like to be appreciated as well as degraded.”[1]
Basquiat died in 1988, of mixed-drug toxicity (he had been combining cocaine and heroin, known as "speedballing"). Basquiat's estate would not grant permission for his work to be used in the film. Schnabel and his studio assistant Greg Bogan created paintings "in the style of" Basquiat for the film.[2].
[edit] Critical Reception
The critical response to this film was mixed, and not as positive as towards Schnabel's later films, particularly "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."
The Janet Maslin in The New York Times called the movie “bold, attention-getting and more than a little facile, a stylish-looking film without the connective tissue to give it real depth.[3]”
The San Francisco Examiner called the film a "big disappointment" and said that "Schnabel can't decide whether he wants to tell a traditional rise-and-fall morality tale or make an art film" and that "he has used the film as an excuse to tell his own story, not Basquiat's."[4]
Similarly, the Los Angeles Examiner said that "Basquiat does not seem interested in anything that doesn't advance its director's personal agenda." The review stated that "Though as a writer-director, Schnabel's work is not the total fiasco the debut films of fellow artists David Salle ("Search and Destroy") and Robert Longo ("Johnny Mnemonic") were, it is fascinating to see what a compendium of Troubled Genius movie cliches he has turned out." Like several of the negative reviews, the review picked out for praise the acting of Jeffrey Wright as Jean-Michel Basquiat, saying "Basquiat's only genuine inspiration was casting Jeffrey Wright, who won a Tony for his work in Angels in America on the New York stage, as the artist. An actor whose talent is visible even in this standard role, Wright's ability creates more interest in Basquiat's fate than would otherwise exist."[5]
The reviews in the art press focused more on the relation of Schnabel as director to his portrayal of Schnabel as artist in the film, and on changes to the facts of Basquiat's life introduced by Schnabel to make a more accessible movie. In Art In America, the art critic Brooks Adams wrote:
Basquiat can be seen as a huge, lurking self-portrait of the artist-Schnabel, not Basquiat. So laden is the film with the innumerable coincidences of Basquiat and Schnabel's enthusiasms (among others, for pajamas and surfing) that the movie should be more appropriately called My Basquiat… To a remarkable degree, the movie succeeds, by dint of its authorial slant, in popularizing the myth of Basquiat as a young, gorgeous, doomed, yet ultimately transcendent black male artist, even as it extends and reinflates the myth of Schnabel as a protean, Picassoid white male painter… Yet for all one's apprehension about the very idea of Schnabel making such a film, Basquiat turns out to be a surprisingly good movie…It is also an art work.[6]
After the film was released, the actor Jeffrey Wright said that "I think my performance was appropriated, literally, and the way I was edited was appropriated in the same way his [Basquiat's] story has been appropriated and that he was appropriated when he was alive. [...] Julian made him out to be too docile and too much of a victim and too passive and not as dangerous as he really was. It's about containing Basquiat. It's about aggrandizing himself through Basquiat's memory."[7]
[edit] Cast
- Jeffrey Wright as Jean-Michel Basquiat
- David Bowie as Andy Warhol
- Gary Oldman as Albert Milo
- Michael Wincott as Rene Ricard
- Benicio del Toro as Benny Dalmau
- (del Toro's character, Benny, is based on bandmate Wayne Clifford of Gray.
- Claire Forlani as Gina Cardinale
- Dennis Hopper as Bruno Bischofberger
- Tatum O'Neal as Cynthia Kruger
- Courtney Love as Big Pink
- Christopher Walken as The Interviewer
- Willem Dafoe as the Electrician
- Parker Posey as Mary Boone
- Rene Rivera as Juan
- Sam Rockwell as Thug
- Vincent Gallo as Himself / Party Guest
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Basquiat" Interview. Ingrid Sischy. ArtForum July 1996.
- ^ Charlie Rose interview with Julian Schnable and David Bowie on the movie Basquiat. Aired on WNET, Channel 13, New York, Friday August 9th, 1996. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/6028
- ^ Janet Maslin, "Basquiat: A Postcard Picture of a Graffiti Artist" New York Times, August 9, 1996. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E07E4DF123EF93AA3575BC0A960958260
- ^ David Bonetti. "Basquiat' Trivializes Talented Painter's Life Julian Schnabel's Directorial Debut Fails as Film, History” review of Basquiat, by Julian Schnabel, San Francisco Examiner, August 16, 1996, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/e/a/1996/08/16/WEEKEND8516.dtl
- ^ Kenneth Turan. "Movie Reivew: Basquiat: The Tortures of Creative Life" Los Angeles Times, Friday August 9, 1996. http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-movie960809-2,0,6464898.story
- ^ Brooks Adams. "Basquiat. - movie reviews" Art in America, Sept, 1996.
- ^ Phoebe Hoban. Basquiat: A Quick Killing in the Art World (second edition). Penguin Books. New York, 2004.
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[edit] External links
- Basquiat at the Internet Movie Database
- Basquiat at Allmovie
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- Basquiat screenplay at AwsomeFile.com http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/basquiat.txt]
