OSCARS 2023: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)

The AIDS crisis of the eighties, that decimated the population of gay men all across the United States, might have been over forties years ago now. Yet, in so many other ways, it feels like we are still living in the shadow of that time. For every step into the mainstream LGBT+ culture has made here in this country, there's been another step back. We live in a time more beset by misinformation and fear mongering than ever before, it seems. It's important that the lives lost and the world they lived in not be forgotten. That period still echoes into the present in many ways. The latest documentary from “Citizenfour's” Laura Poitras, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” shows us the direct parallels between these two times while also telling a deeply personal story. 

The film tells the story of celebrated photographer Nan Goldin. It leaps back and forth in time between the past and the present, telling how she grew up in the suburbs with emotionally distant parents who institutionalized her rebellious sister. How she moved to New York City and quickly fell in with the queer art scene, which she documented through photographs that soon made her famous. It follows Nan through the AIDS crisis, where she led protests against apathetic authority and watched countless friends die. This is interwoven with her current work with P.A.I.N., an activist group for those effected by prescription drug addiction. P.A.I.N.'s and Nan's current mission is to publicly shame the Sackler family, the billionaire family (and patrons of the arts) behind the production and sale of Oxycontin. 

Nan Goldin's chosen art form is photography. She displays her photos in books, galleries, and via slideshows. Frequently, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” devotes itself to showing Nan's photos on-screen, sometimes accompanied by music or narration. Or to underground movies made by her friends, documenting the same time period. These moments make it clear while Goldei's artistry is so respected. Her work is a snapshot of a specific time and place. We see the faces of friends of her's, fellow artists. We see their photos, their sculptures. We hear their poetry and watch their films. Goldin's photos clearly captured the cluttered lofts and crowded bars that they called home. It gives you such a clear of what the New York art scene was like in the seventies and eighties. Considering how much of this talent was lost over the next decade, it's a monumentally important time capsule of a period threatened to be forgotten. 

As much as Goldin's work was about capturing what was unfolding around her, it was also blisteringly personal. This makes “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” as much a movie about her life as it is about the things she lived through. She talks openly about her drug addiction, the different substances she struggled with over the years. A lengthy chapter is devoted to a longtime boyfriend of her's, that eventually turned abusive. She photographed her own bruises. Golden opens up about being a stripper and sex worker during this time as well, which seems to be the only aspect of her life she has any reluctance to speak about. (Among Golden's photos is one of her having sex, so clearly she's no prude.) Mostly, these deeply personal recollections are delivered by Nan herself, her distinctly raspy voice running throughout “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.”

Yet this is not a film simply preoccupied with looking backwards. It actively documents Goldin's work with P.A.I.N. and their campaign to bring some justice to the victims of Oxycontin. Much time is devoted to demonstrations, where her and her friends laid down in museum or toss fake money or fliers stained with blood. Their goal is to shame the Sackler's for profiting off the addiction, misery, and deaths of millions of people. Goldin and her associates have no illusions about the billionaires actually facing justice. Instead, they simply hope to shame the Sacklers through their connections to the art world. The emotional climax of the film, as stirring a sequence as any I've seen this year, involves the Sacklers being forced to sit and listen to personal testimonies of families who were torn apart by the drug. Their faces remain stony and unmoving while mothers and fathers talk about their children dying from overdoses. Simply making those in power see your face and hear your story is, sometimes, the closest thing to justice that can be achieved. 

“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed's” title comes from the doctor's notes concerning her sister, another powerful personal moment in a film filled with them. Much of the movie is like that, effortlessly using images, music, and narration to create deeply effective filmmaking. At a little over two hours long, the film is dense, packing in a lot of information. Yet it never feels rushed, none of its topic coming across as underserved. It's extraordinary movie making, a loving tribute to those that have died and a stirring cry to speak truth to power. Through it all, there is the central figure of Nan Goldin, a survivor with a unique outlook that she is eager to share with the world. [9/10]