THE CURBSIDE CRITERION: BASQUIAT

Biopics can be tricky. How do you portray someone’s life without the film feeling like a “greatest hits” set list of moments? You have to include those milestones, of course, but you also can’t spend too much time on them, which precludes serious character development.

Basquiat, however, manages to walk that line pretty well. Perhaps it helps that the major moments in his life aren’t well-known to most people, so writer/director Julian Schnabel had more liberty when crafting the story. And, of course, not every character in this film has a real-life companion — some are composite characters or ones invented for specific story reasons.

Jeffrey Wright plays the title role here, giving us an aloof, talented Jean-Michel Basquiat who was driven as much by creative muses as he was by personal demons. He becomes involved with Gina (Claire Forlani), a waitress who is a fellow artist, and endears himself to Andy Warhol (David Bowie) by crashing his lunch with art dealer Bruno Bischofberger (Dennis Hopper) and selling him some art pieces for a few bucks.

His buddy Benny (Benicio del Toro) acts as Basquiat’s sounding board as the artist tries to navigate the trials and tribulations of fame and money that’s arrives quickly and threatens to leave his life just as fast. Those aforementioned personal demons, namely a heroin addiction, begin eating away at his relationships, especially the one with Gina, as he heads toward the kind of “life fast, die young, leave a pretty corpse” fate that has taken too many talented people too soon.

This film is littered with interesting cameos, including Willem Dafoe as an unnamed electrician; Christopher Walken as an interviewer who annoys Basquiat with his trite questions; Courtney Love as “Big Pink,” a woman he cheats on Gina with; and Gary Oldman as artist Albert Milo.

Schnabel decided that for his film’s 4K Ultra HD debut, he would remaster it in black-and-white, a choice that I’m sure will polarize many fans. I appreciated that presentation, and understand how it portrays Basquiat’s life in more stark terms, but his art really benefits from the pop of color afforded by a 4K remaster. There is a short mid-credits scene, though, that’s been left in color.

You can also watch the film in color on the accompanying Blu-ray, which also leverages the new remaster, but how much of a consolation prize that is for you depends on how you feel about Schnabel’s choice. Personally, I prefer the color version of the film, and I’m not the kind of viewer who needs to examine every little detail offered by a high-def disc versus the same film on a 4K platter.

On the bonus features front, Criterion commissioned some new extras for this edition, which is welcome since I don’t think Basquiat has appeared on Blu-ray until now either. The proceedings kick off with a new commentary track featuring Schnabel and art curator Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan; the chat starts a bit awkwardly, but the pair settle into a nice groove as the film unspools.

You also get a new 25-minute interview with Wright, who I’ll confess didn’t really hit my radar until the last few years when it seemed like he was popping up all over the place. Yes, this was his first feature film starring role, but I think I overlooked him in the years since because I didn’t see a lot of the late 90s/early 2000s movies that he was in. It happens.

Finally, we get a nice 55-minute interview with Schnabel and Bowie from a 1996 episode of Charlie Rose’s old show. It’s a shame Rose had to behave like a creep and torpedo his career, but back in the day, you could always count on him for thought-provoking, in-depth interviews.

A pair of trailers and a leaflet with an essay by critic Roger Durling round this one out.

– Brad Cook (@BradCWriter)

Citerion Collection; Basquiat; Julian Schnabel