Frida Kahlo exhbition

Here's a link to the New York Times article (Feb. 29) about the current Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/arts/design/29kahl.html?ref=todayspaper

Post 4

To start of I would just like to say that I truly enjoyed the film American Splendor. I found that the movie was innovative, humorous and Harvey Pekar was a very interesting character to say the least. This movie is labeled as a biopic because it is a blurring of aesthetics and genres. The creators of the film, Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman could have chosen to do a documentary on Harvey Pekar’s life, but they believed they owed it to Harvey and his comics to present something different.

In the article, When is a documentary? Documentary as a Mode of Reception, writer Dirk Eitzen discussed the long debated definition of the documentary. There are a few concepts that I like that he mentioned, many which made me thing directly about American Splendor. In the history of documentary film, Eitzen tells us that the genre has been defined in many different ways. It is a “film with a message,” a “dramatized presentation of man’s relation to his institutional life” and “the communication, not imagined things, but of real things only” (81). I believe that American Splendor partially falls under these categories. After all, it is partially a documentary film. It is definitely a film with a message. The story of Harvey Pekar is an inspiring one with a message about originality and being true to yourself. The film is beyond doubt a dramatized representation of Harvey’s life. In the interview with Pulcini and Berman they state that the film is a “fictionalized account of Pekar’s life…” When it comes to the third definition of a documentary, American Splendor mixes reality or imagined things with real things and this is what makes the film so groundbreaking and different from just a plain documentary film. The definition of documentary I feel fits best with this film is John Grieson’s definition, “ the creative treatment of actuality.” This is exactly what American Splendor is except that the film handles reality with extra creativity. For example, the film shows Harvey Pekar in actor form, the real Harvey Pekar as well as cartoon figures of Harvey that pop up every now and then. It is a perfectly blended combination of reality and fantasy.

Another concept in the article that I enjoyed was the question of “how can a documentary be real when it is a replica of the real?” The neat thing about the film is it doesn’t try to make you see flat out reality. It shows and openly tells you that these are actors telling a story by having the real Harvey Pekar appear and narrate the story. A great example of this is when the camera starts to zoom in on Paul Giamatti while the real Harvey Pekar narrates. The real Harvey says, “this is the guy playing me, even though he looks nothing like me.” This line really allows us to separate reality from make believe.

The interview with the creators was very interesting as well. It basically explained why they decided to do this overlap of documentary and biopic. It truly is a hybrid film, “one that celebrates the blurred boundaries between comics and film, documentary and fiction.” The creators explained that they chose this style of film to match up with the uniqueness of Harvey the person and his comic books. With his comics, Pekar decided to push the boundaries and do something that had never been seen before. Pulicini and Burman saw it fitting to do the same with their movie, using comic book esthetics, animating sequences and illustrated frames to pay tribute to his comics, while creating an exciting element to the film.

After reading both pieces, it is clear to see where the documentary style and biopic style come together in the film. The greatest, most creative example of this is when Paul Giamatti is finishing a scene and then walks off the set. We see him sit next to Judah Friedlander in the background, while the character Judah plays has a discussion with the real Harvey Pekar. This decision has us face to face with reality and non-reality. We also get to see that Judah and Paul’s performances are pretty accurate portrayals of the real life characters. Pulcini comments about this scene saying, “It is moments like these where the film is able to undermine its realism at the same time as it defends its accuracy.” I believe the creators choice to do something new with this film was very fitting. This film truly is a celebration of uniqueness and innovation in more ways then one.

post 4

Eitzen provides great insight to the audience in defining a documentary. His example of Spike Lee's High school film from 1988 helps create an understanding of the difference as the movie focused on actual events, but at times fell into the category of movie with its intense, non realistic dialogue and intense scenes that did not really occur. In fact, Eitzen seemed to have a tough time himself figuring out the concept of a documentary. After all, has there been a documentary with a plot? There is a biopic and a documentary, but the two categories can rarely intervene. In large appreciation of the directing of Robert Pulcini and Shari Berman, American Splendor (2003) consisted of documentary and biopic aspects including personal opinions of the Film's actual based character, Harvey Pekar. Harvey's character was played by Paul Giamatti, who personally, did a tremendous job as his facial features, body movement, and general attitude almost made him seem like a long lost twin brother of Pekar. However, the question of defining the qualities of a biopic and a documentary are far from hidden in the film. Pekar's comic books from the American Splendor series send a message to the audience in a nut shell stating, there are no super heroes, rather the typical individuals at work living their lives are the super heroes. While undoubtedly that last statement could spark some questions or even objections, this a personal opinion.
Shari Berman and Robert Pulcini were new this style of directing, as they had only made documentaries, not films. This made American Splendor (the film) very interesting to view because the documentary qualities are easily found, but would the movie have been possible without some depictions of the past? To make a film such as this one, it was only necessary to flashback and flash forward. Through such styles of explaining who Harvey Pekar was, the American Splendor needed to be a mix of a documentary and a biopic. For example, the film's opening scene features young Harvey Pekar attempting to fit in with various super heroes, and through this scene, it can be gathered (to some viewers) that this event led Harvey to feel the way he did about comic book heroes. On the other hand, would this scene have been possible to film without Shari and Pulcini moving away from their traditional style of the old fashioned documentary? The answer is no, because the audience would have had to watch Harvey Pekar himself (not Giamatti) explain his childhood, and this would have taken away part of the unique style of filming in this movie. In fact, through this scene, the audience gathers a better understanding of who Pekar was. Following this scene, the film quickly moves into Paul Giamatti playing the adult Pekar.
Although the film is narrated by the real Pekar, the other aspect of a documentary that should be mentioned is the interview. Giamatti playing Pekar is further emphasized through the transitions from the film itself to the real life interviews with Harvey Pekar and his wife Joyce. Undoubtedly, this interview which occurs a few times throughout the movie, is the true divider between a documentary and a biopic. This interview, which will most likely be stated by every post on the website, featured a white background, referencing the unique style of the comic books. With only a few objects in the room, the interview is filmed in a setting that completely symbolizes Pekar's comic book. This was an attempt to combine the aspect of a film while gathering input from the creator Harvey himself. This was a great move on the director's part as Pulcini even notes in his interview that the directors wanted the scene to be shot this way. "The Whole point of American Splendor comics is that life doesn't really organize itself well, which is very daunting for a screenwriter. You want to stay true to the spirit of these comic books, but you also want to be able to fashion them into some kind of story. So that was our challenge."
While there were countless examples of explaining the convergence of a biopic and a documentary, there remains one example in the film that points out Pulcini and Shari's unique style of filming. While the creation of the comics through construction paper or even the real life explanations of Pekar's co worker Toby are terrific examples, I would like to move toward Paul Giamatti's immitations of Pekar's many David Letterman interviews. Before and after these many interviews, Paul Giamatti does a great job acting out the stressed emotions of Harvey Pekar, as after all, Letterman completely embarrassed him on national television. Rather the Paul's tremendous acting, Pulcini and Shari take Paul's introduction onto Letterman's show each time (three or four in total) and transfer the filmed scene into the actual occurrence on the show. In other words, rather than filming Paul imitate an interview that simply can't be duplicated, why not just show the film audience what really happened in 1988? This was a great style of directing and aside from the constant narrating of Pekar himself, the viewers were able to understand (again for those who had already seen it, but not me) why the Letterman incident was such a big deal. This style of filming was unique, innovative, and sent a message stating, this is who Harvey Pekar was and no one can duplicate him. Aside from his personal emotional disorders, this brings my previous statement back in noting that Harvey was sending a message through his comics that the average individual could be a hero and too, be featured on the David Letterman Show. Concluding the film, we see Paul Giamatti walking down the street, which turns into the real Harvey Pekar seeing his family and coworkers at a party. This was the director's intention to remind the audience of the mixed style of filming, featuring fiction and non-fiction. Eitzen stated "the boundaries of documentary are fuzzy and variable in viewers' experience and in everyday discourse." This was a good quote to end on, as like the party, we see an actual event, but the rest of the film have shades of gray that fall into the category of a biopic. American Splendor was a film that featured actual events, some fictional events, and acting that imitated what really happened. It was simply a motion picture that mixed biopic and documentary qualities.

American Splendor

In the article, “When is a Documentary?: Documentary as a Mode of Reception”, Dirk Eitzen struggles with the concept of what constitutes a documentary. In his discussion he states that, “All documentaries- whether they are deemed, in the end, to be reliable or not- revolve around questions of trust.” Due to this issue of trust documentary filmmaking has become quite controversial and difficult to define. Eitzen provides several definitions but refutes any of them as “satisfactory” failing to find a clear distinction between fiction and nonfiction filmmaking. American Splendor, solves this problem in the creation of a unique film that is neither fiction nor non-fiction, but rather something in between. The film is about the life of the author of the underground American comic book. Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, both documentary film directors who for the first time converged their style with the biopic genre, directed the film. Because the film was not categorized with one particular genre the directors were given creative license to depict the story of Harvey Pekar in accordance with their own personal visions. But, at the same time were able to gain the trust of the viewer by combining fictional representation and reality, achieved by introducing the real Harvey Pekar through real life interviews and video clips. The convergence between documentary and biopic also enabled Pulcini and Berman to take the viewer back in time. The film begins with a scene from Pekar’s childhood on Halloween night in Cleveland. The scene introduces Pekar as a young child struggling to fit in amongst a group of “super heroes”, foreshadowing his career in unconventional, cynical comic books. Although, the film quickly transitions into Pekar’s adulthood this opening scene tells the viewer a lot about Pekar personality and social behaviors. The films main convergence with the documentary style is through interviews with the real Harvey Pekar. The film references the transitions between the real Harvey and the “fake” Harvey played by Paul Giamatti through the narrative. During the first transition Harvey Pekar states, “and now here is the guy playing me in the movie.” The interviews with the real Harvey Pekar are filmed in an all white room referencing the white blocks that make up a comic strip. Objects from Pekar’s comic stories and life are placed in the room depicting Pekar’s ability to apply his real life experiences and emotions into his work. Pulcini states, “We wanted a very different style for the documentary parts of the film. We decided that would be the place where we’d have a very artificial look, where we’d create a comic book panel look, with very vibrant colors and just a few well-placed items in the frame amidst a lot of empty, white space.” In the “white” space we are also introduced to Harvey’s wife Joyce, played in the film by Hope Davis and adopted daughter Danielle played in the film by Madylin Sweetin, both who are depicted in the biopic narrative. The film integrates these frames of white space into the fictional narrative, when Paul Giamatti sketches his comic strips on white pieces of construction paper. These scenes are shot close-up focusing only on the white piece of paper and the objects and words Pekar (Giamatti) draws in them. Puccini and Berman add another dimension to the film by inserting clips from Pekar’s famous appearances on the David Letterman Show. During these clips the film transitions back and forth from the biopic narrative to the documentary by showing Hope Davis watching the real Harvey Pekar through the viewing screen in the dressing room. This scene shows how the narrative of the film is directly referencing the real life of Harvey Pekar and his experiences. Puccini and Berman add another interesting aspect to the convergence between documentary and biopic when they introduce Giamatti and Judah Friedlander who plays Pekar’s co-worker Toby Radloff, to the real Harvey and Toby. Giamatti and Friedlander enter the white “space” of the documentary and are filmed watching the real Harvey and Toby interact in the foreground of the shot. This scene legitimizes the depictions of the real Harvey and Toby in the film as the viewer is informed that they actors have met the people they are playing in the film. Therefore they have studied their personality, voice, body language, social tendencies, etc. In the final scene of the film, we see Paul Giamatti walking down the streets of Cleveland, the figure then transitions into the real Harvey Pekar as he enters into his office and retirement party. At the party Pekar is joined by the real Joyce, Danielle, Toby and other co-workers leaving the viewer with the feeling that they have experienced the “real” life of Harvey Pekar.

Post 4

Biopics telling the story of a person's life can in many ways be labeled as a documentary of their life. However it is hard to establish in a biopic exactly what is truth and what is a creative interpretation of that persons experiences. John Grierson says that documentary is "the creative treatment of actuality" since on can not go back in time to fill a specific period in someones life in order to gain a first hand account of exactly what happened, they have to rely on an interpretation of what happened during a specific moment and what exactly was said. Therefore in the idea that a biopic film is a documentary of a persons life is not true. In a documentary you get the understanding that these people really do exist, that this the way that they truly are and it is not a creative interpretation of the truth. Telling the story of Harvey Pekar in American Splendor, the directors chose to mix in elements of a documentary into their representation of what happened in Harvey Pekar's life. In doing this one gets to understand that these people really do exist in the same way that they are being portrayed. This is shown at one point when after a few scenes with Toby, who is played in such a way that the viewer would think that there was no way that he could be like that in real life, the directors chose to cut away from the narrative to show Toby and Harvey interacting with one another. In doing so the directors are showing the viewer that they are in all actuality representing these people the way that they really are and are not changing them for the sake of making a better film. By doing this they are also conveying to the viewer that this a biopic film that is playing true to the characters, they are not changing them in anyway that would make them different. 

Another element of the film that lends truth to the narrative is the fact that many of the stories of his life are written done in his comic books. In having this they are able to better describe what actually happened during his life, because he essentially has it all written out, and not in novel form where he could have embellished, but in a form where he told the truth about the mundane details of his life. The filmmakers also make the decision to have the real Harvey Pekar narrate the story, framing the events of his life in such a way that they have to be a real representation of his experiences. In doing this they create a unified story between Paul Giamatii and the narrator, making it fluid and convincing the audience that this is the way the story happened. At one point in the film there is a cut away from the narrative, to the real Harvey and Joyce, and we see them sitting at a table, giving their opinions  on events that are happening in the film. This lends a documentary feel to the film, giving us a sense of what they are like and what they think of specific events. It also shows the viewer that this is what the characters look like in real life and that there has been no artistic license taken with their representation. This is also mixed in with the filmmakers making the decision to use the real clips of his David Letterman appearances, switching seamlessly from the actor Paul Giamatti to the real life clips of Harvey. It lends a truth to the way that Paul Giamatti portrays the character as well, that we as an audience are able to see the way that he is in real life and makes us understand that this is how he actually is. It is not a creative or embellished representation of him. The filmmakers are not "lying" to us in the way that many do when making biopic films. They are also able to create a seamless transition between the "character" of Harvey Pekar and the real Harvey Pekar. They do this in the end of the film in the scene where Harvey is walking Danielle to the bus, they have Paul Giamtti walking away from the bus and then there is a slit second transition, where they switch to the real Harvey Pekar. This creates a documentary like feel to the film, showing the viewer again that they are seeing the events in which they happened, and that there are no creative or artistic embellishments for the sake of the narrative and that this is a true representation of the life that Harvey Pekar led.

extra stuff

Since I had to leave early because of this bug going around campus, I forgot to talk about the casting, directing, and awards of American Splendor. Sorry if any of you are finding this out for the second time:

Directed by: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini

-Created in 2003, is a biopic about Harvey Pekar who created the American Splendor comic book series

Stars: Paul Giamatti as Pekar, Hope Davis as the wife,. Also features Joyce Brabner.

Won Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Film at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at Academy Awards

Post 3

The text we read suggested that Documentaries can be determined by a simple question. "Could this film be lying?". After reading this article I realize how intelligent this film really is. On the surface it is a synthesis between documentary and biopic. The film is framed by the original author who sits in a recording studio just being himself. Though the introduction to him in the beginning is of him reading a sheet of paper, the film includes dialogue which is totally irrelevant to the film. We learn that Harvey Pekar really likes orange soda. That has nothing to do with the fictitious story we are watching. That is a piece of (assumably) true information about the subject of the biography. These scenes allow for the film to be regarded as a documentary. As the film proceeds, we can understand that the purpose for the documentary aspect of the film is to propose that the biography of Harvey Pekar as played by Paul Giamotti is factual. To me, the most blatant example of the addition of "truth" is the introduction of Toby. Up to that point, we watched Judah Friedlander portray a character who is so different we have to question the legitimacy of his portrayal. "Could this character be a lie?". So, after a few scenes with Judah Friedlander pretending to be Toby Radloff, the shot switches to documentary mode and records a few minutes of the real Harvey Pekar and Toby Radloff talking amongst themselves. Again, this is totally irrelevant to the story that we are watching, but it is a reminder that what you see is in fact what you get.
There is a deeper meaning to the narrative that says: Life is more than just getting by. Harvey Pekar is making ends meet, but it doesn't make him happy. Doing something more than just surviving contributes to his overall sense of fulfillment and therefore the film is making an argument. The argument is that to find happiness you must do, you can not just be. This is a proposed truth, albeit a subject truth. The film then can be attributed with a new definition; It has become "assertive". It is assertive partially because it is preaching a subtle moral, but also because it makes a claim that its portrayal of the state of affairs of Pekar's life is true. It backs that statement up by using character witness' who are the actual people being portrayed by the character. Toby really was like that. Though we can not know for sure if certain scenes really did go the way they are portrayed, or whether the characters really did act and react the way we see them, we are more willing to believe the sincerity of the film after seeing the real people behind the characters. The film itself seems to be trying to support the root material trying to connect a circle of truth. If the film can show that the narrative is true, then transitive properties of logic propose the material it is based on is true.
So the film is a documentary on previously published material which was a biography of a personal history of the subject of the film. Unlike traditional biographies we do not have people sitting in front of the camera giving their opinions about what happened. What we do have are people standing in front of a camera acting as themselves thus giving credence to the suggestion that the film is a documentary and therefore factual. The narrative half of the film, however, plays up to drama. The story of Paul Giamatti as Harvey Pekar moves like any other narrative feature. We have a character who goes through the success' and failures of life. We are invited to consider a world such as this, detached from a need to know if it is real or fake except for the occasional breaks in narrative to introduce real life characters. The documentary is asserting the honesty of the fiction which is a representation of the autobiographical material of this man. A representation is not a truth, but a consideration, where as an assertion is compelling us to believe. We are watching a documentary of a biopic of a biopic (in a different medium) of a historical reality. What needs to be understood is the difference between a biopic and a documentary. A biopic is the story of a historical figure which allows itself open to exaggerations for the sake of character and plot while a documentary states something as a fact, or an absolute truth. The real life (historical reality) is obscured by potentially exaggerated stories in a comic book (biopic) which is presented by a dramatic portrayal within a narrative (biopic) which is validated by the presentation of the real guy (documentary). If we accept Eitzen's dissection of genres, a biopic is inherently fictitious because it is simply "inviting us to consider a state of affairs". Certainly Pollock and Basquiat took a few liberties to make it translatable to film, and this film does the same within the alloted boundaries.
The translation between comic book and film are detected in the editing. The thought bubbles, and exposition boxes are cornerstones of traditional comic book narratives. There are very few jump cuts and instead the camera allows for movement to occur by the actors within the shot rather than movement being created by the camera. This is an allusion to the frame by frame device of comic books. Where comic books would create their tone through color or shading, the film replaces that with lighting and sound. The Jazz creates the mood for the film and the light is kept at lower levels to allow it too look a little more natural. The Mise-en-scene of the film gives it a little more depth of character than a comic book can afford to. For example, in Harvey's apartment we can see wall sized, packed shelves of old records to present the proportional interest Harvey has in records. As in a comic book, the amount of Mise-en-scene is restricted to the size of the frame, but a film allows for a much larger frame than a comic can afford so we get more out of each shot than we might in the comic. Also, the representation of objects are not restricted to the experience of the artist, but easily displayed through the physical image so as to leave no question to its identity.
American Splendor is a perfect translation of a comic to a film. It also creates a new genre by successfully synthesizing a documentary with a biopic edited as if it were a comic book. The director clearly knew what they were doing by juxtaposing a narrative with evidence to substantiate a claim which is not even really stated. We don't feel the need to ask if the story is real because it is a simple presentation of a state of affairs, but we are given the proof anyway. There is both a subtle moral argument and no argument at the same time. Though it could have been anchored by confusion, it allowed itself the levity to afford the audience to disregard the need for truth. Nothing in the film happens that the audience would say "I don't believe it". We are enchanted by both the fake characters and the real people which allows for a very rewarding experience from such an elaborate film. I like to think of this as a documentary of a narrative of an autobiography of a man.

American Splendor

After reading the interview with Pulcini and Berman and the article, "What is a Documentary?," where do you see convergences and cross-over between documentary and biopic in American Splendor? Be specific in your examples from the film.

THIS POST IS DUE FEB. 28.

A few reflections...

The first time I saw Basquiat, I also thought it was amateurish (as did Ashley & Zack), and I even felt kind of embarrassed for Schnabel--if you're going to line up all these stars and the amazing Jeffrey Wright, at least do them justice! However, I've liked it better in subsequent viewings, and some of the stilted qualities that bothered me at first came to seem more nuanced or at least charming.

One thing we didn't go into, but which struck me with each viewing--that's the allusions to Christianity that in the end construct Basquiat as Jesus. The weeping mother, the portrayal of Basquiat as innocent child, the crown (not thorns, but a crown), the shepherds looking up at the sky at the end, the final ride to doom (w/ Benny in the car)--all of these elements seem to me to point toward an understanding of the artist as martyr dying for the sins of a corrupt humankind.

Blog 3

Blog 3


Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat is a visual treat comprised of diegetic and nondiegetic inserts and sounds, leaving the viewer questioning what is real and allowing the viewer to experience the same struggle with reality as Jean Michael Basquiat experienced during his lifetime. Sequences of the film such as the opening scene of Basquiat as a boy with a lit up crown, the recurring image of a surfer above the New York City buildings, and the old footage of the bird eating the frog are interspersed between sequences of the daily happenings of Basquiat’s life— everything from him walking down the street, to making art— functioning to create this sense of ambiguity, the blurred sense of identity felt by the artist, allowing the viewer to understand the life of Basquiat on a deeper level. They propel the viewer on Basquiat’s ultimately unsuccessful journey to conquer perception (that of others’ and his own).
It takes watching the film in its entirety to fully understand the opening sequence of Basquiat as a boy donning a fantastical lit up crown, standing with his weeping mother and looking at Picasso’s Guernica with a boyish glee in his eyes. In one of the final sequences of the film following the death of Warhol, Basquiat (very near to death, himself) walks with Benny and brings up his mother once more as he explains a fairytale she would tell him as a child. The story is one in which a little prince is kidnapped and placed high up in a tower. The film cuts to a scene of the prince banging his crown against the bars of the tower’s window, his attempts to be heard and rescued. Unfortunately, as Basquiat informs Benny and the viewer, the prince was never found, but his crown against the bars made the most beautiful sound for all to hear and the prince, in that moment, filled the whole world up with beauty. The crown iconography thus serves two purposes. Not only does mark the beginning and the end of Basquiat’s lifelong struggles with the fantastical versus the real (seemingly associated with his mother), it also is analogous of Basquiat’s own attempts at being heard, at achieving the sort of recognition and perception he wanted as an artist.
Similarly, the black-and-white montage of the bird eating the frog, a questionable non-digenetic insert which is placed during a fit of creativity had by Basquiat in Gina’s apartment, creates the same sense of ambiguity, and throws the viewer into Basquiat’s struggles with reality and his place in it. This montage appears rather suddenly, and is followed by a shot of reality, as it is revealed to viewer that Basquiat has just painted all over his girlfriend’s artwork and fine clothing. Regardless, the viewer is left confused as to whether the old footage they just viewed is a real representation of Basquiat’s own thoughts, of his insanity, or if it is just an analogy for creativity and divine inspiration. The viewer, as is the trend throughout the movie is left questioning: is this meant to represent an actual experience had by Basquiat? What is real and what is fantasy?
At the end of the film, the viewer also understands the recurring scene of the surfer as being a scene quasi-representative of reality. The way in which the shot of a surfer is interspersed throughout the movie, appearing above buildings and in bathroom mirrors is purely fantasy, but, on the other hand, it is very real as it is most of the time indicative of Basquiat’s emotional state. The surfer is seen during the beginning half of the movie as Basquiat’s will power (as well as his will to live), his drive to become famous. The surfer is associated with Hawaii, and from Basquiat’s noted obsession with Hawaii as the ultimate, the dreamland, it can be deduced that the surfer is a figure Basquiat’s drive to achieve his ultimate goal, to legitimize his worldly perceptions as a famous artist. Towards the end of the film, when the going gets especially rough (after he has sky-rocketed to fame and Warhol’s death) the surfer is shown wiping out, as a means to mark the end of Basquiat’s will and drive to create. Hawaii is no longer Basquiat’s saving grace.
The film’s portrayal of Basquiat and his blurred perception of self and the world leads to an overridingly eccentric portrayal of the artist and viewer is left wondering whether this eccentricity is perhaps in fact a form of mental illness. As Kay Redfield Jamison writes, it is a common cultural stereotype to link madness with artistic genius. Jamison writes about various studies (including her own) conducted over the years which investigate the prevalence of schizophrenia and manic depression/mood disorders in artistic, creative individuals. Jamison investigates the episodic spurts of creativity of artists (shown in both Basquiat and Pollock) and connects them to manic-depressive mood disorders. Manic depression, Jamison writes, is characterized by “temperaments…part of the affective continuum, forming in turn a natural bridge between a virulently psychotic illness on the one hand and the moody, artistic temperaments on the other.” In short, the sudden spurts of energy in this mood disorder are highly conducive to artistic creativity. As films such as Pollock and Basquiat would have it, there is definite truth to this connection of madness and creativity. Though both artists suffer from some form of substance abuse (which inevitably affects their temperaments) they are each portrayed with attributes of mental illness as well. The pattern the film creates of Pollock retreating, drinking, then having a sudden spurt of creativity (`a la the Guggenheim mural) resembles the traits of a manic depression discussed by Jamison. The style in which the film Basquiat shows Basquiat’s attacking of Gina’s possessions in a fit of creativity, interspersed with the old-fashioned, zany footage (discussed earlier) also supports Jamison’s findings as Basquiat seemingly has a surge of “physical restlessness,” a drive to create.

post 3

Julian Schnabel's film on the life of his friend is well acted with lots of big name stars, but falls short of a magnificent eulogy that he must've been intending. Though Basquiat comes off as a cute endearing artist who wants to climb the ladder of fame, we never get a sense of what his life meant to himself. His drug abuse really didn't seem to make much of a difference to Basquiat except for his brilliant idea to paint a stack of tires white. If the film intended to display the absurdity of Basquiat's work, it has succeeded. If the stack of tires was meant to represent the epitome of Basquiat's genius then I must ask, was everyone in New York on heroin during the 80's? I will acknowledge the pretentiousness in the community, everyone wanted art, but if Julian wanted Basquiat to be praised through his film, he should have added a little more depth and a little more context to the work of art Basquiat created. As far as I could tell, there was no meaning at all. As Samo, he was an eccentric but clever “tagger”; as an artist he was a confusing mess that at times I thought that a bum on heroin could reproduce such staggering works of art. I don't mean to suggest that I don't appreciate the works of the artist, but I felt the film made him appear rather insubstantial.

Basquiat did look at things differently. He saw the world as a proverbial playground which he was destined to toy with. This is what made him so endearing, he maintained this level of innocence throughout the whole film, even when he was being a bastard to the woman who sincerely cared about him. With regard to the psychoanalysis of creativity, the playground that he toyed with was the relationship between form and content. When he looks to the sky, for example, he sees the form of a big blue wide open space. The form was big and blue and the content he manipulated from being something taken for granted and juxtaposed it with something contrary. Both the sky and ocean are different worlds to us (as humans are condemned to live on the land) as well as each other but rather than “flying high” he was surfing the wave. He could have just as easily been seeing himself flying, but that wouldn't have required much creativity. I didn't feel like there was anything particularly creative about this image though. In fact, what this film did reveal was the banality of Julian Schnabel's experimentation. You'd think someone who considers themselves a great artist would be more willing to take risks.

I don't think Basquiat struck me as being entirely mad at all. In fact, other than his mannerisms, he seemed totally normal to me. He had the same aspirations as most up and coming artists (fame) the same faults (arrogance), everything about this film made him appear the same as any other film of an artist that came before. At least Pollock had passion and anxiety and intensity. Basquiat is always portrayed as a particularly reserved character concerned about nothing other than his success. We never get a revelation into the character's mind except for external metaphors like the surfer. He didn't even particularly strike me as being bi-polar. He wasn't very inconsistent in his moods or behavior until an external stimulus influenced him to change. One could suggest Basquiat was obsessive and therefore mad, but it wasn't something he obsessed over so much as just did. Pollock was obsessive about his work, that is all he would do. But Basquiat never had much that pinned him down except his obsession for fame and his willingness to do almost anything to get it such as betray those who help him become famous. I had a problem with his character because I felt no sympathy for him. He seemed to deserve everything that happened to him because he had no respect for those who cared enough to help him get what he needed. Andy Warhol seemed to be the only person in this film that Basquiat was devoted to, but when he became paranoid at Andy's sincerity he became anxious and started interrupting Andy's work. If Andy hadn't died in the middle of their friendship we might have found out whether or not Andy really was using him as he had used other artists in the past. His ex-girlfriend found happiness even though it wasn't in painting while Basquiat had found misery in his fame. He deteriorated into despair after he finally got what he wanted, and personally I think it's what he deserved. Unlike Pollock, I had not sympathy for Basquiat's life, and I think that was partially a result of the films portrayal.

The other motif that was frequently used was the crown. It came in during the introductory dream, and became his tag icon, like Prince. The grown is a symbol of royalty and being as though Basquiat's aspiration a fame it is hard to detach the crown from his desire to be famous. But then we get the story of the prince who has become prisoner and he makes noises to get people to rescue him between his crown and the prison cell bars. But even though the sound is beautiful and catches everyone's attention no realizes it is being made by someone calling for help. Taking this into consideration, the crown becomes a symbol for his message/art. He makes it, and people think it's beautiful, but they totally misinterpret it. Rather than realize his art is a prison, he view it as an escape/release. If Julian intended for us to see Basquiat's art as some sort of cry for help, he did a poor job.

Jamison's article posits that Madness and Creativity go hand in hand. I agree that I think the influence of Creativity is corrupting on the subjects perspective of the world. To be able to constantly manipulate form and content into something other than is explicitly stated on its surface would drive anyone a little mad. It would lead to the subjects realization that meaning is totally up for interpretation and they would probably start thinking on a level where nothing meant anything except what you wanted it to mean. To any “normal” human being, this consideration that a chair may not actually be a chair seems a bit odd, but to someone who sees form as a manipulated figure, this is totally reasonable. This is not madness, this is flexibility. Madness would imply a constant state of intensity and imbalance. Pollock's explosive outbursts, his unthinking dramatic movements and his quickness as if his body were moving at the speed of his thoughts, these things imply a state of madness, a letting go of reason. Basquiat allowed for the flexibility of reality (the surfer in the sky) but did not really let go of reason at all as far as we could tell. The only time we watched him really let go of reason was when he was painting the tires. He looked at it and saw it as the tower of babel as opposed to a stack of tires, and painted. It was smart and reasonably unreasonable, but it was influenced by drugs. When he went to the basement studio to paint, I didn't feel like he was prone to madness. He was taking his time, examining space and color, and gradually put down his paint like he had to consider whether it was a good idea. Basquiat did not strike me as mad ever, just eccentric.

Post 3

Ashley Green

Julian Schnabel’s film, Basquiat, is a didactic muddle that feels too clinical to really leave a lasting effect and too murky to even offer a real message. While well acted, especially on the part of Jeffery Wright who fully embodies the role, the poor dialogue and clichéd shot compositions leaves much to be desired in Schnabel’s first feature. But the ambitious scope of the film in itself is merit worthy, I guess. Schnabel plays double duty, as both the writer and the director, which opens him open to double the criticism. He tries to reconstruct a period in the life of a good friend, but he never seems to have enough of a grasp on the heart his characters to really make them come alive. And in this film that’s exactly what nearly every real life individual becomes- a character.

The film opens with a slow zoom-in on Picasso’s Guernica. As the camera zooms closer, a mother and a son come into focus. While the mother holds a somber expression on her face, the young boy is clearly in awe of the sight in front of him. His mother’s expression morphs into one of tearful happiness as she observes his glowing crown. The young boy is a king, and this is enough to bring joy to her. Then a quick cut to a box popping open occurs- a head of dreadlocked hair pops out of said box. The cut itself indicates the previous scene was a dream, and the music only continues to confirm this. A jaunty urban tune fills the scene, supporting the city scene the young man is walking through. He starts to mark up walls with graffiti at random, leaving messages of his very existence: “Samo was here.” He continues to move coolly with through the streets until he reaches a diner. As he enters, he makes eye contact with a beautiful young woman. Once he sits down, he proceeds to poor syrup onto the table and create and impromptu sketch of the woman. This is essentially the first ten minutes of the movie, and sans the very opening scene, I don’t think I could have been more bored. Anytime you can take a city as multi-faceted as New York, an actor as talented as Jeffery Wright, and then proceed to turn it in to nothing more than a dull exercise in camera movement. Now, I do believe the opening scene is worth analysis, but I’m going to reserve my thoughts on it until later in the analysis.

The film continues in this same vein for the next few minutes. There are all the proper indicators of Basquiat’s true genius: Basquiat looking in the sky and seeing a surfer, special musical queues when he begins to work, and a “moment of greatness” scene when he creates mass amounts of brilliant work. And throughout all of this, the film maintains its mundane nature. Basquiat’s mental ills also begin to fall into light- he’s a drug addict. The problem is the film never seems to really posit this as a crippling problem for him; in fact it almost refuses to make an issue out of it at all. Schnabel appears to be so concerned with not passing judgment on Basquiat that he refuses to take any type of true intellectual or artistic stance, which is normally one of the offerings of a biopic- perspective.

Probably the most worthwhile moments of the film are the reoccurring motifs, particularly dealing with Hawaii and surfing, and also dealing with the crown, creativity, and beauty. The first indicator of the Hawaii motif occurs when Basquait looks into the sky about 6 minutes into the film and sees a surfer riding a sky of blue. The shot itself is rather magnificent, as the waves of blue juxtapose the tops of city building, and it is probably the films best offering cinematography wise. The motif continues to occur as Basquiat discusses living in Hawaii with his friends and it comes to a head when his life seems to be at his most difficult. The surfer in the sky falls off his board and is lost in the wave, representing both a loss of control, a loss of perspective, and in some ways, the lost of a dream for Basquait. Because that is ultimately what Hawaii is to Basquait, a dream existence that, no matter how much money he makes, he can never spiritually afford.

The other prevalent motif that runs through the film is that of the crown. After it’s introduction in the opening scene, the crown continues to reappear, predominantly as a type of signature for Basquait’s “SAMO” alter-ego. The motif comes full circle in the end though when Basquait recounts a childhood story to his friend about a young crowned prince. The prince was captured and locked away in a tower, and everyday the prince would beat the crown across the bars in the hopes that someone would hear the sound and save him. No one saved him, but everybody heard the sound and thought it to be the most beautiful sound to ever reach their ears. The story itself appears to present a metaphor for Basquait’s life. His artwork is his crown, and he hopes that the people will see it and he will be saved. But though the people see it and admire the work as beautiful, they still do not appear to see Basquait the man, or they do not see him in the way he wants to be seen.

In the end, I still feel Schnabel creates too many critical errors to call Basquait as good film. First, he relies too much on the audience to fill in the blanks for Basquait’s behaviors and action; he also does the same in forcing the audience to make assumptions about Basquait’s life in general. He is simply too vague. He also relies to heavily on banal cinematography that makes the film feel elementary and tired. Maybe this is a negative assumption on my part, but I expect more from an artist. But for a first try, the film does hold some merit and is not wholly irredeemable.

A bit of a side-note: I found this article earlier today. It seems a Basquiat painting valued at around 8 million that went missing has been found. The link to the article is below:

Missing Basquiat art reappears in NYC

Post 3

1. I really enjoyed the film Basquiat. I thought it was creative, the soundtrack added a lot of emotion to the film and by the end of the film I found myself feeling sorry for Basquiat, as opposed to the film Pollock where I found myself having no sympathy for the artist. You can tell by watching the film that Julian Schnabel really cared for his friend. Yes, Basquiat is a out there in his own world and we do not understand him most of the time, but at the same time he is portrayed as very human. He has dreams and aspirations and like anyone who is given their dream to quickly or thrown into something without warning, he struggles.

Picasso & Crown Sequence: In my last post about the crown sequence I suggested that the fact that his mother cries is foreshadowing the sadness in Basquiat’s life. Although this could be true, the ending of the film really defines what the opening scene symbolizes. Basquiat tells his friend the story of the little prince with the magic crown, a story that means something to him. The little boy is locked in a room with nothing but a golden crown upon his head. He bangs his crown against the barred window so someone would help him escape. The boy never does escape the room, but the sound of the crown resonates all over the world. The sound is so magical and beautiful that everyone who hears it is filled with joy and the world is filled with beauty. I find this story to be very beautiful and emotional. Basquiat sees himself as this little boy. All his life he was trapped in his own little world, never seeming to be fully happy. All he had was his gift of talent (the crown.) Although his crown didn’t help him feel fulfilled and happy in the end, it spread joy and beauty to others. Now I understand why his mother stopped crying when she looked at his crown in the beginning of the film.


The Surfer: The image of the surfer was a very interesting and an important part of the film. We learned from the class report and later in the movie that Basquiat had a deep passion and love for Hawaii. He often mentions that he wants to go to Hawaii and escape from it all. The surfer serves as his inspiration, almost his drive to live. After Andy Warhol dies, we see him quickly spiral downhill. He has a breakdown outside of the asylum his mother is in, and then we see an underwater image. Every other image of the surfer or the water skier is above the water. It is almost as if we are seeing the underwater image through Basquiat’s eyes. He is drowning. We later then find out at the end of the film that he no longer wants to go to Hawaii. “Fuck Hawaii,” he says. “Let’s go to Ireland and get drunk at the bars.” He no longer feels inspired or driven but just wants to be carefree and throw his life away. This kind of thinking seems to have led him to his demise, which was his drug overdose.

The Bird Eating the Frog: This was a harder image for me to decipher. The image appears while Gina and Basquiat fight about him painting her dress and over her paintings. The only link that came to mind is that Basquiat is frog and the bird represents his thirst or passion for art. The bird begins to swallow the frog whole, just like his artistic passion consumes him. It consumes his so much that he goes and paints on his girlfriends dress and paints over her work, which aren’t the best things to do to a person you care about.

Closing Scene: The closing scene depicts Basquiat and his friend driving around the city. Basquiat stands up in the car, letting the breeze take him in. It appears that he feels carefree without a worry in the world. He tells his friend the prince and the crown story and then proceeds to tell him he doesn’t care about his dream to go to Hawaii anymore. All of this is symbolic of him letting go. He gives up on his dreams and seems to be okay with accepting a fate like the prince received. I find it interesting that they did not focus on his overdose. I know Schnabel was a friend and probably didn’t want to end on a bad note in memory of him. In a way, I thought the ending worked better than if they had ended showing his death. We all know what was going to happen to Basquiat anyway and if we hadn’t known before hand, the ending is quite telling of his fate.


2. I found the Jamison reading to be astounding. I always believed that the idea of artistic talent (genius) being linked to madness was a stereotype. After reading this article, I truly believe there is a strong correlation between the two. The evidence presented alone in the reading is enough to make one believe it to be true. Madness and genius have been connected since the Greek times and the God Dionysus. Socrates even labels it “divine madness.” Traces of this idea have been seen all throughout history. However, the evidence that really swayed was the list of artists throughout time and the notation of if they had mental illness. Although some do not have any mood disorder prevalent in their lifetime, the number of those who did is outstanding. The Suicide rates of artists were also a very strong piece of evidence. After watching Pollock and Basquiat, it is clear that these two We see this through their bizarre actions throughout the film, and their tendencies to release rage out when it is least expected. Besides the actions of the characters, the films techniques display this connection as well. The best example that is prominent in both films is when we see the artist displayed in their own little world, separated from everyone around them. In Pollock, we see an example of this in the art gallery. As people ask for his autograph and take his picture, the background noises fade away and we are left with the camera focused on a the troubled face of Pollock. In Basquiat, we also see this in a gallery setting. As he leaves the gallery, everyone around him freezes. The camera follows him walk silently out of the gallery. The combination of character development and these film decisions reiterates the idea that madness and genius are one. The films show that with great talent can come great consequences

post 3

Basquiat continued its impressive style with great editing, acting, and analytical approaches of who the characters were as people. There is a certainty that Basquiat was a troubled individual whose art took him to the top, while his addiction and demons took him to the bottom. One does not have to be a movie critic to pick up on this, but it is relevant to this post's main points. The film's introduction presents a dreamworld that only the audience could have understood in which Basquiat stands with his mother at an art studio while examining one of Picasso's paintings. The importance is the crown he wears that further relates to his storytelling later into movie. As he regains his friendship with Bonecio Del Toro, he explains his mother's tale in which a prince's voice becomes imprisoned. The analytical approach here would imply that Basquiat was this prince and as he reached a height in his career, his voice no longer matter. The only thing that mattered to people was his art and naturally, Basquiat couldn't relate. His addiction would become worse and his way of escaping reality was demonstrated through his love for getting "high". However, his fantasy world did not end with this one fairy tale.
Throughout the film Basquiat stares at the sky and sees a man surving the beautiful waves of Hawaii. Most likely, this vision of a surfer is a demonstration of his wish to leave the city life and be somewhere free in which noone would stand in his way (just beauty and fun). This tells the audience that Basquiat's dream was not to simply become famous and be respected by everyone. Instead, he just wanted the chance to feel free and enjoy the beauty of nature.
At one point in the movie some footage presents a bird eating a frog. This clip symbolizes Basquiat's life. He became famous and his career flew high as a bird and once he received this face, his heart had been eaten. Everything Basquiat believed in was turned into a hypocrisy. He was not same person at this point. Rather, he was another example of Jackson Pollock. His career had hit a point in which people only recognized him for being a product/tool to be used by Warhol (played by David Bowie). Basquiat was emotionally disturbed and his one friend played by Bonecio Del Toro was no longer in touch with him. His girlfriend was no longer with him and he had to rely on his friendship with a man that he wasn't sure to trust. It is completely understandable to cope with his depression, but were drugs the only way to deal with this?
The question remains, who is experiencing these sights and sounds? Do they advance the plot? The answer is we (the audience) and Basquiat are experiencing these sights and sounds. However, the people who knew him didn't understand what Basquiat felt inside and the way that society can understand is through this film. This was a major reason I enjoyed Pollock and Basquiat. Those who encountered Basquiat in the real world couldn't understand his mentality, but the director somehow had a reasonable understanding of his vision and managed to transfer these thoughts through film. Some could argue this statement, but these visions that the directory added do advance the plot. Sometimes Basquiat's character is so hard to analyze that without these extra details, the audience would have a more tough time understanding who Basquiat was as a person. Yes, specific hints such as pouring syrup on a table for everyone to see gives an idea of who is being portrayed, but the concept of his intentions and who he was inside could only be further demonstrated through these extra, little clips.
The entire reading of Jamison perfectly demonstrates the relation of madness and creaitvity, but a specific quote from page 52 helps explain Jackson Pollock and Basquiat. "By our own spirits are we deified. We poets in our youth begin in gladness. But thereof come in the end despondency and madness." Basically, I interpret this as partial evidence that creativity and madness go together. Not to mention, the 19th century poet who wrote this committed suicide at the age of 17. However, the point is valid and at least partially truthful. Some people who have an obscure genius and creativity tend to be a little bit nuts. After all, where does this creativity and weird sense of genius come from if one is not at least a little bit crazy? Michael Strahan recently said in an interview regarding football players that "hey, what do you expect? In order to be so good at a sport, you have to be a little bit crazy". Such an example does not relate to art, but I feel an example of madness and skill can relate to madness and creativity.
Jackson Pollock and Basquiat do demonstrate the Jamison's article. These two artists were genius in their own sense, but realistically, were crazier than a crack house rat. No offense directed, but can one really argue that there was not a bit of madness in either of these two artists? There are too many examples from the films that have already been given by the class members concerning actions that were a little bit crazy. Instead, Pollock gives some interesting styles and techniques in the film that demonstrate Jackson was a little bit crazy. The silent filming at the art shows that show close up angles on Jackson's face gave large explanations that he was a little bit crazy inside. He wouldn't speak and would just stare into the open. These camera angles and the lack of sound effect the audience's understanding of who he was inside. He was simply "mad". Basquiat on the other hand had some different emotional issues. The image of the surfer, however, gave an easy understanding that he could look at everything as art, but at the same time, that surfer demonstrated his dream for the future. Basquiat was mentally crazy and the directing and close up angles on his visions helped create a better understanding of who he was. "It is the links between moods, temperament, and thought that we turn next." Basquiat and Pollock thought with creativity, but their creativity and the reactions that people displayed created their offset mood.

Blog 3

I enjoyed the film Basquiat and believe that the director Julian Schnable was able to protray the charcter of Basquiat is a way that captured the essence of who he was as a person and as an artist. The filmed, for me, shed light on different aspects of his life that I had not known before. I believe that since the film was written and directed by someone that personally knew Basquiat and was part of the  1980's art scene  helped create a fuller picture of who he really was and not just the facts that are known about him. Basquiat's desire to be famous and be a celeberity is captured in the very beginning of the movie with the opening scene. The scene depicts a young boy staring at Guernica by Picasso with his mother who is crying, she stops once she looks at her son and sees that he has an illumanited crown on his head. This scene connects the two ideas of art and fame together, showing the viewer that this is what this boys future will be. There is at the end of the film a connection with this scene, when he tells the story of a prince that was locked in a tower and when banging his crown agaisnt the bars it makes the most beautiful sound in the world, he never gets out, but people take the sound with them. This is a metaphor for his life in the end, a boy that is famous that no matter how hard he tries cannot get out of his own personal tower(drug addiction and fame) and spreads beauty throughout the people, but will never be free. The demonstrate that fame imprisoned him in such a way that he was unable to breakout and was always going to be by himself as he and the boy have no friends or family they are all alone. This idea of fame taking over his life is also demonstrated by the scenes of the bird eating the frog. The bird swallows the frog whole almost in the same way that fame swallowed Basquiat, he through fame loses all of his friends, his girlfriend and anyone who truly cared about him. 

The gradual downhill progression of Basquiats life can also be seen in the images of the surfer above the manhattan skyline. In the beginning of the film the surfer is riding the waves and eventually throughout the movie the surfer crashes and by the final scene the wave is swallowing him whole. This is a metaphor for Basquiats emotional state throughout the film. The final scene when he is walking with Benny after he fines him shows that he doesn't care anymore, when he says, lets forget Hawaii and go to Ireland, he is rejecting the surfer that thoughout the film has been a constant as a baramoter for his emotional state, and by leaving this idea shows that he has completly lost it and his life has almost hit the end. 

After reading Jamieson's article I am convinced that there is a connection between creativity and madness.  A person does not have to be considered mentally unstable in order to be a creative genuis, but there is evidence that those people are in general more creative. Both films that we have watched so far Pollock and Basquiat, tell the stories of two creative genuises, who are creating in a new and excting way. They both how ever display signs of mental insablity, wether it be drugs and alcohol addiction, or a more complex madness. Jamieson speaks of how many artists describe in great detail periods of melacholy, and overt psychosis, or creative inspriation that strikes them. These people often have epsiodes of increased productivity, high energy and irratiblity, they however are not able to balance it and have periods of lapses in finalcial and social areas of their lives. This examples are in direct correlation with the actions of Pollock and Basquiat. The article also states that "a very high percentage..of artists...have been treated for mood disorder" this speakes to the moments when an artists has the intense ablity to create, and of the other moments when they are unable to take care of themselves, or create. Both repersented by Basquiat. We see this exhibited in both films when after a lapse in creativity both artists arrive at their studies and their are montagaes of them creating. We see their intense commitment to their work and we see their studies begin to fill with work. However both of these periods are followed by intense downturns in their lives, again illustrating the mood swings that many artists have. 

Post 3-Emily Ginnel

I thoroughly enjoyed the film, Basquiat, because the film allowed me to understand the life of the artist and the different aspects and influences that shaped his work. The biopic was successful in engaging the viewer with the artist on several levels, allowing them to understand the complexity of the mind behind the famous works of art. Basquiat was very influenced and driven by the idea of being famous and the world of the celebrity. The director, Julian Schnabel is able to capture Basquiat’s dreams and influences throughout the film beginning with the opening scene with “Picasso and the crown”. In this first scene Schnabel directly connects art with fame by showing Basquiat simultaneously interacting with symbols of royalty (crown) and art (Picasso replica of Guernica). This scene advances the narrative and engages the viewer as they interact with these symbols and contemplate their connections to each other as well as their relevance to the life of Basquiat. The symbol of the crown is reintroduced in the final scenes of the film, when Basquiat explains the story of a prince whose voice was stolen and imprisoned. As Basquiat describes the story the prince continually banged his head against the steal rods of his “cell” sending a beautiful noise throughout the world. A noise, which filled the world with beauty and as Basquiat describes as “ so beautiful that people wanted to grab it.” This scene and inclusion of the “crown” symbol again is an interesting conclusion to the film. The scene is a reflection on the idea of the imprisonment of the artist as fame controls their lives. The prince loses his voice, is symbolic of Basquiat losing his ability to communicate with the world on his own terms when controlled by the industry and fame. While, at the same time the scene is describing the beauty of the artist’s work. Even when the artist becomes imprisoned and objectified by his/her own fame the beauty they have revealed to the world will continue to be enjoyed and appreciated. I believe that it is the industry and the idea that as critics and viewers people take advantage of the artists that leads so many famous creative icons to self-destruct. The industry extracts all of the creativity and talent from them and when they no longer are considered ‘avant garde’ moves on to the up and coming artists. Basquiat depicts this notion of the industry taking advantage of the artist in the old footage of the bird eating the frog. This scene further emphasizes the impact of fame on Basquiat’s life. He has literally been “eaten” by the art world; his bodies of work as well as himself as an artist become consumed by the industry. After becoming famous Basquiat loses all of his friends, his girlfriend and although is “friends” with Warhol is constantly questioning his intentions when outsiders comment on the validity of their friendship.
Schnabel uses the vision of the surfer over the New York City skyline in order to reference Basquiat’s aspirations. Throughout his life Basquiat was infatuated with Hawaii. He mention’s the islands when in bed with his long-term girlfriend, Gina when discussing their future together. He also references Hawaii when his life turns to turmoil following the death of his friend Andy Warhol and his decline from fame. I believe that Basquiat is experiencing these and the other visions and sounds in the film. Schnabel includes them because they give us insight in the wandering mind of the artist and creative tendencies.
After reviewing the article “Could it be Madness-This?” by Kay Redfield Jamison, I am convinced by the overwhelming evidence that mental instability is connected with creative genius. Jamison introduces his argument in accordance with many different forms of creative expression and in different time periods and settings. His research encompasses the full spectrum of artistic talent and forms of mental illness. The high percentages of artists with mental instability issues in his studies and studies he references are alarmingly high and therefore I believe that there is a definite correlation. I do not believe and that a person must be mentally ill to exude a high level of creativity and artistic talent; but as studies have shown in the Jamison as well as in other articles that people often lack other life skills when they have such extreme levels of talent. It is difficult to conclude that Basquiat and Pollock had specific mental illness, but as depicted in their biopics we can conclude that elevated moods and depression were prevalent in their lives. As stated in Jamison’s article, “Virtually all the creative writers and artists (89 percent) said they had experienced intense, highly productive, and creative episodes.” In both Basquiat and Pollock the director shows the spurts of creative energy in which the artists are highly productive. In both films the scenes when Pollock and Basquiat acquire their own personal studio space best illustrate these moments of intense, highly productive episodes. Although, we are do not know if Pollock and/or Basquiat were victims of mental illness, we do know that they were both heavily influenced and involved by drugs and alcohol. After reading the article and watching both films I wonder if these drug and alcoholic addictions are the result of the artists wanting to experience these “creative episodes”. In both films the artists become heavily involved with drugs and alcohol when they are at “low points” in their careers. Although, both Basquiat and Pollock are using illegal substances throughout their lives, it is after their time in the spotlight begins to fade that they are most heavily reliant on their addictions. I believe that they are using drugs and alcohol in order to return to a highly productive state and engage once again in the creative episodes, which helped them produce the art that made them famous.
Jamison also refers to the family relations and mental illness that exists among relatives. In the film Basquiat, Schnabel introduces Basquiat’s mother into the narrative, although she is not referenced in the film besides when referring to her mental stability. I believe that Schnabel includes Basquiat’s mother in order for the viewer to question whether or not Basquiat might have clinical mental issues as well?

Blog 3

1. Julian Schnabel's portrayal of Jean-Michel Basquiat in "Basquiat" can be seen more as a fictionalized account of the troubled artist's life than a true to life biopic. Through an obvious use of symbolism, quick cuts and jagged editing, Schnabel attempts to infuse the film with an abstract take on the psychological state of the young artist. As discussed in class, Basquiat apparently had an infatuation with Hawaii, which Jeffrey Wright, who plays Basquiat in the film, brings up in conversation with both Gina, Basquiat's girlfriend, and Benny, his druggie friend. The film visualizes Basquiat's dream of escaping to Hawaii through the implementation of abstract images of surfers and waves which are projected above the Manhattan skyline. As Basquiat becomes more and more problematic and increasingly involved with drugs, the waves and the images of the sea become more ominous, culminating in a shot of the surfer wiping out and then drowning. There are also other sequences included in the film with snippets of other films cut into the mix with no sound, just imbued with a vibrant blue color. These recurring images of a surfer riding the waves along the New York skyline are confusing. Where are these images coming from? Is Basquiat imagining them? Are we, as viewers, supposed to understand what they mean in the grand scheme of things? Other images, such as the opening scene where Basquiat is depicted as a young child wearing a golden crown, looking at Picasso's Guernica, while his mother cries works to connect the future Basquiat with art fame and recognition, while also putting him in a savior-like role as his mother's tears subside when she "sees" her son with the crown. Additionally, the old footage of the bird eating the frog could perhaps be seen as a reference to the all consuming world of 80s New York, the elite art world powered by drugs, deceit, and fake friendship. This footage is intertwined in scenes where Basquiat's emotional, physical, and psychological states are degrading to the point of no return. He has changed from this motivated and inspired artist, looking at the world with child-like wonder, to a self-obsessed, egotistical "artist," prone to violent outbursts as his entire identity becomes contaminated by the world in which he resides. It is hard to tell whether Schnabel wanted the images to portray a specific and concrete message about who Basquiat was, however, whether or not they were meant as symbolic references to Basquiat's inner turmoil, they give insight, albeit abstract and confusing, into the mind state of the artist. It is unclear whether it is Basquiat who is imagining these images; when the first image of the surfer appears riding waves above Manhattan's high-rise building, there does seem to be a connection between Basquiat and the image as his face expresses recognition as he looks up into the sky and then smiles. I believe that the surfer imagery is meant to reflect Basquiat's quest to become an artist, with the surfer still standing up on the board, confidently riding the waves, and his eventual decline with the surfer falling off and drowning. These clips are potentially useful in understanding the inner workings of a troubled artist's mind, however, they do pose a somewhat confusing question about their meaning.

2. Jamison's article makes a very valid connection between creativity and mental illness which in turn relates to both Basquiat and Pollock. According to Jamison and the studies conducted in the article, there is a clear relationship between genius, melancholia, and madness. It is unclear as to whether Basquiat suffered from a state of mental illness, however, Pollock clearly had some personal demons feuding in his mind. A link is made between "increased artistic productivity" and manic-depressive illness, citing that artistic activity may cause the individual to undergo "volitional excitement which accompanies the disease," and under these circumstances, the artist is no longer constrained by "all kinds of inhibitions." Pollock exemplifies this manic behavior with the "one part [of the poet or artist] that is healthy" which allows him him the "power to conceive, to plan, to work, and to bring his work to a conclusion." When Pollock was not engaging in his alcoholic bouts, he was able to sustain healthy relationships and produce copious pieces of art, while the times when he was drunk or under the influence, he acted out violently and without regard for other people in his life and his surroundings. The idea that artistic genius and "madness" are historically linked by society as one of the "characteristic notions of our culture" relates to Basquiat. The article explains how certain lifestyles "provide cover for deviant and bizarre behavior, and the arts, especially, have long given latitude to extremes in behavior and mood." For Basquiat, his surroundings in the highly driven and drug induced era of the '80s proved to be an enormous catalyst in his journey toward madness and eventual death, albeit fueled by immense amounts of drugs. Jamison makes the connection that within "artistic circles madness, melancholy, and suicide are somehow normal is prevalent, making it difficult at times to ferret out truth from expectations." Basquiat's "artistic madness" was clearly a product of his culture and society and the circles he ran in. He underwent episodes of extremely "high energy, irritability, enthusiasm, and increased productivity levels (periods often also accompanied by costly lapses in financial, social, and sexual judgment)." When he became famous he became completely absorbed in the life of the artist, producing tons of paintings, neglecting his previously "healthy" relationships, and engaging in acts of infidelity. The film Basquiat further communicates this connection between artistic genius and manic behavior through Basquiat's "hallucinations." Basquiat looks to the sky and sees surfers riding huge waves above New York, a vision which can be most closely connected with the idea of the artist gone mad and lose all sense of reason. Like Basquiat, the artist who does lose his reason, become "deluded, hallucinate, or act in particularly strange and bizarre ways- are irrational for limited periods of time (this is seen when he paints on Gina's dress and then acts out, when he freaks out at Benny in the cab ride, and his intensely internalized racism plagued by paranoia), and are otherwise well able to think clearly and act rationally." In Pollock, the artist's madness and illness are shown also through his bouts of violent acting out, seen when he overthrows the Thanksgiving table which is covered in food that his family members and wife had probably slaved for hours over. Additionally, Pollock, from the beginning of the film, is never shown as someone stable and competent to sustain a level and grounded state of mind and mood. Both Basquiat and Pollock reflect the idea of the artist as "more sensitive to life and the experiences of life than are other people." They both take on child-like mannerisms, require an impossible amount of attention and care, treating their significant others and the people around them as parental figures. They both show "emotional instability prior to the onset of their artistic careers," perhaps more noticeable in Pollock. Pollock reflects the idea of the artist as "manifesting a severity of psychiatric symptoms, an age of onset, and a pattern of mood disturbances highly characteristic of manic-depressive illness." 

Post 3 Question

1. Now that you've seen all of Basquiat, what are your general reflections? More specifically, what do you think is the function of the following parts of the film: the opening "Picasso & crown" sequence, the surfer, the old footage of the bird eating the frog, and the closing scene? Who is experiencing these sights and sounds? Do they advance the narrative (the plot)--why or why not?

2. Focusing mostly on the Jamison reading, do you think there is sufficient evidence to show that there are meaningful connections between creativity and mental illness? Do Pollock and/or Basquiat support the view that madness and creativity go together? If so, how? Besides the behavior of the characters, discuss how the films' techniques and structure might make this connection.

Blog 2

Nietzsche offers a definition of artist as "Imitator" breaking through nature. "We have considered the Apollonian and its opposite, the Dionysian, as artistic forces which break forth out of nature itself, without mediation of the human artist and in which human artistic drive is for the time being satisfied directly." This definition relates to Pollock as an artist because he expresses his own emotion and experience through painting. The physical creation of his work and the art itself imitates the nature of his mind and his own interpretation of the world around him. When Pollock begins to work with the canvas on the floor, physically moving around it, he becomes one with his work, morphing the position of artist into the art he is creating. As Pollock (the man) becomes more engrossed with emotion he falls subject to his own inner demonds. His art becomes more chaotic, exemplifying the nature of his life and of his mind. Therefore we can see Pollock as "simultaneously an artist of intoxication and dreams" because both his work and life are a constant state of "Dionysian drunkeness and mystical obliteration of the self".
Pollock is an emodiment of Nietzsche's Greek Tragedy because he seperates himself from the world around him. Niezsche explains that in order to reach the greatest level of expression, one must attain a higher freedom from the self. In other words, Pollock grew as an artist the more destructive he became to himself, and as he removed himself from the social constructs around him. Nietzchse says "the dithrambic servant of Dionysus will understand only him!" Although Pollock became more and more destructive to himself and others around him, his art became more of reflection of his true self and nature that no one could understand but himself. On one hand we can "excuse" his behavior because the art he created achieved such a level of excellence; but on the other hand, he became his own worst enemy and parished.
The beginning scene of "Basquiat" starts with the voice of an art critic jotting down notes in a park, while behind him Basquiat emerges from a cardboard box. This opening scene foreshadows the artist life in that he is the stereotypical "starving artist" now, but soon this critic will be writing about him and his work. Jean-Michel walks through the streets of lower Manhattan labeling the walls with graffiti (SAMO) and rearrangers the diner's bilboard symbolizing the rebellious, non-comforming artist who will emerge.

Apollo and Dionysus

At our stopping point we had watched Pollock go from his urban lifestyle to budding appreciation for a rural environment. The switch made a huge impact on his inspiration. In his urban environment he was surrounded by other artists trying to make himself known. The difficulty he was faced with was creating an artistic identity that was separate from the other artists. He easily seemed to find it, but it was only through his detachment of his fellow painters that he could really create an identity for his self. Lee Krasner even pointed out that Pollock's art was stimulated by his unconscious self. He sculpted the image of his inner self onto the canvas.
This is much like Nietzsche's idea of the two types of artistic inspiration: the Apollonian (visual) and the Dionysian (sensual). The former is represented by dreams while the latter by intoxication. Though Pollock indulges in alcoholic intoxication, this only seeks to distance him more and more from those around him, it is his escape from the world he is overwhelmed by. In the beginning he is inspired by his subconscious, that part of the mind which manifests dreams and Pollock becomes obsessed with perpetually trying to translate these dreams with paint. His entire life in New York is dedicated to standing out, getting noticed, and becoming famous. He does not want to become part of a whole, he wants to become an icon. He wants to become something that is superior to the community, he wants to become a singular entity for recognition. He wants to achieve the highest standards of the self and for that reason he falls into the Apollonian category.
Once he moves to the rural farmland, however, he shifts. He stops drinking, except for a few relapses, and slows down to appreciate everything around him. There are several scenes of Pollock looking out over the beautiful land, or watching the fox, or playing with the dog, or feeding the bird. In his studio he has pinups of animals in the background. He is engaging with his community. He is no longer in a social structure dependent on ranking. He is allowed to simply be. In the rural community, no one needs to be better than anyone else; no one needs to be famous. To the contrary, the people in a small rural community depend on one another to survive. They need each other and they create a strong sense of community, or wholeness. This is the real intoxication that Pollock realizes. This is not the intoxication of escape, but the intoxication of unity. He is allowed to let go of that inner urge to stand out and be alone. He is allowed to put down his guard and feel like the I is not as important the We. He has transitioned from the Apollonian inspiration of dreaming and the self into the Dionysian inspiration of intoxication and the unity of all life.
Nietzsche suggests the potential for these two ideas to co-exist. The idea is that after the individual learns what the self is, and is able to disregard it in favor of a larger more unified identity, the self can then find itself within that community. The I can find its importance as a node in the spiderweb of their environment. It is distinguished as something individual, but acknowledges that it is simply a part of the whole. This marriage is demonstrated when Pollock "cracks [his style of artwork] wide open". His new technique is one that disregards the need for composition, but still uses lines and colors. He is no longer trying to draw whats in his head, but he is able to detach his identity from his artwork and he allows his hands to move freely as if it were intoxicated. He does not think about where the line goes, he feels it and lets his hand move, but he pays close attention to space and feels when to use a splatter or a drip. He paints with his I and with his Us. In the interview, when he is questioned about his response to people's dislike of his work he replies "if we just left all our stuff at home, I don't see why you couldn't like it". The stuff he is referring to is the self. People look at a piece of artwork and try to find their selves in it, they read it like a dream. Pollock is trying to influence people to fall into the feeling of the work, the creation of it rather than interpreting the images as symbolic. He is creating a piece of work that is intoxicating, and as he becomes more aware of the energy his splashes and drips make, he sculpts the intoxication into something like a dream. Intoxication, while helping to disregard the self, is a stagnant thing which concerns the individual with the moment disregarding the chronology of time. The dream, however, uses time as a means of creating movement and with movement there can be direction. Through his choice of color and his direction he synthesizes between both dreams and intoxication.

Blog 2

After viewing Pollock in its entirety, the viewer experiences somewhat of an Aristotelian catharsis, so great are transitions from bad to good to worse in Pollock’s life. Various sequences in the film avail these turning points in Pollock’s life to the viewer. When we stopped the film last week, we had seen the first years following Jackson and Lee’s move to Long Island in 1945. These years were shown in sequences filled with idyllic shots of Pollock lying on his back in the pasture staring at the clouds, sharing tender moments with his dog as he reconnects with those around him. There is even a shot of Pollock’s hands in the soil as he plants seeds in the garden with Lee, seemingly ushering in a new stage of his life.
This stage in Pollock’s life of blissful stability is short-lived, as the film would have it. It is interesting to note that during this calmer period involving fewer scenes of intoxication, while Pollock still paints, there are no sequences in which he is shown in a true state of inspiration, as he is in the sequence where he paints the Guggenheim mural. Pollock without the booze is generally an uninspired, retreating Pollock. This calmer stage’s end is marked by a conversation between Lee and Pollock about Lee’s unwillingness to have children which results in Pollock throwing a beer bottle at the radio, stopping the music, literally and figuratively. Shortly thereafter, Pollock discovers the drip-can technique, marked by another sequence of “divine inspiration”: Pollock’s accidental paint drip leads to fast-paced music and close ups with the camera angled upward at Pollock’s fast-working hands on the canvas. His inspiration has returned after a lull. In Lee’s words he has “cracked it wide open” and he skyrockets to fame.
The final significant turning point in Pollock’s life featured in the film occurs following a few sequences of Pollock’s increasing popularity and fame. After interviews on the radio and with major magazines such as Life, and an established period of sobriety, Pollock’s life takes a turn again when a movie is being made of his drip-can technique and the director continually tells him when he should start and stop painting in accordance with his filming. This intrusion on Pollock’s creative process disturbs the artist and after the final day of shooting on Thanksgiving, Pollock reaches his breaking point. He calls the director “a phony” and picks up a drink once again, this marking the end of Pollock’s heightened period of fame and the beginning of his spiral downward, ultimately resulting in his death five years later.
This association with alcohol and Pollock’s artistic impulse is a pattern we see throughout the film. Several sequences in the film are instances that involve Pollock’s creativity being seemingly spawned by, or alternately the cause of Pollock’s drinking. This manor in which Pollock’s artistic impulse is shown in close connection with his alcohol use can be related directly to Nietzsche’s ideas of artistic creativity and his writings about Apollo versus Dionysus. Referencing ancient Greek tragedy, Nietzsche writes of two natural artistic drives—Apollonian and Dionysian. Nietzsche classifies Apollonian as visual (related to sculpture), as the principium individuationis, a clear sense of self and of one’s innermost dreams and boundaries. In sum, Apollonian is the rational creative state. Conversely, Dionysian is non-visual (music)“a complete forgetfulness of self,” and boundaries—man is united as he gives up his individuality and succumbs to his irrational state of ecstasy a state which can be shared with the rest of the human race. According to Nietzsche, there is a marriage, a healthy balance of Dionysian and Apollonian states in Greek tragedy (which can also be found in the artist). The rational compliments the irrational state to create a truly dynamic piece of art. Pollock is the embodiment of Nietzsche’s definition of Greek tragedy. As Pollock says in the film during radio interview when asked what modern art is: “all cultures express themselves through different means—modern artists work from within.” The film portrays perfect examples of the Apollonian Pollock in sequences when he is sober, pensive, retreating into his work, and uninspired such as the sequences which comprise his first years living with Lee in Long Island. It is the sequences in which Pollock has picked up the bottle (so to speak) and his irrational Dionysian state is unveiled and united with his Apollonian state, that Pollock is shown in a frenzy-like state of inspiration, having been enabled to “crack [his creativity] wide open.” Nietzsche’s writings may make Pollock’s irrational tendencies more understandable, but reckless behavior is never excusable.
The first sequences of Basquiat are significantly different than the first sequences of Pollock in film’s introduction of the artist and the use of foreshadowing about the future. One of the first shots is of the artist as a young boy standing with his mother, viewing Picasso’s Guernica. There is a close up of the mother’s face with tears rolling down her cheeks and a shot of Basquiat with a lit up crown up his head and a look of sheer delight on his face. This shot of Basquiat as a boy wearing a cartoon-like, lit up crown, is a significant shot as it could be seen as foreshadowing Basquiat being, as Adam Brooks writes the “anointed heir to Picasso,” next in the line of great artists. Additionally the crown could be seen as representative of the bestowal of divine inspiration. Another sequence which is telling of the future of the artist is the one in which he is shown as a twenty-something looking through the letters of the Boone Gallery into the glamorous side of life as an artist, foreshadowing his obsession with fame and his creative drive centered around fame. Finally, the frequent shots of Basquiat as a young man constantly altering the world around him (i.e. graffiti on various storefronts, and portraits in maple syrup) are indicative of Basquiat’s incredible ability to see art in everything.
In terms of connections with the schematic structure of the artist’s biography, the film thus far has indirectly featured elements of Basquiat’s birth. His family lineage is alluded to first when he visits his mother in the psychiatric ward and again when he plays a recording from a suicide hotline (as he plans to use it as a track for his band) a recording in which he informs the dispatcher that he is of Haitian and Italian descent. Elements of Basquiat’s youth, his signs of early promise in drawing and modeling are also featured in the beginning of the film, first with the shot of the him in the crown, and then in the various sequences in which he takes everyday things and makes them into art. Basquiat lives and breathes art.

Post 2

1. I knew going into the second half of the film there would be discord and madness, but not until I actually watched the film did I know to what degree. I believe the film set us up for this transition in several ways. First of all, the movie began almost how it ended. We see Pollock drunk, stumbling up the stairs, rambling on and right then and there you know that this man has issues. Another sign is his temper tantrums throughout the film. In the very beginning while he eats with Lee, his brother and his wife and his mother, we see him lose it and later he cries uncontrollably to his brother, almost like a little child would. As the story progresses, we see even more outbreaks. The one that really alerts you to the tragedy that is about to ensue is the argument about having a baby. Lee and his argument only foreshadows their relationship in the years to come. A major turning point for Pollock was when he began making the movie. I don’t know exactly what set him off, but something about the whole experience of being filmed made him look at his life in a different life. At this point he snaps and reverts back into bad habits and once again loses his temper. After the moment, everything goes downhill. We discussed in class if the movie made it seem like a mental illness or the alcohol. I truly believe that one can come to the conclusion that he was mentally disturbed on their own, but the movie intensely focuses on the alcohol being the sole problem. Everytime he has a drink the camera focuses in on the act, and then we have a whole scene where he is biking while juggling a box of glass beer bottles. Finally, I thought the ending was very dramatic and hard hitting, but I feel like Pollock got to that point way to soon. In the film, we get a caption towards the end that says 5 years later. All of a sudden, we see someone who is almost unrecognizable. Pollock has become a monster of some sort. We asked the question as a class, “What happened in those 5 years.” I think the transition was way to drastic and it would have been nice to see a little more of what went on during that missing time period to better understand why Pollock turned out to be the way he was.


2. While reading Nietzsche’s piece on Apollo and the Dionysus, the artist Pollock popped in my head many times. The first part of the reading that grabbed me was the second paragraph on page 2. The paragraph first discusses that an excited artist “behaves in relation to the reality of dreams. He looks at them precisely and with pleasure, for from these pictures he fashions his interpretation of life…” This quote instantly made me think of the life of Jackson Pollock because of the fact that Pollock was very much living in a “fantasy” world. The film portrays this numerous amounts of time, whether he is shown staring into space, laying in a field staring at the open sky, or having one of his raging episodes. For him, he was living in a dream world and everything had to be a certain way. In this world, he would be famous and the number one artist forever, even though this is impossible.
Another quote that stood out to me was “The man is no longer an artist. He has become a work of art. The artistic power of all of nature, the rhapsodic satisfaction of the primordial unity, reveals itself here in the intoxicated performance. The finest clay, the most expensive marble — man — is here worked and chiseled, and the cry of the Eleusianian mysteries rings out to the chisel blows of the Dionysian world artist: “Do you fall down, you millions? World, do you have a sense of your creator?” (4). I feel that Pollock really did become his art. He became radical and abstract like his work. Also, I could not help but think of him when the word intoxicated is used. I know this is not meant literally in this piece, but it actually works both ways with Pollock, since he was consumed with his art work as well as alcohol. The last line of this paragraph relates to him as well, considering he was always very upset when no one recognized his work and he was not acknowledged in the art world.
As for the question “Can we see Pollock (the man) as "simultaneously an artist of intoxication and dreams?" I completely see him as such. He was driven by an artistic dream (apollonian) and also lost himself in this dream (Dionysian). “It is possible for us to imagine how he sinks down in the Dionysian drunkenness and mystical obliteration of the self, alone and apart from the rapturous throng, and how through the Apollonian effects of dream his own state now reveals itself to him, that is, his unity with the innermost basis of the world, in a metaphorical dream picture” (4) The reading states that this happening is like those in Greek Tragedies. In Greek Tragedy there is always a man who starts out with great power or success, but somehow loses himself and therefore loses everything. Pollock’s life can definitely be categorized as a Greek tragedy, but with all this said I still do not excuse Pollock’s behavior at the end of his life. I disagree with the reading that all of this is a force that takes someone over. I believe everyone is responsible for his or her own actions in life.

3. So far I am enjoying the film Basquiat. It is a refreshing difference from the movie Pollock and I am excited to see where his life takes him next. I believe there is already some foreshadowing of his future. In the very beginning of the film, we see a young boy and his mother walking in an art gallery. She begins to cry. Although I am not sure why the painting makes her cry, I believe this sadness could be symbolic of sadness that encounters Basquiat in his life. Also, something that I found to be foreshadowing was the character of Andy Warhol being introduced. From what I know of Andy Warhol, a lot of tragedy surrounded his life and people he associated with like Edie Sedwig. I know that Basquiat and Andy become friends, therefore knowing all of this I feel like it foreshadows the fact he will become famous and he will start doing more drugs because in Andy Warhol’s Factory many people did many different drugs, and it will lead to his destruction. Looking at the schematic structure of the artist, we have already seen in the movie thus far his signs of early promise in art, and we just ended where he will meet Andy Warhol, which will be discovery by a recognized artist.