Review of Venice: “All the beauty and bloodshed” by Laura Poitras

The plague of the opioid crisis has been documented in the press and government reports; The guilt of the Sacklers, the billionaire pharmaceutical family whose former Purdue company developed the pain reliever Oxycontin, has been successfully dramatized. The Sacklers are all over the place in Laura Poitras’ gripping documentary All the beauty and the bloodshedBut they support the players.

At the center is Nan Goldin, a 68-year-old photographer who was prescribed OxyContin, quickly became addicted, recovered from substitute drugs, and then devoted her energy to pursuing the Sacklers. Goldin became the most public face of the PAIN campaign group, which blamed the Sackler Wings museums, Sackler rooms and Sackler Money for shaming their wealthy executives and severing those ties. The Sacklers may have stolen Goldin’s body, but she could still work to get them out of the places where her photos were.

Laura Poitras has a great ear for different sounds. About her Her first feature-length documentary. my country, my country These were ordinary Iraqis living under US occupation; It earned him critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination. He also put it on the Homeland Security Department checklist. Subsequent films focused on testing two pilots who worked for Osama bin Laden, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden. citizen fourwhich won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2015.

In All the beauty and the bloodshedIn competition at the Venice Film Festival, she highlights the stages in Nan Goldin’s life: as a child, instinctively opposed to her cold suburban family, as a famous chronicler of the bohemian fringes of New York, and Goldin, here seen as a staunch activist in the Guggenheim lobby, leading a chant that refused the patronage of the Sackler family. Poitras, the more comprehensive researcher in another context, does not provide much detail on the opioid crisis or the role of the Sacklers in it. The struggle, and especially Goldin’s struggle as a recovering addict who survived a long time in life, is the thing.

Goldin is a household name, at least in families with a keen interest in art. His photographs of sexual and social outcasts are vivid and honest, a world of glitter, sex, drugs, dissipation and genuine joy. Goldin points out that to those who see them in the galleries, they look like movies. “Because most people think they’re characters. But for the people being filmed, it’s just them. “

Less well known was the story of Goldin, who, as he tells here, had its roots in a childhood of arid wealth. His older sister Barbara took care of him, giving him hugs, love and stories beyond their first mother, until he suffered from a mental illness and was sent to an orphanage as a teenager. A few years later, he committed suicide. Barbara was a rebel at heart, says Goldin. “She She just didn’t have the energy to go into a full-fledged rebellion like I did.”

Nobody should have said that. Nobody should have discussed anything that didn’t sound respectable. For a whole year, the girl who became Nan Goldin did not speak at all. His parents put him in a foster home; As she talks to Putra, she suddenly remembers she was physically sick with fear. Luckily he ended up in a progressive school – the only one he would have had after so many expulsions – where he was provided with a camera. “It was the only voice I had.” She also gave him a way out.

Anyone involved in PAIN, Oxycontin’s survivor recovery campaign, knows how important it is to have one of the most famous names in the contemporary art world at the forefront of this world’s struggle. It’s not a war they would feel won if the Sacklers were in prison, but winning a battle is definitely something. One by one, the museums they target say they will no longer accept the corrupt money of the Sacklers. Their names begin to be erased from the walls of the galleries. This may be a largely symbolic win, but the sponsorship itself is symbolic, making dirty money look clean.

Equally crucial to Goldin’s place in this world, however, is his willingness to make headlines by talking and writing about his addiction, describing the ugliness of a life built without noticing or using it. Pope All the beauty and the bloodshed It reveals that these are all photos of drag queens, hookers and parties, angry notes of AIDS patients, portraits reflecting glamor and tenderness where others might see the grotesque.

Poitras never photographs Goldin in a way that makes her feel like a lioness or gives her the build of a warrior queen, although it would be easy enough to do with a heightened angle and the right lighting. He places his camera in front of Goldin and shows him at work. In the process, he himself is doing an amazing job.