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.