Any biopic about an important historical figure has a degree of responsibility in how they characterize their subject’s lives. While a film is inherently a work of entertainment that does not owe the audience any obligation to present its subjects’ lives in an accurate way, it should still try to emphasize the historical importance of the events that it covers. Acclaimed biopics like Braveheart and The Social Network may have gotten some of the facts wrong, but they still were able to summarize the impact that their subjects had on major historical trends; it helped that the films were both about well-known figures that the majority of the audience was likely already familiar with. However, Julian Schnabel’s mischaracterization of the life of Jean-Michel Basquiat in his biopic Basquiat may have caused lasting damage on how the artist is perceived.
Schnabel is certainly no stranger to the biopic genre. His breakthrough film, Before Night Falls, allowed Javier Bardem to shed a spotlight on the life of the playwright Reinaldo Arenas; his Jean-Dominique Bauby biopic, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, and his 2018 minor masterpiece, At Eternity’s Gate, took a very different approach to the life of Vincent Van Gogh than any other biopic. Although it’s impressive that he was able to add a sense of ambiguity to the lives of many influential figures, Schnabel’s attempt to characterize Basquiat’s life as a tragedy speaks to the issues of a white artist covering the subject of a Black subject.
‘Basquiat’ Draws on Julian Schnabel’s Personal Experiences
Basquiat is a biopic in the loosest sense of the word about the life of Jean-Michel Basquiat, portrayed in a brilliant breakout performance by Jeffrey Wright. Basquiat was an incredibly inventive street artist who grew in prominence throughout the 1980s, as he wrote epigrams across Manhattanthat touched upon socially relevant themes about race and class. Basquiat didn’t conform to standard conventions of what a “great artist” looked like in a time when the world of painting was dominated by white men, but his influence continues to reign long after his death of a reported heroin overdose in 1988. Basquiat’s work was incredibly influential inthe neo-Expressionist movement, and his artwork contributed to the growth of hip-hop culture throughout the rest of the 1980s. Although it’s not a major part of the film, Basquiat’s ambiguous sexuality started significant conversations about his legacy as an icon of the LGBTQIA+ community.
The issue with Basquiat is that Schnabel chooses to explore the artist’s life purely based on his own interactions with him. Schnabel was a friend of Basquiat’s during his rise to prominence, but the artist’s estate declined to let him use any of his actual artwork in the film; as a result, Schnabel inserted original paintings that were meant to be “in the style” of Basquiat, even if, in reality, they reflected his own interests. Although the film includes Gary Oldman as a stand-in character meant to represent Schnabel, the film’s depiction of Basquiat looks, sounds, and feels closer to the director than the actual artist. Schnabel may have thought he was the right person to tell the story because of his real friendship with Basquiat, but the result is a film that whitewashes one of the most influential Black artists of the 21st century.
‘Basquiat’ Leaves Out Important Parts of the Artist’s Life
The most glaring flaw in Basquiat is that the film fails to acknowledge some of the artist’s most significant achievements in favor of presenting his life story in a rather traditional “rise-and-fall” narrative. The film takes place primarily in New York City during Basquiat’s interactions with Andy Warhol (David Bowie), but in actuality, Basquiat traveled overseas and created many incredible paintings and architecture in Germany. Major incidents like the opening of his West Coast gallery, Limelight’s Art Against Apartheid benefit, and his fashion show in Paris are also ignored. Those looking for a more thorough examination of Basquiat’s artistry are better suited to check out the documentary Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat, which features a more diverse set of insights from those who met and worked with the artist. The publication, Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was also able to more thoroughly articulate his legacy because it had the benefit of using actual paintings and extended anecdotes.
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“Twenty-five drivers start every season in Formula One, and each year two of us die. What kind of person does a job like this?”
There’s never the sense that Schnabel is willfully trying to mischaracterize someone that he clearly had a tremendous amount of respect for, but Basquiat is a disappointingly safe film about the life of an artist who couldn’t have been more radical. The film begins with a “meet cute” moment between Basquiat and his girlfriend and seems to identify him as “quirky” rather than noting how he uses his work to attack systems of power that oppressed minority groups. More distressing is that Schnabel dedicates a majority of the film’s second half to Basquiat’s drug abuse, indicating that it was his frustration with the mundanity of the art world that was to blame for his addiction issues. Although it’s admirable that Schanbel was willing to engage with the subject of addiction with sensitivity, it’s sadly another case in which a Black icon seems to only be defined by tragedy.
‘Basquiat’ Was a Breakout Role for Jeffrey Wright
While it certainly shouldn’t be mistaken for a work of historical accuracy, Basquiat was a critical role for Wright, who became a far more prominent star in the immediate aftermath. Like Basquiat himself, Wright is an artist who has used his fame to shed insight on the Black experience; most recently earning him the first Academy Award nomination of his career for American Fiction, a film in which he plays a Black writer frustrated with the way that white pundits react to his work. If nothing else, Basquiat allowed one of the best actors of his generation to make work that was far more intimate, thoughtful, and well-researched about the Black community.
Basquiat is currently streaming on Max in the U.S.
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