JUST PRESS PLAY

BASQUIAT

Video review by Tony Jefferies

Directed by fellow famous artist Julian Schnabel's surprisingly orthodox treatment charts the brief life of Haitian artist Jean-Michel Basquiat: the meteoric rise from the obscurity of New York's underclass leading to his eventual, fame and riches and the somehow predictable youthful demise at 27. Rather than, as we might expect, a different take on Basquiat's life, coming as it does from a fellow denizen of the New York art world, Basquiat is pure Hollywood.
All the cliches are there: the abandonment of the friends of his Bohemian days, reconciliation on the eve of his passing, etc. etc. And the star-studded cast: Dennis Hopper, David Bowie, Gary Oldman, William Dafoe - even Courtney Love gets a guernsey; it is though all these actors are paying homage to a fellow star, albeit one in a different firmament. Most of these roles are little more than cameos although Bowie does a great job as the diffident Warhol.
In fact the movie has little to recommend itself in terms of any great insight into Basquiat's mind or what made him, presumably, a great artist. It is also curiously disengaged - the decadence of the New York art world is shown - the voracious feeding of one set of dreamers, the vacuous rich, on another, the utterly dispossessed - but with little outrage or condemnation - hardly surprising given Schnabel is as much a product of this universe as Basquiat. The passing nod is given to Van Gogh, patron saint of all suffering artists, but little attention given to the milieu that creates the tragedy although the sort of idiotic craving for novelty that floats the art world is well shown: ["Do you realise there's never been a great black artist?"].
Basquiat's presumed genius springs from purely personal experiences and visions - it reflects only an alienated, curious individuality: there is no recognition of essentially social evils of which his experience is a microcosm. Basquiat himself, as portrayed by Jeffrey Wright, is everything the rich expect of the great artist: bumbling, incoherent, naive, intuitive, 'occupying another world', in fact, just like his mentor Warhol - character traits that make the job of exploitation all the easier. This film does more to perpetuate convenient mythology than say anything interesting or serious about Basquiat or his art, always presuming there was indeed something worthwhile to say in the first place.

BASQUIAT Video review by Tony Jefferies Directed by fellow famous artist Julian Schnabel's surprisingly orthodox treatment charts the brief life of Haitian artist Jean-Michel Basquiat: the meteoric rise from the obscurity of New York's underclass leading to his eventual, fame and riches and the somehow predictable youthful demise at 27. Rather than, as we might expect, a different take on Basquiat's life, coming as it does from a fellow denizen of the New York art world, Basquiat is pure Hollywood. All the cliches are there: the abandonment of the friends of his Bohemian days, reconciliation on the eve of his passing, etc. etc. And the star-studded cast: Dennis Hopper, David Bowie, Gary Oldman, William Dafoe - even Courtney Love gets a guernsey; it is though all these actors are paying homage to a fellow star, albeit one in a different firmament. Most of these roles are little more than cameos although Bowie does a great job as the diffident Warhol. In fact the movie has little to recommend itself in terms of any great insight into Basquiat's mind or what made him, presumably, a great artist. It is also curiously disengaged - the decadence of the New York art world is shown - the voracious feeding of one set of dreamers, the vacuous rich, on another, the utterly dispossessed - but with little outrage or condemnation - hardly surprising given Schnabel is as much a product of this universe as Basquiat. The passing nod is given to Van Gogh, patron saint of all suffering artists, but little attention given to the milieu that creates the tragedy although the sort of idiotic craving for novelty that floats the art world is well shown: ["Do you realise there's never been a great black artist?"]. Basquiat's presumed genius springs from purely personal experiences and visions - it reflects only an alienated, curious individuality: there is no recognition of essentially social evils of which his experience is a microcosm. Basquiat himself, as portrayed by Jeffrey Wright, is everything the rich expect of the great artist: bumbling, incoherent, naive, intuitive, 'occupying another world', in fact, just like his mentor Warhol - character traits that make the job of exploitation all the easier. This film does more to perpetuate convenient mythology than say anything interesting or serious about Basquiat or his art, always presuming there was indeed something worthwhile to say in the first place.