Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child

Named after the early 1980s Artforum article that helped bring Jean-Michel Basquiat out of the underground and onto the international art scene, The Radiant Child is a loving, if overly sentimental, documentary composed of straightforward interviews with gallery owners, former girlfriends and artistic contemporaries, as well as archived footage of Basquiat himself. Directed by Tamra Davis, a friend of the late painter, the film celebrates not just Basquiat the Artist, but also Basquiat the Celebrity, and a frustratingly large section of the documentary is devoted to the intense, controversial relationship between Basquiat and Andy Warhol, along with recollections of Basquiat's legendary parties, which eventually crossed the line from exciting to exploitative. His prolific body of work is discussed in simplistic montages that hint at the complexity and depth of his pieces and the many familial and cultural influences he absorbed and reinterpreted. While Basquiat's work is undeniably powerful, what's even more shocking are the grainy, black-and-white images of a bombed-out downtown New York City in the late '70s and early '80s. A sense of romantic nostalgia permeates the film, from the archival footage of Debbie Harry and Madonna in their heydays to interviews with artists such as Julian Schnabel and Kenny Scharf who recall the vibrant scene as Basquiat ascended into the art stratosphere.