Basquiat

Dir: Julian Schnabel

1996

*****

Julian Schnabel is an underrated film director and his 1996 biopic Basquiat is his most underrated film to date. Basquiat, the story of New Yorks most iconic artists, has a cast to die for including Jeffrey Wright, David Bowie, Benicio del Toro, Gary Oldman, Michael Wincott, Claire Forlani, Dennis Hopper, Tatum O'Neal, Courtney Love, Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, Parker Posey, Sam Rockwell with Rockets Redglare and Vincent Gallo playing themselves. Jean-Michel Basquiat is one of my favorite artists of all time, I was obsessed with him during my time at art school and still am, so I had high expectations for Schnabel's film. One of the films real strengths and one of the reasons why the film works and feels authentic is because most of the cast knew Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Rene Ricard and many more of the people involved in The Factory and art in general in New York in the late 1970s early 80's. Jeffrey Wright is brilliant in the title role, it's clear to see he did his research and his performance is utterly convincing. David Bowie had the obvious advantage of knowing Andy Warhol, Crispin Glover, Jared Harris and Guy Pearce have all performed impressive impersonations of him but for my money no one has come close to his portrayal, again, it's utterly convincing. It's a great representation of what was happening in the art world at the time, where it came from and what it meant. Basquiat was arguably the most talented of all his peers and the film explains brilliantly how he was absorbed into the factory way without loosing any of his own credibility, indeed he used Pop art rather than Pop art using him. Schnabel was a painter before he was a film maker, it is clear that he understands and is passionate about Basquiat's story but it is also clear that he has somewhat of a personal agenda but I don't think it is anything more than an artist submerging himself in his own work. Again, the brilliant performances make up for the very few biopic cliches, I enjoyed everything about it.