Documentary Review: 'All the Beauty and the Bloodshed'

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)

Directed by Laura Poitras

Written by Documentary

Starring Nan Goldin

Release Date November 23rd, 2022

Published December 21st, 2022

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is a powerful and haunting exploration of the work and life of a remarkable artist. The bold and brilliant Nan Goldin made her first impact on art culture in the 1980s with her sensational art piece, A Ballad of Sexual Dependency. That multimedia experience included explicit and deeply personal photographs depicting the many relationships in Goldin's circle, including brutally honest explorations of her own relationship. Though some told Nan Goldin that photographers don't photograph themselves or their own lives, she defied them and became a legend.

Defiance is a strong quality in Nan Goldin. Defying conventional, suburban expectations of her life was a hallmark of Goldin's childhood. Following the all too early death of her older sister, Nan Goldin defied her parents by continuing to ask questions about why her sister died so young. And, later in Goldin's life, she became defiant of the corporate art world by leading a protest against one of the corporations that funded many of the biggest and most well-known museums around the world.

The owners of Purdue Pharma, the Sackler Family, donated millions to museums around the world in order to slap their name onto wings of buildings and collections of famed art, including museums that were home to the work of Nan Goldin. Goldin however, never afraid to bite the hand that supposedly fed her, started a protest movement aimed specifically at getting the Sackler family name off of the walls of the world of art. Why? Because Nan Goldin was a rare survivor of the opioid crisis, one who came out the other side of her addiction with her voice intact.

Tens of thousands of people have died from overdose and illness related to the Sackler family's pharmaceutical products, Oxycontin and Fentanyl. Over the years, the callous and cold-hearted statements made by the Sackler family regarding their deadly products have come to light and Nan Goldin uses those statements as part of her art and protest movement called "PAIN." PAIN targeted what they call 'Toxic Philanthropy,' essentially the uber-rich who use philanthropy to cover up for their unethical, immoral and or illegal business practices.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed weaves the life of Nan Goldin in between scenes of Goldin staging massive protests at famous museums everywhere from Los Angeles, to New York, to London and beyond. The weaving together of these stories is a perfect mixture as Goldin's past brilliantly informs her present as her unconventional art and life travels a rugged path from Goldin's own addiction to Oxycontin that nearly took her life, to her time helping raise awareness of the AIDS crisis through her art, to today where her activism has been an essential part of finding what little accountability there has been regarding the opioid crisis.

Director Laura Poitras does a remarkable job of creating the context of Goldin's life, shedding light on the moments that came to define her, and breaking our hearts with some of the remarkable insights she uncovered regarding Goldin's incredible life. All of it works to honor Goldin, an underappreciated legend in the art world and a beloved leader in the world of modern activism where PAIN has become a guiding light for how to stand up to corporate greed.

The title, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, naturally has more than one meaning. It's a beautiful turn of phrase that makes for an eye-catching documentary title. But, that title also comes from a place of deep and personal pain for Nan Goldin. It relates to her late sister, one of a number of well explored inclusions in the story of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. You will need to see the documentary to see where the title comes in. PLEASE see this documentary for yourself.

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