Basquiat [HD]

Deep movie about a shallow art scene.
Basquiat (Julian Schnabel, 1996)

Schnabel has made two films in five years. I'm still wondering why the man hasn't yet been immortalized. Less talented directors have gotten stars on the Walk of Fame for less accomplishment than Schnabel showed with his second film, Before Night Falls, alone. His first, Basquiat, is damned close to being as good, and yet it fell almost completely below the radar of American cinema upon its release, despite a stable of talent so broad it's almost ludicrous.

Schnabel (played in the film by Gary Oldman, incidentally-- and Schnabel's real-life family plays Oldman's family in the film. heh.) gives us the story of Jean-Michel Basquiat, one of the brightest lights of New York's avant-garde art movement in the seventies and eighties before his 1988 overdose. Basquiat himself is played by the always-engaging Jeffrey Wright (recently seen giving Sam Jackson trouble in _Shaft_), and while the film never fails to center on Basquiat himself, Wright's...

Surfing through Warhol's '80s
Painter Julian Schnabel made his film directing debut with his impressionistic biography of his late friend and fellow '80s Warhol hanger-on, Jean-Michel Basquiat. A charismatic, young heroin addict, Basquiat started out as a graffiti artist who called himself SAMO (as in samo bulls--t) and, depending on where your aesthetic tastes fall, his success represented either a great rebirth of artistic orgininality OR yet another sign that the American art scene was becoming a victim of trendiness. The same, of course, was said of Schnabel at the same time. Luckily for myself as a viewer of this film, I'm in the former camp. For the latter group or the growing number of people who see, "I don't know nothing about art but I like what I see," as the height of critical thinking, this film probably isn't for them.

Told in a freeform fashion, Schnabel's vision of Basquiat's life is rather uneven. The story is occasionally rather muddled (Basquiat's rise from homeless drug addict...

One of my favorite films of all time.
Basquiat is a mesmerizing, intelligent, compassionate, and stunningly beautiful movie. Jeffrey Wright and David Bowie should both have been nominated for Academy Awards (and if they gave Academy Awards for bit parts, Christopher Walken would deserve one!!). I hadn't heard of Jean-Michel Basquiat before seeing the movie, but now I'm dying to see more of his art, and also to learn more about Andy Warhol's life. Even if you aren't a fan of Basquiat's or Warhol's art (I'm not sure yet whether I am or not), if you have an open mind you will almost certainly be touched by the beauty in this film. Basquiat is one of the few films I have really MISSED from the moment it ended. I can't wait to see it again, so that I can absorb Basquiat's art better, and experience David Bowie's entirely believable, lovable, and *funny* portrayal of Warhol again. One viewing is definitely not enough. DVD, where are you??

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