Downtown '81 (2001)

Directed by

Edo Bertoglio

Genre

documentary film, drama film, biographical film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 15m

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 31 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young artist named Jean Michel Basquiat wanders around New York City in the early 1980s. He encounters musicians and artists in the downtown scene. The film follows his attempts to sell a painting and find his place in the neighborhood.

nostalgicgrittyrawlo-fiatmosphericquirkyundergroundurban

What happens

Downtown 81 is a 2000 American film shot in 1980–1981. The film was directed by Edo Bertoglio and written and produced by Glenn O'Brien and Patrick Montgomery, with post-production in 1999-2000 by Glenn O'Brien and Maripol. It is a rare real-life snapshot of an ultra-hip subculture of post-punk era Manhattan. Starring renowned artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and featuring such East Village artists as James Chance, Amos Poe, Walter Steding, Tav Falco and Elliott Murphy, the film is a bizarre elliptical urban fairy tale. In 1999, Michael Zilkha, founder of ZE Records (the label of several of the film's artists), became the film's executive producer. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (2017)
• The Collaboration
• Basquiat (1996)
• Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child (2010)
• Basquiat: Rage to Riches
• A Conversation with Basquiat (2006)
• Baraka (1992)
• Mulholland Drive (2001)