Basquiat (1996)

"In 1981, a nineteen old unknown graffiti writer took the New York art world by storm. The rest is Art History"

the film directed by Julian Schnabel
the working script by Julian Schnabel

script of Basquiat

Into: this film script is a shorten version of much more complicated story about the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960 - 1988). The film itself is a complicated story, so I took the highlights & compared them to the facts from the biography of JMB (Jean-Michel Basquiat: a Quick Killing in Art by Phoebe Hoban (1998) in italics. At the very end I wrote up some of the differances in the film & the script published on the web.

Note: Schnabel was another artist in JMB's life so he had to fabricate a character - Milo - to fill out the story.

Open: Rene Ricard is sitting on park bench reading from the article he's writing about the New Art Scene. Suddenly, a young black man, who's Haitian, and very cute in spite of his homelessness, jumps out of a big cardboard box.
Rene Ricard did write this important article, but Jean wasn't really living in a box, he just went from friend to friend because he ran away from home because his father was beating him.

Cut to: coffee ship, white beautiful waitress Gina waits on him, and he makes a painting for her out of pancake syrup, and gets kicked out by the owner. Later they hook up, and start living together in her apartment.
Suzanne Mallouk was Jean's girlfriend. They had a far more complicated relationship, which ends when Suzanne takes a pile of Jean's paintings and makes a bonfire out of them.

Cut to: Jean at the Mudd Club playing with his "band" Gray
This is a fact

Cut to: hanging out with his slacker friends and one makes a video, a scratchy blue set video of a surfer in blue. This image will repeat again & again in the film over the buildings in the sky.
This is an image of Jean's hopes and dreams

Cut to: Samo (Same-O) who paints aphorisms all over the city, then Jean painting furiously at home with Gina, on the walls, on the door, etc.
This is close to the truth.

Cut to: Jean has a job moving things in an art gallery. He meets Milo, the famous painter. Jean introduces himself and says he's a painter too. Milo is surprised, but still asks Jean to move around the stuff they need. Jean walks out the door.
It didn't happen, but it shows Jean's attitude.

Cut to: PS1 a gallery show, Jean is discovered by Annina Nosei, gallery owner. She loans out her basement to him for painting, then has a big gallery showing with his work. Mary Boone, another gallery owner, tries to convince Jean to come with her.
This is mostly true, but a lot of facts are taken out for time reasons, like another art dealer he went to after Nosei, on & on.

Cut to: Jean has tons of money now from sales of his paintings, he starts to shoot heroin , hit up on other women, leaving Gina in dust, again and again.
In real life Jean became a heroin addict and hooked up with as many women as he possibly could

Cut to: Jean loses all his friends
In real life, he moved to the Ritz Carlton to avoid them.

Cut to: Meets Andy Warhol, they become close friends, and start painting together in collaboration.
They have a show, the critics say it sucks. Jean drops Andy.
This is a shorten version of the real life story.

Cut to: Jean is visiting Milo and tells him the papers said he's an art mascot. Milo says that's not true. But Jean is so messed up by this time, he goes and pisses in Milo's back stairs.
This actually happened.

Cut to: Jean finds out about Andy's death, and spirals out of his mind. He tries to rescue his mother from the asylum she lives in and starts to scream when the guard won't let him in.
This may not have happened, but it represents Jean's nervous breakdown.

Cut to: He's picked up by one of his dropped friends and they ride around in his open car, with Jean standing up holding his arms up in victory.
Didn't happen, but also represents his nervous breakdown.

Cut to: A solid black background and the words "Jean-Michel Basquiat, American Painter, died from a heroin OD on August 12, 1988"

Reading the script on line, I can conclude that it might have been the working script, although about 85% of it was the words in the movie, scene by scene. Around 10% of the dialog was cut from the film editing, and around 5% was changed completely, for whatever reason. There's a scene in the script where Jean is meeting Gina in an upscale restuarant, and is laughed at by a group of white executives. So Jean pays their bill. They are put in their place, come over and thank him, and Jean shakes hands with one with a $100.00 bill, and the guys asks, what's this for? Jean says, it's the tip.

In the movie, Jean pays for their bill, but tells the server, don't say who picked it up.

In conclusion, this is what Jeffery Wright, the actor who portrys JMB in the movie has to say: "The sense I got about him from his work and what I found out about his life was a profound sense of aloneness . . . . a real sense of isolation.

"Julian made him out to be too docile and too much a victim and too passive and not as dangerous as he really was. . . . but maybe our culture can't take the real danger of Basquiat right now."