The two Basquiat films we watched this semester stood out the most for me. I’ve honestly never liked Basqiat’s work. In fact, I hated it. But after watching these two films, I’ve learned to appreciate his work and see something in it that I never noticed before – his identity and struggles on canvas – and that just speaks to the successful and impactful work of both directors. Julian Schnabel directed Basquiat and gave a holistic, and incredibly emotional, overview of Basquiat’s short life and his influences. As emotional as the film is, there is still a observatory, almost cold, distance to it. Tamra Davis’s film, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, gives us an insider view into the real life and genius of Basquiat. It is the epitome of personal. While Schnabel’s piece stays mostly surface level talking about the artist and supporting his image of Basquiat with information about the man himself, Davis’s film focuses on the man and how his life, personality, and struggles created the artist and informed his art. It is so much more successful and compelling as a film about Basquiat himself, even though I believe that Schnabel’s film is more educational about Basquiat’s actual art and his life as an artist, which was probably more helpful for me in this particular class.
I totally agree with the tension between the intimate and the distant when comparing the two Basquiat films. And I do think that they both seem to serve different purposes. I’m interested in how this tension plays into the idea of biography either enhancing or disrupting our understanding of an artist and an artist’s work.
I think that while distance gives us a more objective historical account of the art, intimacy could perhaps reveal more about the nature of and our subsequent interpretations of the artwork itself. Two different sorts of education, which one is more suitable may depend on the sorts of questions we’re asking.