DOGWOOF PRESENTS: MAPPLETHORPE- LOOK AT THE PICTURES. (2016) A FILM BY FENTON BAILEY AND RANDY BARBATO. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
Well, this documentary certainly
livened up an otherwise quiet Saturday afternoon, I must say. There I
was, glass of chilled white wine in hand, all nice and comfy at home
and feeling good after a lovely civilised lunch with my mother,
during which we hardly managed to annoy each other at all. That must
be some kind of record, haha.
Next thing I know, I'm pressing 'PLAY'
on the DVD machine and suddenly
I'm up to my tonsils in photos of male buttocks and male genitalia
presented as intimately and as revealingly as they might be in any
good proctologist's handbook. What the dickens have I been watching,
I hear you ask?
Well, it's the story of controversial
American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's life and work, and I must
admit that it's simultaneously the weirdest yet also the most
powerful and inspiring piece of documentary film that I've seen in a
while.
It was released this very week (August
2016) by DOGWOOF,
the UK's leading
documentary film distributor and sales agent,
and anyone even remotely interested in the world of art and celebrity
will be utterly fascinated by it. Let's go in for a closer look,
shall we, but I warn you, things will get
extremely sexy at some point. Only adult readers from here on in,
please.
Robert
Mapplethorpe was born in Queens in 1946, in a place called Floral
Park. How apt, considering that he loved to photograph flowers and
was in fact famous for photographing flowers, among other things.
It's these 'other things' that tended to arouse all the
controversy.
If he'd just stuck to photographing
lovely bunches of daffs and 'mums and whatnot, there wouldn't have
been any trouble at all and his dear old dad wouldn't have had a
problem with his son's job. 'He did a beautiful job on flowers,'
his dad says of him in the
documentary.
On the other hand, if he'd just stuck to snapping flora and fauna, then neither would we have
had some of the most outrageous yet genuinely thought-provoking
pieces of art the world has ever seen or is probably ever likely to
see. For this reason, it's possibly best that he didn't just
stick to photographing flowers.
Robert
Mapplethorpe grew up a gay man in that pre-AIDS era when there seems to have
been a lot of promiscuity amongst gay men in America. There's no
mention of the word 'promiscuous' in
the film, which was interesting, but Robert, a devastatingly
good-looking man in the style of a Mick Jagger or a Jim Morrison, had
a lot of sex with a lot of males. The film is upfront about that.
Upfront and around
back as well. Especially around the back...!
When he
wasn't having sex with these mostly very physically attractive men,
Robert Mapplethorpe was photographing them and hanging these intimate
portraits in galleries. For people to see. With their eyes.
Pictures deemed so shocking then that protests were held against the
galleries that exhibited them. So now do
you see what all the fuss is about...?
The
film follows the trajectory of Robert's life (I can't call
him 'Mapplethorpe,' it's too formal and feels wrong) from
his childhood to the time of his relationship with
singer-songwriter-poet-visual artist Patti Smyth to the gradual
taking-off of his career as a photographer. Not just any
photographer, either, but the one who seems to have single-handedly
turned photography into an art form instead of just the poor relation
of art.
The
pictures of Robert and Patti together in the late 'Sixties are
fabulous. They look just like what you'd expect a wildly sexy, arty free-spirited rock star
couple to look like. Robert later photographed Patti's iconic album
cover HORSES for her
and, for a long time, she was his 'muse.'
We learn
about Robert's homosexual relationship with handsome art curator and collector
Sam Wagstaff who later died of AIDS, though not before he'd financed
Robert's art and helped to further his burgeoning career.
We find out about
Robert's obsession with the gay BDSM lifestyle, something he could
indulge freely and openly in places like The Mineshaft Club, a very
naughty fetish club where gay men clad in bondage gear did very
naughty things to each other in bathtubs. Oooh-er, Missus...!
The
film covers other Robert's other obsession, black males, of which he
photographed many, many examples. He even held an exhibition called
simply 'BLACK MALES,' and
certainly the pictures are deeply striking. The film doesn't flinch
from showing us the good stuff, either, that is to say, the photos
which are considered pornographic and obscene enough to be discussed
by Congress. Yes, Congress...!
'MAN IN POLYESTER SUIT' is
considered to be 'amongst the Top Ten most recognisable images in
photographic history,' according to the film. Certainly, having
seen it today for the first time, I'll never forget it if I live to
be a hundred. I don't know if you can Google it, but if it's possible
to do so, you should try to get a look at it. Be warned, though, it's
very rude and may be considered pornographic by some of you, so watch
out.
There
are some very naughty homo-erotic photos of Robert's on display in
the film. I'm not going to describe them, but I will
say this. Have you ever seen a vet, either on television or in real
life, put his arm halfway up a cow's insides? If you have, then you
might have some idea of the- ahem- dark places
to which these starkly gorgeous, black-and-white photographs go. And
Robert was raised a good Catholic boy too...!
As the film
winds its way towards the sad death of Robert Mapplethorpe in 1989 of
AIDS-related complications, we hear from his former lovers, former
photographic subjects, former colleagues and employees and from his
younger brother Edward, who seems lovely and genuine.
Edward, also
a photographer and one-time employee of Robert's, speaks honestly and
movingly about the brother he loved but who was capable of hurting
him sometimes too with his jealous or even egotistical behaviour.
We hear from
celebrities such as Debbie Harry too, celebrities whom Robert
photographed when he wasn't shooting flowers or nudie males. You
could even commission him to take your photo, but only if you had a
spare ten grand lying around.
I mean it, ten thousand dollars in cash
money for a portrait of you by the man himself. Ordinary folk
like ourselves probably find paying that kind of money for a mugshot of yourself hard to understand,
to say the least but hey, rich people are funny like that!
The
film is really an extraordinary piece of film-making. It comes
complete with extra features and a fabulous picture of Robert
Mapplethorpe on the cover. He really was a fantastic-looking guy. He
had the kind of looks of which women are always saying: 'Ooooh,
it's such a waste he's gay!'
I
imagine that plenty of women tried to 'convert' him
in his lifetime. Whether too many of them were successful, we at home
watching this will probably never know. What I do know
is this:
MAPPLETHORPE: LOOK AT THE PICTURES is
the most revealing and fascinating documentary I've seen in a long
time. When you see it for yourself, I'm convinced you'll think
the same.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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