Julian Schnabel: Double-Film (Progression/Review)

A Story by Abishai100

Nonfiction; film-progression 'examination' of Schnabel, featuring his 1996-art NY biopic/dramatization debut and his 2000 politicization-consciousness follow-up (about Cuba!).

A reference-study (nonfiction!) of the two-in-sequence films made in the career of unusual American artist/filmmaker Julian Schnabel, whose two films, Basquiat (dramatized biopic of the offbeat street-graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat who changed the way we looked at NY-access to mod-art lifestyle drawn abstractions of discretion!) and Before Night Falls (politics-art contour-drama film drawn from a real-story in Cuba). Thanks for reading, and perchance you'll take-peek at the films I'm reviewing here for comment/review/entertainment.

DISCLAIMER: This work of art-review offers no commercial/explicit ties to the works of Julian Schabel directly/personally and all images/references used herein (therefore) comprise a purely 'personal' examination for social language/interest (for 'open' criticism).

----

====

Looking at Julian Schnabel's two films-of-progression, Basquiat (1996) and Before Night Falls (2000) requires a sort of Selfie-culture 'education' for what's life-drawn dramatism for the graphics/abstractions of emotions, to shift between sofa-doughnuts and field/Earth 'dowry' (really). That's why I'm considering myself a narrating tour-guide for this review-write, and you might think of why you think Schnabel himself is an interest-subject/person/celebrity, a New Yorker who had a standard art-education journey before exploring how film informs the 'democracy' of art (itself). Let's proceed!

Jeffrey Wright is quite good in the lead-role of the biopic/dramatization of the life and art of the unusual African-American New York street (graffiti) artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who somewhat revolutionized our folk/pop orientations of how social/media 'access' to art may inform the quality of the 'eye' and how we look at rough/simplified expressions or emotions as reflective of 'abstracted' city-escapism (or clay-towering!). The film is sensitization, hip, musical, street-emotive, well-acted, well-casted, and history-rich for its depictions of 'bonds' between Basquiat and Andy Warhol (iconic consumerism-abstraction 'lifestyle' artist). Schabel manages to offer an 'expression' of how art 'structure' can create a 'feeling' of drawn art-world/universe dialysis. While this first-film for Schabel is a thinking-gem, it's (arguably) a 'tad' too worldly or vain for those 'pesky' stereotypes we share (sometimes) that the art-world/universe may feel (at-times) a 'tad' too...distant!

Why'd Schabel choose this first-work as his debut-film? Why was Basquiat himself the subject-of-interest for an artist/painter who liked experimenting with the potential of the use of film as a 'canvas' for explorations of the 'theory' of art-experience in culture/streets? Well, certainly this 1996-debut for Schabel, a fave among today's young college-years art-students/thinkers/dreamers, informs (and reflects!) our new social media 'culture' of inventive expressions for life-drawn 'emotive' (or abstracted!) muscular or sensitive 'everyday' consciousness 'colored' dialysis. Here's a comics-kids stick-figure color-pencil doodle I made of two crossover company avatars (DC/Marvel) that (I think) explores why Schnabel's first-film (1996) suggests to our mod-civilization why art may parallel...'everyday' deformity (wow).

Now, let's look at the 2nd-piece, which Julian Schnabel chose as his project 4 years after the 1996 debut (critically-praised) and which (arguably) colorized Cuban/socialist politics with tone/color in ways not explored with as much richness or psyche-adventurism or musical-cadence in past works of relevant matter/themes. in Before Night Falls (2000), we see, once-more, rich atmospherics, a great cast, returning actors (Michael Wincott), a 'rich' story (drawn from real history), and great character-development for the 'experience' of Earthling-consciousness. Johnny Depp offers a cool touch as a background double-role figure, one being a somewhat humorously rich obstinate fascist-figure, obviously we're to think as 'unimpressed' by the lead-protagonist (a 'libertine' Cuban sensitive poet/writer labeled as 'dangerous' during the social-dialysis Cuban communist revolution/movement). The film is shockingly simple but starkly-colored, great movement/dynamics, complex politics commentary with 'escapist' consciousness for expressive personality-daydreams. Overall, we're not 'shocked' it's another 'artsy' view of life-on-Earth seen through the eyes of a protagonist, a real-world figure/celebrity, and actually this-time-round, Schnabel's drawn off the 'artsy-razor' from his debut and offered a more world-invested folk-transit 'examination' of what marries art to politics...for the Ego(?).

Why'd Schabel choose this Cuban revolution/poetry real-world 'theme' as his 2nd-piece, following his 1996-debut (critically-praised) work of street-art/life in New York in the 1980s? Perchance he'd like us to 'lift-away' from consumerism/street-arts and delve into the world-traffic politics 'magnetism' that informs why art may 'link' to entire-Earth consciousness (sure!). We might compare the 2000 2nd-piece of Julian Schnabel, no less creative than his 1996 critically-praised quieter debut, to mod-works/expressions of alien or race or 'species' consciousness informing our graphics/enterprises for 'emotive' contact-language (hmmm). I'd compare the 2000 piece for its entire-Earth mist with Alien dialysis/duty concepts/imagery (yes).

I'm toasting this double-progression film-comment/review with a world-exchange 'reflection' culinary-treat soft/zesty (Indian) luchi-bread thanksgiving-diner plat chat(s) simply to appreciate why an artist/painter chose film as his work-interest/project-medium for a moving-picture 'canvas' to reveal that stranger 'bond' between art...and hospitality (wow).

HYPOTHETICAL READER-RESPONSE!

ME: I wonder if we might 'blend' the 1996 and 2000 works into one 'canvas' for Schnabel!
READER: Well, the 2 are vastly different strangely, as you've written/commented, friend.
ME: They sure are, but given the atmospherics, coloring, characterization-IQ, it's Schnabel!
READER: How'd one blend differing matter (street-art and national politics) into one IQ?
ME: Perchance a Spider-Man (Marvel) villain of muscular-street fascism-dogma (ha).
READER: That's funny; "Rhino meets dialysis (for bureaucracy's deformity)."