Sightlines · reception
How Basquiat was received
1996 · Julian Schnabel · Basquiat on Sightlines
The arc
Dismissed by many in 1996 as Julian Schnabel's vanity project — a famous painter casting a Schnabel stand-in (Gary Oldman) in his own directing debut — it's since been reappraised as the definitive downtown-NYC art-world movie, with Jeffrey Wright's breakout turn and Schnabel's later acclaim (Before Night Falls, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) doing the rehabilitating.
What’s debated
The evergreen fight: is this really Basquiat's story, or a rich white art star telling his own — plus the sub-debate over whether Bowie's Warhol is the best screen Warhol ever or an impression that swallows the movie.
Its footprint
David Bowie playing Andy Warhol is the film's afterlife — the images circulate endlessly, and it's a fixture of every 'musicians acting' and 'best screen Warhols' list, alongside Crispin Glover's and Guy Pearce's takes.
Where it stands
A Letterboxd favorite of the art-kid cinephile crowd — the gateway film for the 80s downtown scene and the start of the Jeffrey Wright appreciation society.
Did you know? The Basquiat estate refused to license the real paintings, so Schnabel and his studio painted the Basquiats seen on screen themselves — while Bowie, for his part, wore Warhol's actual wig and glasses, borrowed from the Warhol museum's collection.