Beauty and pain. The film Beauty and Pain traces the intertwined paths of Nan Goldin, born in Washington in 1953, and the late 1970s New York counterculture she chronicled. It introduces her as a photographer who captured beauty and suffering, revealing how a vibrant art scene could coexist with personal turmoil and addiction. The documentary presents Goldin’s life as a meditation on memory, art, and the consequences of addiction that can overtake a person despite moments of luminous artistry.
Beauty and Pain is the title chosen by director Laura Poitras. The film blends Goldin’s biographical moments with her outspoken activism against the Sackler family, known for their role in a major pharmaceutical enterprise. The work has earned the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and is regarded as a strong contender for documentary honors at major awards. It premiered at the Americana festival in Barcelona and later reached wider theaters, inviting audiences to explore the tension between artistic achievement and the controversies surrounding pharmaceutical funding in the arts.
Laura Poitras accepts the Golden Lion in Venice.
The narrative begins with a slated date, March 10, 2018, when Goldin organized an action at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The protest targeted the Sacklers by dumping dozens of pill bottles into the museum pond. Later, some artifacts associated with the Sackler family appeared in exhibitions at the Metropolitan, underscoring the complex relationship between philanthropy, art institutions, and corporate influence. The Sackler name is tied to a broader philanthropic footprint in America, with galleries and museums connected to the family and their associated foundations. The Guggenheim, among others, has links to Sackler-related programs and initiatives.
The pharmaceutical company responsible for Valium and OxyContin is criticized for promoting addictive medications. The narrative notes that OxyContin became a symbol of a broader opioid crisis, with Goldin personally affected by prescriptions that contributed to dependence. The film emphasizes that addiction results from a combination of access, medical practices, and personal choice. Goldin’s response manifested in the formation of PAIN, the organization Prescription Addiction Intervention Now, which advocates for awareness and change around prescription drug dependency. The acronym PAIN stands for the real-world harm caused by painkiller dependence.
The documentary highlights Goldin’s challenge to institutions and the art world that hosted her work. It frames Poitras’s interest through a lens consistent with her other explorations of power, surveillance, and culture. Poitras has previously examined contentious subjects ranging from post 9/11 consequences to the surveillance era, with Citizenfour earning her an Oscar for best documentary in 2014. The film ties Goldin’s personal struggle to a broader critique of how power and influence shape what is celebrated in culture.
In Beauty and Pain the documentary alternates between Goldin’s life and her artistic outlook across different segments. Viewers glimpse the sister relationship with Barbara, a sibling who revealed emotion through piano playing and whose life took a tragic turn. The film suggests that family dynamics, oppression, and social expectations shaped Goldin’s path, including moments of reclusion and fear. A psychiatrist’s insight to her parents and her sister’s fate marks a turning point in Goldin’s story, pushing her toward a life marked by shyness and social anxiety.
The narrative follows Goldin’s meeting with David Armstrong, an androgynous figure who later became a photographer in his own right. Armstrong taught her humor as a tool for resilience. Their bond became a center of gravity during difficult years, shaping Goldin’s perspective and offering a different way to view the world. Their relationship reflects how intimate partnerships can influence creative work and personal development.
Taking photographs emerges as a protective act. The documentary presents Goldin explaining that storytelling through images can preserve meaning even when memory falters. The difference between an event and a remembered moment becomes central to her work. The 1980s even features the idea that photographing a life in progress was uncommon, yet Goldin pursued it with purpose and honesty, carving out a space for the stories of her circle and broader communities.
Goldin’s series The Ballad of Sexual Addiction and The Other Side, which documents a gay venue in New York City, stand as visual records of personal and communal experiences. The Bowery and areas like the Mudd Club and Tin Pan Alley become backdrops for encounters with figures such as Armstrong, Vivienne Dick, Cookie Miller, Bette Gordon, Divine, and John Waters. The accounts capture a culture in flux, including accounts of labor, sex, and a changing urban landscape. The narrative acknowledges the complexity of Goldin’s world, including her decision to work in a brothel to support her film project and the raw honesty in confronting violence, including an assault that left scars.
A still from the documentary Beauty and Pain starring Nan Goldin.
The AIDS crisis arrives as a defining backdrop, claiming many friends and submerging the community in grief and activism. By 1989, an exhibition addressed the crisis in a way that shifted public perception from a sensationalized portrayal of sexuality to a candid examination of the social consequences of the disease. Poitras accompanies Goldin’s images with a soundtrack drawn from the era, featuring artists like The Velvet Underground, Suicide, Bush Tetras, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Klaus Nomi, and Sugarhill Gang. The result presents a present that is at once beautiful and painful, a reflection of a world where art and life collide in striking ways.
The film invites audiences to witness how memory, love, loss, and resilience are all part of a life lived publicly through photographs and action. It presents a portrait of an artist who pressed on through personal difficulties while continuing to document communities facing marginalization and health crises. The experience invites viewers to consider how art can confront discomfort, expose power dynamics, and nurture empathy for people navigating the pressures of fame, addiction, and community upheaval.