Movies
Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures
2016 USA, Germany
108 min •
English
K16
Theme: Rokumentti selection
19.11.2016 | Time: 12.45
| Venue: TAPIO 4
Strikingly beautiful film about lust, pain and pleasure
Robert Mapplethorpe is a name everyone interested in pho- tography has heard, and whose pictures every music fan has bumped into. The legendary photographer lived the most im- portant years of his life in Hotel Chelsea, the very centre of the New York underground, with Patti Smith, Andy Warhol, junkies, musicians, sexual minorities, bodybuilders and other aliens, taking pictures of everything he saw.
Mapplethorpe’s art documents the era when taboos were redefined. The magnificent photos radiate pride in being an out- sider, and the subjects vary from BDSM sessions to nobly erect penises and famous friends. Even more bewildering than the photos is the life of the artist himself. Mapplethorpe didn’t hide behind the camera lens but longed for fame. The openly gay un- derground artist lived the life he photographed, and finally came to see the end like so many of his models. Mapplethorpe died at the age of only 42 due to complications from HIV/AIDS.
Look at the Pictures is a striking and beautiful film about one the key figures of modern photography.
