Basquiat
|
List Price: Our Price: $18.24 You Save: $1.75 (9%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $16.88 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Basquiat
Movie Review: Good look
Summary: 3 Stars
Not a bad flick for an evening. Watch it well. I wanted to see Gary Oldman in a movie and found out about Basquiat. Who knows how other artists got started.Movie Review: Kevin
Summary: 2 Stars
... Technical Evaluation
Cinematography
The cinematography of "Basquiat" is satisfying. It does a good job in establishing the setting of the scenes for the viewers, as well as displaying Basquiat in a way that makes him dominated by his surroundings through the use of high angle shots and slow motion effects. Some examples of these follow:
* The scene where Basquiat displays his art in a gallery consisted of various high-angle/crane shots on Basquiat. In this scene, Basquiat's relationship with his close friends, such as Rene Ricard and his girlfriend, seems to dwindle as he becomes closer with his new friends, Andy Warhole and Bruno Bischofberger. Rene storms out of the gallery after finding out that Basquiat gave away a painting that was promised to be his. The camera films Basquiat with a high-angle, slow motion shot as he exits the gallery. The high-angle shot symbolizes his insignificance and inner pain by means of making the terrain seemingly overwhelm his figure, thus making his appearance irrelevant as he exits the building. Also, as he made his way for the exit, everybody else around him was standing still, seemingly in deep conversation with one another, not noticing the fact that he was leaving. This technique, combined with the slow motion of the camera, symbolized Basquiat's isolation from the crowd and, for that matter, his friends.
Overall, the cinematography was pleasing, as it sometimes made the viewers feel what Basquiat was feeling. It did a decent job in making him seem insignificant in some scenes such when he leaves the studio.
Editing
The editing in Basquiat has a few notable characteristics worth talking about. There were many scenes that showed Basquiat painting his graffiti on walls throughout the city. The scenes used long shots while he was painting and often cut to various segments of the process, thus causing him to look like he was jumping all over the screen. This disrupted the continuity of the scene, making this segment of the film very formalistic. Had the film showed Basquiat painting his graffiti in its entirety, (something that would have violated the concept of Raymond Spottiswoode's content curve) the viewers would have been extremely bored at looking at the same background for such a long period of time.
Another good editing technique was at the end of the movie where Basquiat was riding in a jeep with his friend, Benny. This scene was heavily edited in that there was a mixture of formalistic and realistic editing. The realistic editing involved "cutting to continuity" and fixed camera shots that followed Basquiat throughout his ride in the jeep. The formalistic editing involved more abstract cutting in that there was no continuity between certain shots. The camera shots were also more loose in that they allowed Basquiat to exit the shot into oblivion while the camera stayed fixed on a certain object (such as the wall of a building they drove past). The mixture of these techniques symbolized a state of instability in Basquiat's life. At this point in the film, he was not really sure where he was going to go with his life. The editing did a good job in conveying this by the sudden entrance and exits of Basquiat in certain scenes and stable, fixed shots of him in others.
Interpretive Evaluation
Overall, based on these technical evaluations, the film does an decent job in entertaining the audience. It makes good use of cinematography and editing to visually describe the atmosphere and mood of various scenes. The cinematography also does a
good job in displaying Basquiat's insignificance and isolation through the use of high-angled/slow motion shots and point-of-view shots through glass. The editing also helped to convey these ideas through formalistic and realistic styles of editing. Although not one of the best films I have seen, "Basquiat" definitely stands out in terms of techniques used to display emotion when compared to other artist-based films I have seen.
Movie Review: Indulgent Snooze Fest
Summary: 2 Stars
Biopics about artists and writers are tough to pull off. Some, like "Pollock" and "Frida," are qualified successes (*** for Pollock, **** for Frida). Some, like "Before Night Falls" about the Cuban poet Arenas actually take off; it's a ***** film. "Sylvia" falls flat (** for this film) because it captures the poet's depression but not her vitality and quotes far too little of her work, the raison d'etre of the movie itself!
"Basquiat," like "Frida" does show plenty of the visual artist's thoughtful intelligent graffiti-style art and David Bowie has a nice turn as pop artist Andy Warhol. Trouble is: Basquiat comes off as boring, pretentious, spoiled, and self-indulgent; in short UNLIKEABLE. It's a similar problem in "Total Eclipse," a Holland film and Leo DiCaprio vehicle about the French lyric poets Rimbaud and Verlaine.
I love biopics and I love visual artists, poets, and writers. Folks, they've been screwing them up lately! Here's a few rules for future cine-biographers: 1. Give us PLENTY of the artist's work 2. Show the vitality, charisma, and humor behind every creative personality at least as often as the depression and addiction which often attends such lives 3. Avoid at all costs being boring; we remember these people because they're interesting! More films like "Finding Neverland" (****, about writer J.M. Barrie) and "De-lovely" (****, about songwriter Cole Porter) please. "Il Postino" is a great example of a film soaked in an artist's work (Chilean poet Pablo Neruda) that could be a great template for a Neruda bio-pic. As for "Basquiat," more painting and less heroin please. Thanks.
Movie Review: No option for zero stars, unfortunately, for awful drivel
Summary: 1 Stars
Julian Schnabel pulled off some kind of coup by getting financing and a distributor for a kind of "home movie" that is as inept and awful as having to watch your neighbor's video of their last vacation. But unlike your neighbors, Mr. Schnabel knows a lot of actors and celebrities to do supporting parts and cameos, so any pleasure to be derived from "Basquiat" comes from spotting the famous names. Jean-Michel Basquiat was a (sadly) drug-addicted and mentally ill 20 year old when he broke into the art scene in the early 80s. Of course, art is in the mind of the beholder, but to my sensibilites he was made much of because of his youth, race and a (false) belief that he was some kind of homeless "savant". (Actually, he was from a middle class background.) Anything interesting in his story has more to do with the pretentiousness of the "New York Art Scene" and how they glom onto something for a season or two, or make much of a sad, mentally ill boy until his life, expectations and whatever talent he did or didn't have is utterly wasted.
The real mystery: how the heck does Schnabel get someone of the talent and stature of Willem Dafoe to do a "walk on" as an electrician or Parker Posey to do a line or two as art dealer Mary Boone? There are also brief appearances by wannabes like Courtney Love, Tatum O'Neal, Dennis Hopper, etc. (Not to mention that the entire Schnabel family sans Papa is listed in the credits.) No less than Gary Oldman portrays Schnabel himself (called Albert Milo here, although I can't imagine why) and shown living like a Renaissance prince in a vast New York loft filled with giant paintings and antiques...I guess so we properly hold him in awe as a successful New York "artiste" and swoon at his affluence.
There is ZERO attempt here to re-create the period and society in place during the time of the events shown (about '79-83) and actors wear clothing contemporary to the later 90s, at least 15 years too modern; ditto for things like cars, music, etc. This is very disorienting -- is Schnabel trying to make the story contemporary or is he cheap, sloppy, unaware? It's impossible to tell.
Since the protagonist is stoned AND mentally ill throughout the film -- he doesn't descend into this state as in some biopics, but starts out this way -- there is a certain amount of pity for him, but it's hard to feel any kind of identification with him. It's also embarassing
Production values and special effects -- the surfer in the sky fantasy -- are not particularly well done by current CGI standards adding to the "home made" overall quality of the film.
A couple of supporting actors pull out the stops to give good performances. David Bowie, who you would not think had it in him acting-wise or appearance-wise, turns in a wonderful, nuanced portrait of the uber-trendy Andy Warhol (just before the artist's death). Michael Wincott, known more for his portrayals of sinister villain types, switches gears radically to portray very gay, very swishy poet/art critic Rene Ricard, who "discovers" Basquiat only to be quickly betrayed as the young artist allys himself with more important and high profile "friends". He's very convincing in the part and I had to check the credits twice to be sure this was the same actor from "The Crow" and "1492".
But other high profile name actors are basically just doing walk-ons...I guess this is the high trendy art equivalent of a home movie. So my first analysis was dead-on.
You won't learn anything about art from watching "Basquiat", except that it's a very bad idea to give an artist a camera and let him make a movie.
Movie Review: Basquit
Summary: 1 Stars
The film was great , as much of it as we could hear. The copy amazon sent was obviously old technology and did not play properly in my blu ray. It stuck numerous times and we heard every other word.
very poor quality.I think its probably a good film though.....