Beauty and pain. The sometimes distorted beauty of the photographs of Nan Goldin, born in Washington in 1953 and historian of the New York counterculture scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. being systematically deceived by a drug and eventually became addicted to drugs that did them more harm than good.
Beauty and pain. It is the name chosen by director Laura Poitras for the film, which combines Goldin’s biographical features with her activism against the Sackler family’s pharmacist. The film won the Golden Lion at the last Venice festival, and it’s clear. next candidate Oscar in the category of documentary. It opened the ‘Americana’ festival in Barcelona last Tuesday, and it opens in theaters this Friday.
The movie begins on the designated date, March 10, 2018. Goldin directed an action at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. A protest against the Sacklers throwing dozens of pill bottles into the pond inside the museum. Some of Arthur’s work from the Sackler brothers was later exhibited at the Metropolitan. The pain is even greater as the family is part of the American cultural conglomerate. praise your philanthropy and associated with many of the country’s galleries and museums. For example, the Guggenheim has a training center named after Sackler.
The pharmaceutical company spread Valium and used Oxycontin from 1996., an addictive pain reliever like all opioid drugs. Goldin was prescribed and became addicted. Other items had happened before. But it was his choice, good or bad. On the contrary, Oxycontin was a scam that took many people away. The photographer created the organization PAIN, which stands for ‘Prescription Addiction Intervention Now’. Pain: pain in English.
Godin’s challenge is important because He attacked not only Sackler, but also the art institutions where he exhibited some of his work. and they said they were related to the pharmaceutical company. The story suits Poitras very well. In his previous documentaries, he had explored the consequences of 9/11, the controversial personality of Julian Assange, and illegal surveillance programs at ‘Citizenfour’. It won an Oscar for best documentary in 2014 for the latter.
In ‘Beauty and Pain’, Goldin’s struggle alternates with his biography in different blocks.
And so we discovered what marked it sister Barbara, someone who you can tell how he feels from the way he plays the piano. And it felt wrong. In a time of strong sexual repression, lesbianHe was imprisoned in various correctional institutions. “My family took his credibility,” says Goldin. Barbara committed suicide. Nan’s life changed in that moment. A psychiatrist told her parents that the same would happen to her sister if she stayed at home. She was sent to an adoption agency at age 14 she. From all this came a strong shyness and social phobia.
Until she met the androgynous David Armstrong, who later became a photographer like him. Armstrong taught him to use humor for survival. Goldin admits that he was his center of gravity during the most difficult period of his life. He was released with it. Or they let each other go. Goldin discovered his secret homosexuality and Armstrong taught him to see the world differently.
“Taking pictures is a form of protection,” the hero explains. “It’s easier to create stories from your life and harder to keep true memories in mind. I mean the difference between a story and a true memory. Goldin created stories with his photographs. An autobiography on the plates. “In the ’80s, photographing someone’s life was an unusual act”he assures at another moment of the movie.
His photo series titled ‘The Ballad of Sexual Addiction’ and ‘The Other Side’ (about a gay venue in New York City) have become visual accounts of his life and the lives of his relatives in the places he has visited. Frequented in Bowery between 1978 and 1980: Armstrong, Vivienne Dick, Cookie Miller, Bette Gordon, Divine, John Waters, Mudd Club and Tin Pan Alley, an all-female bar in Times Square that provides prostitutes with jobs and a new lifestyle. Because Goldin went and worked in a brothel to pay for the movie. She also photographed her broken face after the brutal beating she received from her ex.
Then came the AIDS plague, which killed many of his friends. In 1989 he opened an exhibition on the subject, which garnered a lot of water. Before He used the photo as a “glorification of sex”. Now he used it to explain the social reality of a disease. Poitras accompanies his images with songs by the leftover music of that era, The Velvet Underground, Suicide, Bush Tetras, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Klaus Nomi and Sugarhill Gang. The present is just as beautiful and painful.