Oh My God, You Sound Famous Already.

Jeffrey Wright fest! It would appear that we announce a festival in honour of an artist when we hit three films that they have been involved with. And unless he popped up in something the I didn't recognise, this is Wright's third appearance after this and this. We do love him so.

Basquiat was a bit of a breakout for Mr Wright, despite much acclaimed stage work (including Angels In America, a role he reprised on television.) And it's a beautifully juicy role to be given, a biopic of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, friend of Warhol, major acclaim, kooky, rags to riches, all that business. And a seriously cool cast alongside you - Benicio Del Toro, Claire Forlani, Michael Wincott, David Bowie, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, Parker Posey, Courtney Love, Tatum O'Neal... wow. Plus! A film about an enfant terrible of the art world directed by an enfant terrible of the art world! What more could you want?


Basquiat (Wright) is a druggie, living rough, earning some notoriety for his graffiti work as Samo and the phrases he sketches on streetscapes. He works in an art gallery run by Mary (Posey), hanging paintings with an electrician also trying to make his way as an artist (Willem Dafoe) while Mary and her client, Albert (Oldman) abuse him until he walks out on them. He does some sketches and, with his friend Benny (Del Toro), manages to convince Andy Warhol (Bowie) and his manager Bruno (Hopper) to purchase these sketches - Warhol, in his terrific deadpan manner, comments after Basquiat's departure that they're actually good. Eventually, art dealer Rene Ricard (Wincott) spots one of his paintings at a party and tracks down Basquiat. The artist, still doing copious amounts of drugs as he tries and succeeds in romancing waitress Gina (Forlani), is quickly turned into a star, though on the way he burns many, many of his closest allies, including Rene and Gina. The destructive clinicism of Warhol's artistic cynicism starts to wear him down, and with no one there to say no, Basquiat spirals downwards.

Wright as Basquiat is fantastic, fully inhabiting the fear and fearlessness of success, the stoic drive behind the fragile artist, the self-belief and arrogance mixed with a paranoia that he might fade as fast as he rose. The supports, especially Oldman, Wincott and particularly Bowie, are terrific. Bowie as Warhol is almost scary in his disconnect from the world around him. Whether or not he is a perfect Warhol portrayer, he is perfect for this film.


It has been noted that the film can be seen as much as being about director Schnabel - I don't know a great deal about either artist outside of a decent knowledge of their work and where they fit into their respective movements, but even I picked up on distinct similarities between the characterised Basquiat and the real Schnabel. His pyjama wearing, for example. But whether or not the film is accurate to the truth of Basquiat's life, it doesn't really matter anyway. The film is an artwork by Julian Schnabel taking Basquiat's life as a leaping-off point, and like any great work of art it is not just technique but the emotion put into it, and that emotion is always going to be drawn from the artist themselves. So rather than seeing the film as a biopic, it is probably instead best to view it as a fictional narrative built around the basics of the artist, interpreted through the eyes of another artist who obviously holds the character in high regard.


But does the film work? In many ways, yes. The riveting performances and great cameos keep you watching and caring, despite the fact that Basquiat is in many ways repugnant once he gains his fame. But the film does not reach the heights of Schnabel's later The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, or even his Before Night Falls. It is, however, a solid debut and an interesting take on an artist's story. 3 stars.

How Much For My Other Kid?

Woops. Turns out my weekend wasn't spent catching up on here after all.


Syriana. I see what writer/director Stephen Gaghan was trying to do. It worked so well for him with his screenplay for Traffic, after all. But it didn't work for me here. All those multiple narrative strands revolving around oil and the Middle East - it was noble, a valiant effort, but ultimately it was just too much going on, making it damned hard to actually know what the hell was going on.

George Clooney plays a CIA agent assigned to assassinate various people in Iran, but keeps doing things to upset his employer. Matt Damon is a Swiss based energy analyst whose son dies at a party thrown by an Emir, and out of sympathy his company wins a big oil contract. Damon becomes his economic advisor as he tries to modernise and bring his country away from its dependence of oil in the long term for growth. Chris Cooper is the head of a major American energy company merging with a smaller power, who are currently losing their grip on the oil fields of the same Emirate after said Emir grants a contract to a Chinese company. The merger is shady, but they have a big law firm (headed by Christopher Plummer) give the impression of due diligence by going through all of their documents and files. Unfortunately for them, the lawyer in charge, Jeffrey Wright, is too damn good and starts to find stuff out.


I guess that's about it. It's a great cast (also with Amanda Peet and William Hurt), and they all do fine. Strangely, I particularly liked Damon - his conflicted father throwing himself into work in the aftermath of tragedy was very well crafted. I don't fully understand the acclaim given to Clooney - he was fine, but there was nothing really exciting in his performance. It was just there. Wright I'm slowly falling in love with, each performance I'm seeing adding to my respect for him. Why he's not a bigger star is anybody's guess.


Score by Alexandre Desplat. I'm getting to a point where I think I'll just assume every score is by Desplat. Seriously, does the man never sleep? And they're always good! Damn him and his talent and work ethic. Robert Elswit makes the film kind of look like Traffic. It was nice lensing, but it didn't bring much of a new look to the region. Also reminded me a bit of films like Three Kings and Jarhead.


All up, a bit meh. One of those films that would probably make a lot more sense if I watched it again, but for this I just don't have the inspiration. Unlike, say, Mulholland Drive, which I didn't really understand but I knew I loved it and had to watch it repeatedly, Syriana probably won't become a brilliant film if I watch it again - it'll just give me clarity of storyline. And that's now what narratives are all about. 2.5 stars.

Respect The Delicate Ecology Of Your Delusions.

What a great line.

I mentioned very recently that I am greatly affected by the length of films. That I have a short attention span and I can often struggle to sit through longer films. This was in relation to La Dolce Vita. I also mentioned that I had recently watched Angels In America, the five and a half hour HBO miniseries from 2003 (which I'm counting as two films for the purposes of my 365 day challenge. Bite me.) I brought that up because I actually watched the first five and a half hours in one sitting, only stopping because it was getting quite late, I was quite tired and I had to be awake early the next day to run errands and prepare for my imminent Icelandic departure. I didn't want to stop watching, and I almost kept going regardless, to hell with sensibility. But in the end logic prevailed.

Angels In America must have one of the best casts assembled for a television event in recent memory. Count 'em. Meryl Streep. Emma Thompson. Al Pacino. Patrick Wilson. Mary-Louise Parker. Justin Kirk. Jeffrey Wright. Ben Shenkman. James Cromwell. Michael Gambon. And directed by Mike Nichols (The Graudate, Silkwood, Closer - many others.)

Based on the play, Angels In America takes place in the early and deadliest days of the AIDS crisis in America, in the mid-1980s. Prior Walter (Kirk) has the most screen time, I guess making him the lead. In a relationship with Louis (Shenkman) for four and half years, he is now quickly dying of AIDS (well, AIDS-related illnesses, but let's keep it simple.) Louis can't handle it and abandons him, leaving him to his suffering and delusions - and possibly a visit from an angel (Emma Thompson, in one of her various roles in the production.)

Meanwhile, Roy Cohn (Pacino) is a high-flying lawyer also dying of AIDS - or liver cancer as he'd prefer it to be known publicly. He is alone because he has nobody in his life - he has pushed everyone aside. He is a hard-arsed son of a bitch who has pissed off so many people - though he has managed to remain within the affections of closeted Mormon Joe (Wilson), whom Roy has taken under his wing, presumably hoping to get a little rumpy-pumpy out of it. Joe is naive, and struggling with a wife, Harper (Parker), who is addicted to valium and suffers from her own delusions. He takes long walks through Central Park, watching the men have sex in the trees but too afraid to participate - for now. Eventually, with Harper's mind and his marriage disintegrating, he enters into a relationship with the guilty and devastated Louis - his first gay encounter. (Following? There's more.)

Binding these stories together are Belize (Wright, reprising his award-winning turn in the original Broadway production), who is Prior's best friend and nurse to Roy. A strange, disgusted respect brews for Roy, while his anger for Louis shows through loud and proud - like everything else about him. He looks after Prior when Louis runs off, and is involved in the eventual hunting down of Joe by Prior - Belize knows Joe through Joe's visits to Roy in hospital whilst Belize is taking care. In addition, Joe's mother Hannah (Streep) has come to New York from Salt Lake City after Joe calls her at 4am, drunk and in Central Park, to come out to her. She is there to take care of Harper and Joe, despite the fact that Joe has run off to be with Louis, but ends up in a confrontation with Prior that sees her taking him to hospital and experiencing another of his visits from the Angel of America (that's Thompson, for those not keeping up.)

It's an extraordinarily interlinked and finely woven tapestry of screen production. I always find modern representations of the AIDS crisis important (especially ones so well received as this one) as I think current generations don't truly understand the gravity of the disease and how ravaging it really is. Like Holding The Man (the stage play and the book), it is an entertaining and thought-provoking look at what really happened back then, when people didn't really know what was going on, when there was so much fear about what the syndrome was all about, when the stigma attached to homosexuality was still so strong. Philadephia may have brought that out into the open a little more back in the mid-90s, but it is always well worth being reminded.

And reminded how. This is an incredible almost-six hours of television marvel. Streep, Wright, Thompson, Shenkman and Kirk all play multiple roles (apparently in much the same way as in the stage productions), and do it brilliantly. It is overly melodramatic. It is overly stylised. But it is all entirely perfect. Every detail included in the production fit, because for the most part we're not dealing with reality. We're dealing with visions and delusions and insanity a lot of the time. We're dealing with prophets and messengers. We're dealing with heaven and earth. We're crossing faiths, races, genders, sexualities. It is so finely twined, but perfectly understandably so. It's easy to understand (a lot easier than I'm sure my run-down above was) but never simplistic. It tackles issues that needs to be tackled head on. I can only imagine what the reception for the play was back in the early 90s, when the crisis was still going strong.

But the film doesn't really preach, in so many words. Its themes and morals are definitely worn on its sleeve, but it's more about the people and the stories and their arcs and what they go through individually and together. It is entirely human, even as it delves into the supernatural. Even the angels are flawed. Hope and salvation doesn't, here, come from above, but is reliant on the deeds of those on the ground - who are for the most part reluctant, wanting just to go on as they were without causing trouble.

It's beautiful and amazing. That's all I have to say. I could watch it again and again. I can't recommend it highly enough. See it. See it all. 5 stars.