The Radiant Child is one of those documentaries that truly changes how one feels about themselves and the world around them. It centers around a bright, young artist named Jean-Michel Basquiat and how he used creative expression to communicate his perspective on society in the late 70’s/early 80’s New York. By the time he was 23, he was one of the most well-known artists in the world. For the most part, his enigmatic character was at the forefront of this documentary.
As for the technical aspects, I thought the documentary did a solid job presenting the story of his Basquiat’s life. One specific choice that I found admirable was the score. In
One issue that I had with this documentary is the fact that it did not get into the meanings behind Basquiat’s work nor the influences that birthed them. They discussed how he started out by leaving his home at 17, but I wanted to hear a bit more about his upbringing and what influenced him as a kid to become an artist. It’s always fascinating to hear famous people’s perspectives on their own work, but rarely do you see it happen. I think the reason behind this lack of disclosure is because most dedicated artists want to their art to be universal by letting everyone have their own interpretations and not limit it to one solitary explanation, but in this case, it would have been interesting to hear Basquiat’s commentary on specific artworks of his.
From another perspective, you could argue that the lack of artistic interpretations is fitting for this documentary because Basquiat himself mentioned that he doesn’t have motivations behind his work, citing that painting is just sort of “automatic” to him. This is intriguing because I’ve heard this same ideology from many other influential artists as well (Kurt Cobain is one that comes to mind). Every one of them says that they don’t consciously think about their work and rather their art is just an expression of how they feel. I find this important because when examining artwork, the first thought that always goes through people’s heads is “What is it trying to say?” when I think a more valid question would be “What aspects of this person’s life influenced this painting in some way?” When dealing with Expressionist or Neo-Expressionist art like Basquiat’s, one should consider how that painting makes them feel and why each component of that artwork makes them feel that way rather than inhibiting yourself to only view their creation as an intellectual statement on society or themselves.
I might be contradicting my last point by saying this, but I did have a subconscious desire to understand how New York City as a political catastrophe influenced young artists of that era. They mentioned that downtown Manhattan was a cultural center of art for many young people, but how did they respond to that atmosphere? I wanted to see specific pieces of art that depicted how Basquiat and other artists felt about the crumbling of the city at that time as I’m sure that was a major influence on their output. It felt like we didn’t get a clear enough glimpse of that.
I found Genius Child, the Langston Hughes poem at the beginning of the film, to be profusely powerful, thought-provoking, and especially disheartening at the end when Fab Five Freddy recited it as clips of Basquiat played over it. I think the poem was trying to say that genius children often have extremely gentle souls that need to be handled carefully or else they could end up becoming a danger to themselves. I find this idea of “genius” children being difficult personalities, like Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain, to be truthful and if more people were aware of this, maybe we’d have less tragic incidents of intelligent people dying young.
In a way, this documentary was a bit ironic. In the interview, Basquiat talks about how his critics focused more on his personality than his artwork and I think this documentary does the exact same thing. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though, as most profile documentaries tend to center around the person more than the person’s work. I guess I just found that part funny. All in all, I thought this documentary was a stimulating experience that was very informative and technically sound. Basquiat’s far-ranging influence stemming from his immense talents certainly prompted me to ponder the type of person I hope to become.
