In the twelfth installment of the series ” The Selection Makes the Film,” we take a look at the documentary film ‘All The Beauty And The Bloodshed.’
This work, which delves into the life of photographer Nan Goldin and tackles the drug abuse issue she has pursued, has garnered significant attention, winning the prestigious Golden Lion Award (Grand Prize) at the 79th Venice International Film Festival, a rarity for documentaries.
Critics, including Yuji Shibasaki, delve into this work from a musical perspective, exploring the music that reflects the glamorous yet precarious underground culture of 1970s to 1980s New York, the impact of the sudden absence of music, and the underlying horror inferred from the seemingly tranquil home video-like footage accompanied by standard songs.
*This article contains descriptions related to the content of the film.
INDEX
The Opioid Crisis: A Significant Social Issue in the United States
OxyContin, an opioid prescription painkiller developed by the major pharmaceutical company Perdue Pharma and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1995, was widely touted as a safe drug that was more effective and less addictive than existing painkillers. As a result, it was prescribed to a huge number of citizens over the next decade or so, but despite its initially claimed safety, it led to the development of a large number of serious addicts. The drug has also caused a string of poisoning deaths due to overdose and other causes, resulting in more than 500,000 deaths across the United States and creating a major problem that has shaken society as a whole.
In 2007, the federal government filed a lawsuit against Perdue Pharma for misrepresenting the dangers of OxyContin, resulting in the company admitting negligence and being ordered to pay approximately $630 million. However, prescriptions for opioid painkillers have not stopped since then, and the number of prescriptions has increased even more, and the smuggling of synthetic opioids has begun in earnest, creating even more addicts.
Although Perdue Pharma has long been a privately held company with no publicly known capital ties behind it, a 2017 article in Esquire magazine revealed that the company is owned by the Sackler family, known for its philanthropy, including donations to museums. Photographer Nan Goldin declared the creation of P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), a citizens’ organization that advocates for improving the state of the opioid crisis. The following year, he contributed an article to Artforum detailing the fact that the Sackler family had been donating profits from their pharmaceutical business to various museums and universities. Since then, P.A.I.N. has been organizing protests at famous museums around the country to denounce the Sacklers’ misdeeds and their hypocritical involvement in the art world. Their activities were sometimes met with odd looks, but they continued to send out messages and achieved steady results as social interest in their activities grew.
‘All The Beauty And The Bloodshed’ is a feature-length nonfiction film about P.A.I.N.’s activities and Goldin’s own life.
The film is directed by documentary filmmaker/journalist Laura Poitras, whose 2014 film Citizenfour: The Snowden Revelations won many awards, including the 87th Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Her style, which follows an individual’s courageous fight against the injustices of the big powers, is always profoundly compelling, and in this film, she carefully captures the unwavering conviction of Nan Goldin, an artist and activist.
