Basquiat

I'm a sucker for movies set in New York City, which is one reason I decided to see this, that and the supporting cast. I don't know much about Basquiat, his life or work, so I don't know how accurate the movie is, nor do I know much about art, but this film drew me in. I know the film was made by a friend and compatriot of Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, and if there's a weakness, it's that sometimes we feel this is an inside job. Nevertheless, we do go inside the art world, get to know about graffiti, and we get to understand what makes Basquiat tick. I also thought Jeffrey Wright was good in the title role. The supporting cast were all first-rate as well.

If you love art, this movie is definitely for you. If character development and good writing are important elements in your movie selections, definitely add this one to your list of "must sees." However, if you typically only prefer major "blockbuster hits," you may want to forego it.

Intricately performed and written, this film is "art-house" & "independent" at it's very finest. David Bowie is perfection as Jean Michel Basquiat's friend and mentor, Andy Warhol. Michael Wincott sheds his usual grovel-voiced tough guy persona to play Basquiat's first flamboyantly feminine art dealer. Jeffrey Wright's brilliant performance as the complex Basquiat received a nomination for "Best Debut Performance," and Benecio Del Toro won "Best Supporting Male Performance" at the 1997 Independent Spirit Awards. Even the minor characters (Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Parker Posey, Willem Dafoe) add colorful performances to Julian Schnabel's first "canvas on film." --J.B.

While the evocation of the 1980s, obvious passion for the artist's work and magnificent acting from the ensemble cast should have made this movie a '10', it has one fatal flaw: this film, Basquiat, dealing with a young man's struggle for identity, fails to mention or even hint at the fact that he had both female and male sexual partners. While I highly respect the acting ability of Jeffrey Wright (just check out his performance in Westworld), he was not only misdirected but simply miscast. To understand the real Basquiat, see the 2010 documentary Jean-Michel Basquiat - The Radiant Child. There, you see a cute, good-looking, charismatic, ambitious although introverted young man whom you could easily imagine receiving offers from men and women alike - and equally imagine the offers being taken up. The portrayal in the film, Basquiat, is of a slightly autistic, inarticulate, heterosexual boor with a 'junkie walk' before he was even a junkie. It is well documented that the artist David Bowes was a male lover of Basquiat's, and other characters from the era, some still alive today, attest that while living on the street he would often exchange sexual favors with both males and females for a place to sleep for the night; not uncommon practice for the homeless. I mention all this not to disrespect the memory of Jean-Michel as I'm actually a great fan of his. Let's instead respect him by honoring him truthfully and mentioning the unmentionable: male-to-male sexuality.

Directors and scriptwriters be damned; you spoil otherwise good movies. Just when will film-makers get over their homophobic paranoia? Why make a movie about Howard Hughs and not mention he had bedded most Hollywood leading men of his day? Why make a movie about Alexander the Great misrepresenting his life-long male lover and companion, and not mentioning his Persian male lover? Why make a film about Archilles and pretend that his male lover, whose death caused his downfall, was his platonic cousin? Why make a movie about Cole Porter and not mention anything? The list goes on.

Basquiat tells the story of the meteoric rise of youthful artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Starting out as a street artist, living in Thompkins Square Park in a cardboard box, Jean-Michel is "discovered" by Andy Warhol's art world and becomes a star. But success has a high price, and Basquiat pays with friendship and love.

I can't pretend to understand art. So I can't say I understand what makes one artist valuable or famous and another one nothing. Basquiat is one of those mysteries. What made his art special? I do not know. But his life was interesting, and the way this film challenges race is important. I have wondered why we distinguish "black" things, but not "white" things...

And Andy Warhol. Wow. I don't know a lot about him, but if he was anything like what David Bowie portrayed, he must have been quite strange to be around. No doubt Bowie and Warhol met, so the portrayal is probably correct.

Why is it whenever a work comes out about an artist of a modern slant, there arrives the masses claiming their dogs might paint better...and how about the simple complaint that "they didn't show us what was going on in his mind..."

Hogwash. Art will always be in the eye of the beholder, and unless you hear it from the horse's mouth, nobody knows what is going on in the head of anyone else. Take a look at Julian Schnabel's most recent work "Before Night Falls," and subject it to the same analysis. The only reason we might know more about Reinaldo Arenas is because he wrote it down...the motives are not always as clear as we might hope to believe we have grasp of...

How about Jackson Pollack? How many of us know that the "Wizard of Oz," an apparently simple, innocent childhood fable, was actually a political statement of the author (and this is from the "horse's mouth")?

Take the film for what it is and don't spend your time looking for the boom mic to peek into shots or read Basquiat's mind and you might find it enjoyable. For the art critics out there, let us not pretend to understand the process unless you are somewhat of an artist yourself, okay. Because you cannot understand the motive does not change the fact it may exist on some other plane than we perceive. Okay, off of my soap box!