This remarkable film makes you want to go out and paint and paint and paint and paint. It makes you want to pick up a brush and plaster blacks and whites and yellows and greens all over everything. It makes you want to write and sing and talk and laugh and dream and live. It's beautiful that way.

Painter Julian Schnabel makes his directorial debut and shows both his artistic abilities as well as his ability to fasten a film that is comprehendible, accessible and interesting. One would expect a sort of wild unusual unchronilogical jumble of art, images, sound and vision. Schnabel gives us this but takes the time to mold it into a wonderful cinematic experience. It's riveting, joyous, sad and interesting. You can't take your eyes off of it.

Schnabel knows how to use actors well also. Get this: When he shows us Courtney Love walking down the street, he kicks in with the Rolling Stones' "Beast of Burden." Now, I've heard this song so many times I'm sick of it, but here it sounds brand new. And you look at the screen and you see Courtney Love and you think, GOD DAMN, Courtney Love is a fucking Rolling Stones song!

It's odd that other than Love, all the women look almost all the same. Claire Forlani plays Basquiat's partner. Like the character she loves, we don't really understand her. We just know that she loves him. Tatum O'Neal has a turn as a buyer. She's so good that we don't even recognize her. Parker Posey and Elina Lowensohn play women who travel in artistic circles via business. They all look the same and it is hard to tell them apart. One wonders if this is an intentional thing on Schnabel's part. Are these women interchangeable in Basquiat's life?

Schnabel somehow manages to work about a gazillion of all of our favorite male actors in the film until we just have to sit back and let their wondrous characterizations simply wash over us. David Bowie is remarkable as Andy Warhol. He becomes Warhol. It helps that Schnabel knew Warhol and Basquiat, and that Bowie has met Warhol, but that isn't all that's at work here. Bowie simply becomes Warhol. And we see the artist in a way here that we never have before. Andy actually says things. Bowie isn't just fey or camp or soft-spoken, he is a fully dimensional character. We learn that Warhol was really a true friend to Basquiat. We see Andy for what he really could be, not what he made himself to seem to be. It's palpitating. When Schnabel mixes a montage of real shots of Warhol with shot of Bowie as Warhol close to the film's end, it's hard to tell which is which. We almost cannot tell them apart.

Another stunning actor in the piece is Michael Wincott who hardly ever gets a chance to act. He's always the bad guy in these simple Hollywood action messes but here he creates a wonderful, vibrant, character of Rene Ricard that is nothing short of revolutionary. Sure, he is over the top -but that's what he's supposed to be. When he initially meets Basquiat, it gives you shivers.

Gary Oldman plays a character based on Schnabel. He is kind of a casual observer here but we do love what he does. He injects warmth and humility into the proceedings near the end of the film in a way that simply makes us love his character. It's an unusual look at an artist. We see him eating in his massive home and also talking with his young daughter. Later we see him dancing with the girl. I don't think we've ever seen a portrait of an artist in this way, as a family man. It's sweet. Schnabel, meanwhile, has a cameo as Oldman's father.

Dennis Hopper (who isn't in this film?) has a small role as art collector Bruno Bischofburger. Hopper, of course, hung out with Warhol in the old days. He knew a lot of these people personally. Remarkable and reserved he plays off of Basquiat, I mean actor Jeffrey Wright who IS Basquiat, and Bowie wonderfully. It's a great subdued turn for him.

Benicio Del Toro, who was so great in "The Usual Suspects," also turns in a remarkable performance of one of Basquiat's true friends. He is there before the fame and, miraculously, appears at the end of the film as well. He is wonderful as a mush-mouthed junkie nee artist who has many of the most intriguing and profound things to say during the film. Like almost everyone in the film, we can't help but like him. We can't help but want to know him.

But it is Christopher Walken who really gets the best moment in the film. As a television "interviewer" who has a chat on camera with Basquiat, he gets to provoke the most "real" responses from the artist. It is only at this tough but interesting moment in the film when we really truly get to hear Basquiat's actual feelings, ideas and thoughts. The brilliance of Walken and Wright also make Basquiat's pain and his hurt and his frustration come alive for us as well. It's a sparkling moment in the film.

Also in the film are Paul Bartel as Henry Geldzahler; Willem Defoe as an electrician; Rockets Redglare; Esther Schnabel, Julian's daughter as Oldman's daughter. Jack, Stella and Lola Schnabel appear in the film too. Richard Butler (of The Psychedelic Furs and Love Spit Love) has a cameo.

Of course, the true find here is Jeffrey Wright as Basquiat. I've never heard the real artist speak and have only seen some still pictures of him and some of his art. But Wright makes him come alive as a gentle, scared, sweet, tough, deep, pensive, magical animal. Wright's portrayal seems right on target to me. I think those who knew the artist would agree that Wright becomes Basquiat. At the end of the film we not only feel like we know him. We feel like we love him too. And when Schnabel has a title screen tells us that Basquiat died at the age of 27 in 1988, it doesn't sink in. It still doesn't sink in. We don't want to lose him.

Schnabel does everything right here visually and poetically. He takes us on a journey. During the trip, his use of music is marvellous. When the film opens to a Pogues song, it seems perfect. When others sing throughout the film, it almost always fits. No matter who sings, I think it is Nick Cage and the Bad Seeds. The film has that deep, throaty, baritone, sound of the Gotham. It fits what we see. What we see fits what we hear. We see and hear. It's like that song you hear and go, oh that's Nick Cave only to find out later it's John Cage.

Yes, I know I am busting a nut over "Basquiat." I loved it. I don't think it's the greatest film I ever saw. Then again, it made me write this - a critique, if you will, in a manner that I consider to be closest to the way I've always wanted to write.

The Scene that Remains Basquiat comes upon a scene outside at night where two guys are "faking" a piece of his SAMO art. He tries to help them by signing it himself. He tells them, "This will make it worth more." The thugs, not knowing who he is, beat him."

Notes:

Music by Schnabel and John Cage.

Based on a story by Lech J. Majewski and John Bowe. Story Developed by Michael Thomas Holman. Written by Schnabel.

(Review written in 1997)

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