From the first scene, shot at the Met in New York and showing the American photographer Nan Goldin surrounded by a band of activists, throwing vials of opioids into a basin, located within the museum, we know that we are dealing with a shock film. As its epic title suggests, the documentary All the beauty and the bloodshedin theaters this week, is both splendid and overwhelming. American director and journalist Laura Poitras – who has already made films on Edward Snowden and Julian Assange – tells us about both the intense and violent life of one of the greatest American photographers, but also her fight against opioids.
All the beauty and the shed blood unveils the difficult life of Nan Goldin behind the trashy and sublime photos
In All the beauty and the bloodshedwe (re)discover the difficult life of Nan Goldin, which we already guessed in his raw self-portraits and his photos of his marginal friends. The photographer was marked by the suicide of her older sister, depressed, and left the family home very early. After her sister’s disappearance, she will not speak for six months. It is the practice of photography that will save her. Capturing intimate life moments of loved ones (like her drag queen roommates) snaps her out of her aphasia. Nan Goldin recounts, in voice-over, while her photographs – some of which have never been seen before – parade on the screen, her lesbian love stories, the physical violence of a spouse, her time in a brothel, her go- go dancer and bartender. Without taboos and without filters, like his frontal images, the artist also remembers tender moments like his friendship with the actress, author and art critic Cookie Mueller. The precise and precious testimony of Nan Goldin allows us to plunge back with vivacity into the New York underground of the 80s, made up of decadent parties – at the Bowery or at the Mudd Club -, of crazy encounters and of the DIY spirit.
The trailer for the documentary All the Beauty and the Spilled Blood (2023) by Laura Poitras
Nan Goldin’s fight against the Sackler family and the production of opioids
Between the scenes telling the life of Nan Goldin at the time of his photo series The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1979-1986), other sequences retrace the more recent fight of the photographer against a wealthy family, the Sacklers. The latter founded a pharmaceutical group producing oxycodone, which makes them partly responsible for the opiate crisis in the United States. They are also known as patrons of prestigious cultural institutions. To warn about the dangers of opioids, painkillers responsible for the death of thousands of Americans over the past two decades, Nan Goldin has organized powerful happenings in museums, surrounded by activists from the PAIN (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) association. , which she founded.
This crusade has a very personal significance for the photographer. In 2014, suffering from tendonitis in her left wrist and having to undergo surgery, she was prescribed OxyContin, a powerful painkiller on which she became dependent, in Berlin. Years later, in 2017, after a near death and check-in to rehab, she would begin to speak out against the Sacklers. The strength of the documentary, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Mostrais to constantly mix the intimate and the political in the image of the work of Nan Goldin. The 69-year-old photographer made America’s outcasts WASP beautiful, magnifying her friends from 70s and 80s queer communities, afflicted with AIDS or addicted to drugs. Thanks to his unique look, those who evolve in the margins have had the right of citizenship. For her part, giving the floor to Nan Goldin, Laura Poitras shows that art can really change the world, even save lives. Indeed, the photographer has succeeded in completely degrading the image of the Sackler family billionaires and altering their domination over the art world (in particular), proving that David can sometimes beat Goliath.
All the Beauty and the Spilled Blood (2023) by Laura Poitras, currently in theaters.
