Basquiat - Blog 2

After watching the film I thought of how the film portrayed Basquiat’s life as a series of dramatic highs and lows as seen in the films powerful imagery that corresponds with the aspects of the schematic structure. The film begins with a scene of a young African American child holding his mother’s hand walking down a long white corridor lit soley by the blue lights strung along the ceiling. The filming approach is visually cold and the credits written in black and white and cut in and out of scenes of them walking. All at once we see the pair arrive at Picassos Guernica the the camera shows up the woman who presume to be the mother of the boy next to her crying as she looks at her son threes a crown projected on his head and the woman smiles. All at once the scene opens with a man’s sleeping in a box (Basquiat) there are scenes of him walking around going about “absurd activities” that seem to be his daily routine. A quote by the narrator which we later learn is the Art citric Rene that gives him his start, states “no one ever wants to miss the next Van Gogh” which I thought was ironic as the Jamison article about artistic creativity and mental illness referenced Van Gogh in stating, “Van Gogh it is said could not have been mad as his paintings reflect lucidity of the highest order, Lucidity however is not incompatible with occasional bouts of madness” (Jamison 96) We soon learn Basquiat mother has been institutionalized. The Jamison article state that individuals who have a relative especially a close relative like a parent with a mental disorder they are significantly more likely to have some type of mental illness, most commonly (or so it seemed from the article) manic depression. This made me think back to the way Basquiat's mother was crying from Guernica and then all of the sudden overcome with happiness when seeing her son with the crown, (even more of a mentally questionable reaction when we learn its a foreshowing to his untimely death) The movie starts the way it does with intense mise-en-scene to make an intense impression on the audience. The imagery is full of symbolism and the lack of dialogue in combination with the background music suggested to me that scene is symbolic in meaning then literal. Throughout the film the interactions with his mother or about his mother have been short, but their content (usually questions about her mental health a status) are pivotal in understanding the artist and his battle with his wits.

As the film progresses we see that’s Basquiat favorite method of dulling his wits is heroin which at first we see him causally snorting but then soon after getting his break,(ironically while at a party where everyone was doing drugs) Gina finds him passed out half dead on the bed from shooting it up. He meets Gina at her place of work after he makes a syrup portrait of her on a table. The owner kicks him out we see that Gina is obviously attracted to his antics. There are a select few individuals who accept theses eccentric “mad” artists, as demonstrated in the way artists that become famous tend to have tumultuous dependent and destructive relationships with women. Gina was one of the select few she was the Mary figure in his life, the one the grounded him and helped to give his life structure, things beyond just a roof over his head. The film shows how their relationship starts off with extreme intensity, so much so that Basquiat comes off like he is literally fantasizing all of the time, “what island are we going to visit in Hawaii” (lets be honest, you live in a box sometimes…)or when in bed he randomly proposes.


When Basquiat finally does make it he makes it big and makes it all really fast. He becomes Andy Worhol's protégé which was his dream but turns out to be a nightmare as he’s dubbed his pet in the media which drives him more insane. He sells out his friends and cheats on Gina, and keeps doing heroin. The film shows these actions and how his reckless behavior while climbing up the ladder of the art world are coupled with greater use of drugs and bouts of intense creativity. If he is mental ill or especially manic depressive, the way he felt about his actions and the things he was doing tot others around seemed to be eating away at his soul fueling better art but making it an emotional burden to carry; he needs a crutch and heroin is the crutch.

Sadly even after trying to clean up his act and get back to his structure when he attempts to patch things up with Gina, what the film leads us to be believe is the heroine that helped him to create his art as he says in reference to being clean “my arts dead without it” left his art alive and his body dead. I thought that the movie portrayed him as a young brilliant psychologically trouble young man with a great talent who didn’t understand how to cope with the stresses and reality of what being famous artist was. The demands to play that role and be criticized by society in everything you do is hard enough if and he is a manic depressive with a heroin addiction. In the end I believe the film made him out to almost be a martyr of creativity and a victim of his circumstances.