Basquiat (1996)

February 20, 2025 2:05 PM

Julian Schnabel’s tribute to his friend and fellow painter Jean-Michel Basquiat is less a conventional biopic than an impressionistic, sensory immersion into the much-mythologized downtown-Manhattan art world of the 1980s. Jeffrey Wright, in his first lead film role, stars as the visionary artist whose rise from graffiti tagger to art star forces him to confront the glare of sudden fame, along with racism, his own struggles with addiction, and the difficulties of being self-determining and free in America.

The soundtrack features, among other things, PJ Harvey's version of 'Is That All There Is?' and Joy Division's 'These Days.'

Trailer, trailer, review, review. Currently streaming on Max and the Criterion Channel.

posted by box (5 comments total)

I've been wanting to see this for ages, since I'd like to see how Bowie does Warhol. (I was surprised to find out that they weren't actually friends; they only met once, and Warhol apparently hated the tribute song that Bowie did on Hunky Dory.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:11 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

I like this film a lot, for exactly the description box wrote above-- the NYC art scene is very much a character. It's beautiful, a narrative of images. The soundtrack is really good and well used in the film. Jeffrey Wright is haunting, that fragile strength and vision that gets eaten away by all the people building him up and buying him down.
Bowie's Warhol is hilarious, and the scene with Dennis Hopper in the restaurant is perfectly funny and opportunistic.
I've seen some of Basquiat's works at a couple of shows, they have such tremendous power and energy, if there is every an opportunity to see them in person do so.
posted by winesong at 2:21 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

(Full disclosure, I didn't write that description, I borrowed it from our friends at Criterion.)
posted by box at 6:20 AM on February 22

I'm a diehard Bowie fan but I thought Jared Harris did the better Warhol
posted by brujita at 5:27 PM on February 22 [1 favorite]

I liked this a lot when it originally ran in theatres but I learned it got a later remaster in black & white and without having seen it, I'm struggling to imagine how that enhances anything.
posted by juv3nal at 4:45 PM on February 23