director
Julian Schnabel
screenwriter
Julian Schnabel
story
by
Lech J. Majewski
John F. Bowe
producers
Jon Kilik
Randy Ostrow
Sigurjon Sighvatsson
cinematographer
Ron Fortunato
music
John Cale
Julian Schnabel
editor
Michael Berenbaum
cast
Jeffrey Wright (Jean Michel Basquiat)
Michael Wincott (Rene Ricard)
Benicio Del Toro (Benny Dalmau)
Claire Forlani (Gina Cardinale)
David Bowie (Andy Warhol)
Dennis Hopper (Bruno Bischofberger)
Gary Oldman (Albert Miro)
Christopher Walken (The Interviewer)
Willem Dafoe (The Electrician)
Parker Posey (Mary Boone)
Elina Löwensohn (Annina Nosei)
Paul Bartel (Henry Geldzahler)
Courtney Love (Big Pink)
Tatum O'Neal (Cynthia Kruger)
Michael Badalucco (Counterman at Deli)
Sam Rockwell (Thug)
Vincent Gallo (Himself)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 108m
u.s.
release: 8/9/96
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
see also:
- i
shot andy warhol
|
It
helps to bring a bit of patience to Basquiat, the new
rise-and-fall movie about the SoHo art scene of the '80s. Some
scenes -- okay, many scenes -- drag or seem pointless
and formless, which is true to the film's subject but often comes
across as mannered and pretentious. (Another recent artsy art-scene
movie, I Shot Andy Warhol, had
the same problem.) Director Julian Schnabel, himself a prosperous
painter during the '80s, tries to paint with film -- dabbing
here, splashing there. It's a nice try, anyway.
As a straight biopic about Jean-Michel Basquiat, a sort of mythical
street urchin lifted out of obscurity and into the Warhol Factory,
Basquiat often seems like a blank canvas. Jeffrey Wright,
who plays him, is quiet and appealing, but we know almost as
little about the man near the end as we do at the beginning.
Painting with maple syrup on a restaurant table, Basquiat is
presented as an innocent who compulsively makes art wherever
he is. Why? I guess because he feels like it.
According to the movie, Basquiat was a gentle homeless guy who
shot to the top of the SoHo art world more on the basis of hype
than of talent. (He signs his work "SAMO," meaning
"same old shit.") The effusive art critic Rene Richard
(The Crow's Michael Wincott in
a real change-of-pace role) gets excited about Basquiat and arranges
to show his work. When Basquiat is pulled into the Warhol clique,
Ricard reacts like a jilted lover. Suddenly everyone wants a
piece of Basquiat.
The movie, I was surprised to remember afterward, spans about
eight years, but the scenes all seem to take place in the same
anachronistic whenever. Basquiat's filmmaker buddy (Benicio del
Toro) is seen using a home VCR in 1979, when VCRs weren't readily
accessible to anyone, much less to starving avant-gardists.
Julian Schnabel, like Larry Clark (Kids),
is an artist dabbling in film, not a film artist. To see their
movies is to know the difference. These artist-directors don't
speak film language fluently; it isn't their medium.
That said, Basquiat is mildly entertaining -- mostly in
its middle section, when Basquiat rubs elbows with jet-setters
and street people played by some of the hippest actors of the
'90s, ranging from Dennis Hopper and Gary Oldman (as Schnabel's
surrogate, "Albert Miro") to Parker Posey and Courtney
Love. Christopher Walken, as ubiquitous in indie films as Steve
Buscemi, turns up as a sweaty, smarmy interviewer, and the few
who saw Mallrats will be pleased
to see the engaging Claire Forlani as Basquiat's (composite)
girlfriend Gina.
If nothing else, Basquiat is worth watching for David
Bowie in a diabolically deadpan performance as Andy Warhol. Judging
from this movie and I Shot Andy Warhol, the Brillo man
was really a proto-slacker: noncommittal, addicted to the trendy
and the tacky. Bowie nails Warhol's detachment but also brings
out some warmth in Warhol's laid-back bond with Basquiat. Warhol,
secure in his fame, was the only one who didn't want anything
from Basquiat except friendship.
In the end, of course, Basquiat died in 1988, at age 27, of a
heroin overdose. Too much fame, too fast -- the old story. Basquiat
works best as a snapshot of the '80s, when high art became high
commerce, and artists like Basquiat (and Keith Haring) were treated
like rock stars. Live like a rock star, die like one. |