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(More customer reviews)We saw Tamra Davis' Basquiat documentary at the 2010 Dallas International Film Festival. For those of us who've seen and enjoyed Julian Schnabel's very good 1996 film Basquiat (featuring an outstanding turn by Jeffrey Wright in the title role), Davis' work is a good companion piece. For those of you who've not seen Schnabel's film, "The Radiant Child" serves as a good intro to both Basquiat's work and to the man who laid behind the ever-growing myth.
Davis was a friend and contemporary of Jean-Michel Basquiat. She had the stroke of fortune (and the insight) to record a series of interviews with him at the height of his art-world popularity. Though the production value of those interviews is relatively poor, they're fascinating and serve as the core of the film. They pierce the aura of Basquiat the artist and growing legend to reveal his inherent fragility, his soft-spoken nature and the increasing burden of living up to the 'Basquiat' mystique/brand he created.
The other interviews painstakingly compiled by Davis add flavor and flesh out the re-telling, but it's Basquiat's own words and haunting image that will stick with you. I especially liked Basquiat's comment that not a single line or stroke in his works was by accident. This is backed up by one of the interviewees who noted the immediate appeal of Basquiat's work: that he had a unique hand, i.e., one which crafted a line that could only be produced by him. Davis also does a great job producing tales and evidence of the artist's prodigious work ethic and output. In his comet-like career, he produced over 1,500 pieces of work. Davis captures compelling tales of friends and clients showing up at his apartment and finding every surface - walls, refrigerator, other appliances - filled with imagery from his fervent brain.
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In his short career, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a phenomenon. He became notorious for his graffiti art under the moniker Samo in the late 1970s on the Lower East Side scene, sold his first painting to Deborah Harry for $200 and became best friends with Andy Warhol. Appreciated by both the art cognoscenti and the public, Basquiat was launched into international stardom. However, soon his cult status began to override the art that had made him famous in the first place. Director Tamra Davis pays homage to her friend in this definitive documentary, but also delves into Basquiat as an iconoclast. His dense, bebop-influenced neoexpressionist work emerged while minimalist, conceptual art was the fad; as a successful black artist, he was constantly confronted by racism and misconceptions. Much can be gleaned from insider interviews and archival footage, but it is Basquiat's own words and work that powerfully convey the mystique and allure of both the artist and the man. Featuring interviews with Julian Schnabel, Larry Gagosian, Bruno Bischofberger, Tony Shafrazi, Fab 5 Freddy, Jeffrey Deitch, Glenn O'Brien, Maripol, Kai Eric, Nicholas Taylor, Fred Hoffmann, Michael Holman, Diego Cortez, Annina Nosei, Suzanne Mallouk, and Rene Ricard, among many others.
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