biographical documentary

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:00:00 +0000

When I think of the films of Tamra Davis, a smile comes to my face. I think of the giggly afternoons spent with my college roommates watching such treasures as Billy Madison and Half Baked while ingesting whatever substance struck our fancy. I was impressed that these offbeat, halfwit, male-centric movies actually came from the mind of a woman, and I found something delightfully subversive about that. These were characters we all knew; they were the terribly lovable yet completely idiotic manboy friends who were aimlessly wondering the world anxiously awaiting the next "nudie magazine day." My friends and I loved these lighthearted films for all their fluff and they've certainly become a part of our pop culture history.

Not long ago I found out that Davis was set to release a documentary. Although it seemed a bit out of character, being a fan, I had faith. Then I found out what the documentary was about: Jean-Michel Basquiat. O.M.G. If you're familiar with Basquiat's work, chances are you're obsessed with it. Basquiat is one of the most iconic and influential artists of the modern art movement. His work is incredibly cerebral and spans the scope of subject matter from poverty to racism to fame, and far beyond. Billy Madison was a movie about a guy who couldn't spell the word couch. I wasn't seeing the correlation.

Needless to say, I was blown away. The film starts off with a musical collage featuring some of Jean-Michel's work, inter-cut with footage of him painting. Rare images and reproductions of his artwork run a steady line throughout the film, providing the foundation for the story that unfolds, and at the center of the film is a very raw, very jagged interview with Jean-Michel taken about a year before his death in 1986.

Heavy hitters such as Julian Schnabel, Larry Gagosian, Bruno Bischofberger, Fab 5 Freddy (yes!), and Rene Ricard all make an appearance. Each one of them gives an incredibly honest and personal account of their relationship with Jean-Michel. However, the most heartfelt, and perhaps honest, interview is that of Suzanne Mallouk, Jean-Michel's long-time lover and most ardent supporter.

While the men interviewed paint an accurate picture of what Basquiat's work represented, and what his presence meant, Suzanne is able to provide the best portrait of who he was, not only as an artist, but as a man. Her anecdotes are the most poignant, and most defining moments in the film. There have been endless books, articles, and news stories written about Basquiat's artistic influence or infamous life, but hearing hearing stories from someone who truly loved him is beautiful.

As I left the theater, I thought about my initial reaction to Tamra Davis' release of this seminal Jean-Michel Basquiat documentary, and realized it made perfect sense. This is a portrait of an man who was lovable, mild mannered, sometimes idiotic, and ultimately brilliant. It's about a man wondering the world, looking for inspiration and the next step toward infamy, and this is the kind of story Tamra Davis tells best.

Cross-posted at LA Femmedia

Written by: Kadi Rodriguez, August 31st 2010

Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel

admin — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 08:01:00 +0000

Directed by Brigitte Berman

Metaphor Films

The documentary Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel aims to rise above traditional pit stops of jiggles and giggles while recounting the tale of Playboy Magazine’s founder and editorial icon. This is an investigation into a man who consistently pushed the envelope in the name of freedom; a gentleman baffled by repression, who sensed an incredible opportunity to create a magazine that catered to the curious and the liberal, personifying a sexual revolution that lasted for decades. Yes, there’s nudity and plenty of footage exploring the heyday of Playboy parties, but the picture is more concerned with the man behind the ears, who built an empire while changing the world.

Chicago-bred Hugh M. Hefner, scraping together loans and favors, published the first issue of Playboy in 1953, using well known but little seen nude pictures of Marilyn Monroe as a hook to bring readers into a world of sophistication. The magazine took off like a rocket, with Hefner firmly in command; a control freak who pored over every last detail of the publication, firmly believing what he was putting out monthly was a critical tool in releasing America from the grips of destructive, conservative thinking. Employing some of the brightest minds and the softest bodies, Hefner built a kingdom with Playboy that still stands today, over five controversial decades later.

Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel recounts the less illuminated side of Hefner, beyond the pajamas, blondes, and pipes. Director Brigitte Berman seeks out the history of Hefner as an activist and philosopher, who used Playboy as a vessel to challenge mores and promote liberation during America’s darkest periods. Playboy wasn’t solely about skin, but a platform for ideas, with Hefner employing authors such as Alex Haley and Ray Bradbury when publishers turned their backs, or using the pages for his own thoughts on the repressed state of the union. Starting with Playboy’s introduction to the newsstand, the documentary sets off on a vast journey of illustration, with film footage and Hef’s own scrapbooks covering the vicissitudes of Playboy, which soon became a number one target for censorship by anyone looking to set a volatile example for the media.

While scattered at times, Berman colors her subject wonderfully, sitting down with Hefner as he recalls his battles with a certain world-weary creak. Interviews with friends, commentators, and contemporaries (including Gene Simmons, Jenny McCarthy, Mike Wallace, and Bill Maher) fill out the discussion some, while the director also makes room for Hef’s detractors, including Susan Brownmiller, a feminist author who retains distaste for the Playboy mastermind decades after their rather combustible debate on The Dick Cavett Show. The conversations look to expand Hefner past his reputation, shedding light on his drive to combat racial tension during the ‘60s and ‘70s (erasing color lines on his popular television programs and inside the Playboy Clubs), his troubles with the law facing trumped-up charges that sought to destroy his reputation, and his arc from panty-twirling revolutionary to pariah as the 1980s ushered in a conservative, religiously rigid era that didn’t show much patience for the Playboy lifestyle.

Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel is certainly reverent of Hefner’s cultural accomplishments, delivering a convincing argument with a smooth, efficient visual style that combines talking heads with insider footage and a few splashes of animation. The documentary does a swell job positioning Hugh Hefner in a different light, showcasing the man’s forward-thinking ideals and his hopeless addictions (love being a major failure in his life), while stripping away the glamour to find a sensitive, concerned core. At eighty-four years of age, Hugh Hefner has boxed himself into a cartoon reputation of sorts with the success of The Girls Next Door, but here he’s offered the chance to reignite his passion for life though conversation, and there’s no better boat captain of memories and accomplishments around.

Written by: Brian Orndorf, August 2nd 2010

Who’s Afraid of Kathy Acker?

admin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:15:00 +0000

Directed by Barbara Caspar

Fragile Films

Finally, a documentary on legendary writer Kathy Acker, whose influence on sex-positive, brazen, post-modern feminist literature and art is unsurpassed. Perhaps there would have been no Riot Grrrl movement if Acker had not spoken to a young Kathleen Hanna. Hanna recalls that “Acker asked me why writing was important to me, and I said, ‘Because I felt like I’d never been listened to and I had a lot to say,’ and she said, ‘Then why are you doing spoken word?? No one goes to spoken word shows! You should get in a band’.”

Who’s Afraid of Kathy Acker? contains interviews with well known icons like Hanna and Semiotext(e) publisher Sylvere Lotringer, yet also features young female students who all give different interpretations on Acker’s work and influence on their writing. There are also, of course, family members, ex-lovers, friends, and peers who all give insight into the life, work, and early death of Kathy Acker, who died in 1997 from breast cancer.

Acker, covered in tattoos and piercings, with her shaved head and a gold tooth, was a punk rock literary genius. Her experimental, post-modern writing reflected the anger, struggle for power, vulnerability, and schizophrenia of being a strong, sexually deviant woman in a patriarchal society. She turned male literature on its head by re-writing several misogynist texts from the perspective of women. Her characters blur gender and are not constrained by space, time, or death. Acker saw language as a system similar to capitalism and patriarchy—therefore, one to be deconstructed. Her work was cut-up, non-linear, sexually explicit, offensive, and sometimes nonsensical. Banned in some countries and derided by some feminists, the true genius of Acker’s work emerges in the differing of opinion and interpretation of it.

Like all good biographical documentaries, we see glimpses of Acker’s early life through photographs and archival footage as well as interviews. We also get to see her naked and masturbating in an art film she made in college! But this documentary is experimental in its own right, reflecting the cut-up, post-modern nature of Acker’s writing, through techniques like animation and voice-overs, arty shots with text across them while interviewees talk behind it, pornographic clips, and ambient electronic and punk music. It all combines to create a non-linear telling of Acker’s life story and brilliant mind.

At eighty-four minutes, it is a long biographical documentary, sometimes meandering in repetition and its own artfulness. A straight-up story of Acker’s life could have been contained in less time. Yet anyone familiar with Acker’s work knows that would not have been an appropriate homage to a writer whose work is still a huge influence on experimental writing and feminist theory.

My only irritation with the film was the interviews with the young students, which, although interspersed within the entire documentary, open the film, creating a vague and confusing introduction to an extremely dynamic person’s life. The presence of the students also breaks the flow and feels disconnected from the rest of the documentary. Perhaps, as a nod to Acker, that was intentional. In any case, as with Acker’s work, you may get confused, annoyed, enthralled, offended, and turned on by this documentary. It is a great portrait of a life and mind that should never be forgotten.

Written by: Jyoti Roy, July 19th 2009