"All The Beauty And The Bloodshed" -- Movie Review

 

For the Centerpiece of The 60^th New York Film Festival, I attended a screening of the new Laura Poitras documentary, “All The Beauty And The Bloodshed”. 

Synopsis

As a result of the opioid crisis, can a group of activists bring about change to a system that celebrates the family that’s caused many thousands of deaths?

Story

For decades, Nan Goldin has been known in New York City as a photographer, having many of her photographs either published in books or shown at various galleries.  After surviving a beating at the conclusion of an abusive relationship, she was hospitalized for her severe injuries and prescribed OxyContin.  Upon her discharge, she continued to take the medication in order to deal with her physical pain.  This introduced her to a new nightmare when she became addicted to her medicine.  Her addiction caused both her professional and personal life to become completely derailed. 

Over time, Goldin eventually overcame her addiction, but she was left emotionally scarred by the experience.  She began to educate herself about the drug, which was manufactured by Purdue Pharma, a pharmaceutical company owned by the incredibly wealthy Sackler family.  It turned out that the Sacklers were highly regarded in the artistic community for their philanthropic endeavors; many museums around the world had accepted huge financial contributions from them, resulting in a wing or other structures being named after them.  Goldin’s research uncovered the manipulative and misleading marketing of the medication to physicians, who then over-prescribed. 

As a result, Goldin formed a group called P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), an activist group made up of recovering addicts and surviving family members who died from their addiction.  P.A.I.N.’s goal is to serve as patient advocacy against big-Pharma because of how they become wealthy at the cost of human lives.  They decide to target the Sackler family who have become billionaires by pushing doctors to prescribe a drug that has ruined lives through addiction and overdose.  But when their public protests gain media attention throughout the country, will the Sackler family turn to ruthless means to silence them?    

Review

In “All The Beauty And The Bloodshed”, Laura Poitras has interwoven two documentaries into one – and that may or may not be a good thing, depending on how you view this movie.  One the one hand, there is this utterly triumphant story of activism to shame and defeat the Sackler family; also, there is the fascinating story of Nan Goldin herself which covers not only her professional life but also her personal life (including a rather painful suburban upbringing).  It became rather obvious that two films could have been made here – and arguably, they should have.  The problem with the twin paths here is that the documentary as a whole becomes more diffuse. 

Often, negative movie criticisms have the tone that they wish the filmmaker had made a different motion picture or made it in a different way.  Unfortunately, that’s the situation here.  A documentary about the life and career of Nan Goldin would have been great.  So would a documentary about Goldin’s activism (she also championed the AIDS cause some thirty years prior).  Combining the two into a single film results in an unfocused final product that lacks a single narrative thread.  As it is, the running time of “All The Beauty And The Bloodshed” comes in at just around two hours; two 90-minute documentaries might have been better.

In a post-screening conversation, Director Laura Poitras said that after meeting with Nan Goldin, she learned that many of the P.A.I.N. meetings were documented – once she discovered this, she decided that she had to be involved in making the documentary.  At one point, Goldin was introduced to the producers and pitched the idea of the documentary to them, asking if they would consider raising money to make the film; they decided that they were in, but only if they could hire Laura as the director.  Goldin added that she gave Laura full access to all photos and documents about her entire family – including some footage of home movies.