4 gibbles out of 5

Director: Julian Schnabel

Biopics are, to me, a tough sell.  I’m proud and stubborn, so I don’t like being told that someone’s life is any more or less fascinating / important than anyone else’s.  I mean, I write movie reviews that no one reads… where’s my film?  You understand what I’m saying.  So now let’s spin in some tragedy.  Let’s give them a sudden death, and maybe some drug abuse.  Oh lordy, now we should feel even more about this biopic topic!  But again, not for me.  Drug abuse, boo hoo, and everyone dies.  Some stories are more ‘aw shucks’ than others, but some random element can kill any of us.  You still haven’t totally sold me that so and so is worth my movie time.

Jean-Michel Basquiat started out as a wacked out street artist who became famous, rubbed shoulders with some famous people, and died.  Julian Schnabel was his friend, and also an artist.  Basquiat had an artist’s view of the world, that is to say, unlimited by some of the constraints our more left-lobe leaning peoples might have.  (Thanks to Roger Ebert for the left-brain, right-brain springboard.)  Instead of rubbing some forced-opinion “genius” upon us, director Schnabel uses his  insight into Basquiat’s world to just show us what his day to day might’ve been like.  He wanders, he stares at the sky, he stares at nothing, he creates art, he does drugs.  And then Schnabel can also draw upon his experiences in the world to give J.M.B.’s portrayal some context – we get Warhol, and agents clamoring for Basquiat’s money-making talents, and the fans and friends that float in and out of someone’s life.  I was expecting to be pissed to have my face rubbed in some drug-addicted artist’s supposed greatness, but it’s not about saying that J.M.B.’s story was tragic – just that it was a definite story.

Recognizable faces flutter through here – David Bowie as Warhol, Dennis Hopper as an agent, Gary Oldman playing a Julian Schnabel proxy – but the whole art world, as depicted in the film, is plagued with a kind of floating, sing-song existence, so instead of these stars being a distraction, they slot right in to the timeless pacing the movie entails.  But the special notice goes to Jeffrey Wright, playing Jean-Michel.  He lets us believe that this figure, bouncing around between poetry and stupidity, self-motivation and drugs, was capable of living the life that he did.

But biopics are still hard-pressed to be perfect because despite how good the story, real life doesn’t really have a beginning or ending.  So J.M.B.’s story doesn’t either.  It starts somewhere and ends somewhere.  It doesn’t manipulate its tale to make any particular point about success or excess, which it shouldn’t have, but it also means that it’s just another flash of another life on this planet; whether or not it effects you is up to you.