It's 1979 New York. Jean Michel Basquiat (Jeffrey Wright) is an unconventional artist who lives in the park. He likes waitress Gina Cardinale (Claire Forlani). He crashes with his friend Benny Dalmau (Benicio Del Toro). He assists an electrician (Willem Dafoe) at a gallery run by Albert Milo (Gary Oldman) and Mary Boone (Parker Posey). He sees Bruno Bischofberger (Dennis Hopper) and Andy Warhol (David Bowie) having lunch and sells some of his art to Warhol. Rene Ricard (Michael Wincott) takes an interesting in his art and starts showing him around. Annina Nosei (Elina Löwensohn) gives him the space to start painting. He goes with Big Pink (Courtney Love) who drives away Gina. He is interviewed by a guy (Christopher Walken).
The way Jeffrey Wright portrays Basquiat is kind of annoying. He seems to have Asperger at times while at other times, he's simply an a-hole. He's definitely a hallucinating druggie. I'm not sure how accurate the character is but it's not a flattering portrayal. Although he's not an overtly bad guy, I simply don't care about him. It is however a very fascinating view of his meteoric rise in the art world. It's a great slice of New York life. It's odd to see these many great actors in cameos. It may be better to have lesser known actors in these lesser roles. It becomes more of a distraction especially when those actors don't come back. For me, the most interesting part is when Walken's character asks questions to Basquiat that makes him squirm. One more thing, I don't like the way that some of the edits fade out to black like it's fading out to a TV commercial break. That's also a bit distracting.
The way Jeffrey Wright portrays Basquiat is kind of annoying. He seems to have Asperger at times while at other times, he's simply an a-hole. He's definitely a hallucinating druggie. I'm not sure how accurate the character is but it's not a flattering portrayal. Although he's not an overtly bad guy, I simply don't care about him. It is however a very fascinating view of his meteoric rise in the art world. It's a great slice of New York life. It's odd to see these many great actors in cameos. It may be better to have lesser known actors in these lesser roles. It becomes more of a distraction especially when those actors don't come back. For me, the most interesting part is when Walken's character asks questions to Basquiat that makes him squirm. One more thing, I don't like the way that some of the edits fade out to black like it's fading out to a TV commercial break. That's also a bit distracting.