This film received the Golden Lion in Venice and will leave you speechless! All the beauty and the bloodshed of Laura Poitras comes out in theaters this Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know about this documentary about Nan Goldin, photographer, artist and activist.
What is it about ?
Nan Goldin revolutionized the art of photography and reinvented the notion of gender and definitions of normalcy. An immense artist, Nan Goldin is also a tireless activist who, for years, has been fighting against the Sackler family, responsible for the opiate crisis in the United States and around the world. All the beauty and bloodshed leads us to the heart of his artistic and political battles, driven by friendship, humanism and emotion.
Last September, this film created a surprise by winning the most prestigious award from one of the most important festivals in the circuit: the Golden Lion of Venice. This film is more precisely a documentary, All the beauty and the spilled blood, directed by Laura Poitras. The latter is a signature in the field of documentaries. She has been nominated for the Oscar several times, and received it for Citizenfour in 2015.
After Citizenfour (on Edward Snowden) or Risk (devoted to Julian Assange), All the Beauty and the Blood Spilled is once again interested in a strong personality: the artist, photographer and activist Nan Goldin. Known in particular for her photographic series “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency”, Nan Goldin, through her work, explored the notion of gender and the definitions of normality. It offered a voice and visibility, in particular, to the queer community.
All the beauty and the bloodshed, even if it gives to explore the life and the career of this artist, is not a biographical documentary, or in any case, not only. The film takes the time to show his photographic work, in particular via very beautiful slideshow sequences, but goes well beyond that.
As director Laura Poitras herself explains, she is interested in “portraits of individuals that make it possible to produce a broader critique of society“.”In my films, I always paint the portrait of individuals who fight for a certain idea of justice and responsibility. Nan Goldin was one of them“, she explains in the press kit
This is the case here, since All the Beauty and the Blood Spilled is also and above all a film about the opiate crisis in the United States. The idea was to explore “the links between activism, the life and work of Nan Goldin“. The documentary project was initiated by Nan Goldin and the PAIN collective (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now): this one “advocates the reduction of health risks and the prevention of overdoses“.
To give some background on this crisis, it is a crisis intertwining the production of a drug and heroin, which has caused an unprecedented wave of overdoses in the United States, known as “opioid crisis“.”When Nan Goldin learns that the Sackler family’s Purdue Pharma laboratory is blocking an overdose prevention drug, the artist creates the PAIN collective (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), which advocates the reduction of health risks and the prevention of overdoses. Its actions will then multiply throughout the world.“
“For years, the Sacklers managed to separate their pharmaceutical empire from their reputation in the art world.“, details Nan Goldin in the press kit of the film. “So we sought to put an end to this hypocrisy, to show who they really are and to connect their name to the opiate crisis in the opinion of all “. All the beauty and bloodshed therefore also speaks of what can be called “artwashing”, namely using artistic patronage to “restore an image and get rid of the death of hundreds of thousands of people“.
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All the beauty and the bloodshed is a very strong, instructive and moving film, especially when Nan Goldin reveals her family intimacy, and reveals where the rebellion that drives her as an artist and activist comes from. The film will be released in cinemas this Wednesday, March 15, 2023.