The documentary genre can be difficult at times to navigate successfully. A good documentary (for each of which I’m sure we can all think of a few bad ones) reveals an unseen perspective on its subject; it contributes something new to the conversation about this significant figure or moment in time.
The Radiant Child by Tamra Davis (director of such questionable films as Crossroads, yes, with Britney Spears, and Bill Madison) struggles to position itself in the former category. The film, comprised of interviews with close friends and enthusiasts of 1980s New York Downtown neoexpressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, images of his work, and photographs of the young talented revolutionary out schmoozing with celebrities and other celebrated societal fixtures, seeks to tell the story of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s life and work but fails to provide the audience with a fresh perspective on the visionary and his contribution to art world. Disappointingly, given Davis’s otherwise impressive compilation of interview footage of Basquiat, his patrons and his work, The Radiant Child falls short of its truly great potential.
The documentary begins by giving audiences a taste of what is perhaps the most interesting aspect of an artist’s life: his childhood. Davis only briefly explores the early years of this visionary artist leaving much about the artist’s childhood and adolescent years up to moviegoers’ imaginations. Though the screen is filled with interesting photos of Jean-Michel before he became such an iconoclast, Davis robs the audience of knowing the root from which perhaps many of Basquiat’s inner-demons stemmed. The audience is given so little information about Basquiat prior to his well-recorded famed SAMO graffiti art tagged on the side of many Manhattan buildings. It is unfortunate that Davis allowed so much that shouldn’t have been imagined up to, well, the imagination.
The otherwise sedate movie succeeds only after Basquiat reaches considerable fame. While most all of the interview footage is compelling, the impact of this privileged dialogue is only further enhanced by the impressive display of Basquiat’s artwork continuously throughout the film. The coupling of patrons and lovers’, and even the artist himself’s, comments while Basquiat’s vivid paintings are displayed on the screen evokes within the audience the hint of romanticism purposefully streaming throughout the film. Davis awakens moviegoers not only to her talent as filmmaker but Basquiat’s as artists with this winning combination.
Other triumphs are to be found in Davis’s film. The range of contributors to the documentary is inspiring. From Julian Schnabel to Larry Gagosian to Fab Five Feddy, the variety of contributors to Davis’s, and ultimately Basquiat’s, story provides a more authentic, genuine remembering of the artist. This assortment of relationships allows audience members to create their own with the artist. With this depth in character, Davis elucidates the overwhelming intellectual content that inspired many of Basquiat’s works in the form of “talking to the great history of painting that came before him” (Radiant Child). This critical observation paints a fairer portrait of the artist, who, in this film, is equally praised for being a downtown “cool kid” and club scene fixture experimenting with drugs and blowing through his earnings alongside his idol and friend Andy Warhol.
Overall, film is unsatisfying. For those interested in spending the outrageous fair of about $10 to see a film prepare to leave the theatre wanting to know more about Jean-Michel the man. The artist’s goals towards fame, money and excess, and his reaching of those goals, are known to all those paying to go see a film about the brilliant yet still relatively uncelebrated artist. Davis insults her audience by providing the same staid details about his life detailed in every other retelling of Basquiat’s time instead of giving them an unprecedented look at the subject. By telling the audience of stories about his discomfort and odd relationship with his money and race and about Basquiat’s difficult relationship with his father, Davis wastes the opportunity (and resources) to show her eager, intellectual, liberal, artsy audience a masterpiece.
Moreover, Davis maintains such a limited perspective in her story that is prohibits multiple readings of the doc. Providing such limited and rushed-over background about Basquiat and his family only allows audience members to attribute the artist’s downfall and untimely death to one factor (the difficult relationship with his father and inner-struggle with his race) instead of a multitude factors. This strips the film of its relatability, and thus of the audience’s relatability to Basquiat.
Entertaining? Sure. A unique, in-depth look into the life of a revolutionary artist? Not quite. Just like the films about Basquiat that came before it, The Radiant Child continues to depict Basquiat in a romanticized yet troubling way, very similar to that of the biopic Basquiat by Julian Schnabel. Though both films quench rookie audience’s thirst for knowledge about this talented figure it fails to appease to hunger of true Basquiat and art enthusiasts who dread hearing the same details of his life retold with a different voice. Though Basquiat was a radiant child indeed, after viewing this documentary, it is clear that his friend, Tamra Davis, is not.
Works Cited
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child,. Dir. Tamra Davis. Perf. Jean-Michel Basquiat. Arthouse Films, 2010. Film.
