JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: RAGE TO RICHES
By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29602496
The story of the life and career of the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat has a special connection with cinema: the painter and poet starred in the documentary/narrative hybrid Downtown '81 before he became an art star shining among Manhattan's uptown set. And the eponymous biopic directed by Baquiat's painter/peer Julian Schnabel in 1996 heralded a dearth of documentaries that have attempted to illuminate the Radiant Child from nearly every possible perspective. I like Basquiat's painting, but I love his story and the setting of the art and music scenes in 1980s New York. With that in mind, I thought I'd seen every Basquiat film ever made.
This weekend was supposed to be a rainy one in Nashville — and we did get some. The Saturday forecasts had me in full YouTube and chill mode after a continental breakfast of coffee, croissant, walnuts, oranges, chocolate and cheese. My wife found this 2017 American Masters documentary that I knew nothing about. Rage to Riches is in the running for the beast Basquiat documentary yet. Its lucid storytelling and myth-mashing documenting bring Basquiat and his times to life mostly through the voices of the family, lovers, friends, collaborators, dealers and collectors who were all eyewitnesses to Basquiat's combustible creativity before his death via heroin overdose in 1988.
Here's the film:
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