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Downtown 81
by Edo Bertoglio
USA 2000, 75′
Presented at Secret Florence 2018
Screenplay: Glenn O’Brien
Photography: John McNulty
Music: Vincent Gallo
Photography: John McNulty
Music: Vincent Gallo
Producer: Glenn O’Brien
Language: English
Language: English
A then-unknown Jean-Michel Basquiat plays himself, as well as the other characters in the movie. A nineteen-year-old artist hoping to make it, he walks the run-down streets of early 1980s New York. He is released from the hospital, discovers that he’s being evicted, meets up with drug dealers, collectors and women who promise love and money. The narrative is interspersed with documentary footage of the post-punk
music scene of the time, shot in famous underground hot-spots such as the Mudd Club and the Peppermint Lounge. The soundtrack includes songs by Basquiat himself with Andy Hernandez, DNA, Tuxedomoon, Plastics, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Vincent Gallo, Suicide. An answer to the young man’s sentimental and economic problems is supplied by a princess in the guise of a homeless man, played by Debbie Harry of Blondie. A kiss breaks the spell that binds them. “Boom boom for real!”, says Basquiat, after all his wishes come true.
Screenplay by Glenn O’Brien, director of the Andy Warhol’s magazine Interview, who also wrote for Artforum, and was musical producer and Basquiat’s friend.
Shot between December 1980 and January 1981, stalled by financial difficulties, the film has finally been released in 2000 at Cannes Film Festival produced by O’Brien himself. The audio original recording of the dialogue was lost; Basquiat’s voice was dubbed by actor Saul Williams. The soundtrack, for the most part recorded live with an RCA 24 mobile tracks unit, has been preserved.
Edo Bertoglio (Lugano, 1951) (Lugano, 1951) is a Swiss photographer and film director, become a naturalized citizen of Italy. After graduating in direction and editing at the “Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français” (Paris 1975), he moved to London and to New York in 1976, where he lived for fourteen years. He worked as a photographer for many Americans, Japanese, French and Italian magazines, specialized in fashion, art and costume. He regularly collaborated with the “Andy Warhol’s Interview” magazine from 1978 to 1982.
In 1981 he directed “Downtown 81”. The movie shows a typical day of the young artist Jean Michel Basquiat, at the time unknown, and gives a view of the active artistic community of New York. Finished in 1999 after some vicissitudes, it was chosen at the Cannes Festival in 2000 in the section “Quinzaine des Realisateurs”.
In 2005 he completed his second movie, “Face Addict” successfully presented at the 58° International Movie Festival of Locarno. It’s about the story of the artistic community of New York in the late seventies – early eighties, known as “Downtown Scene”, a journey into the discovery of New York 20 years later – through the protagonists of the musical and visual arts’ scene.
He’s currently producing and directing TV and cinema’s documentaries, as well as photographic projects.
In 1981 he directed “Downtown 81”. The movie shows a typical day of the young artist Jean Michel Basquiat, at the time unknown, and gives a view of the active artistic community of New York. Finished in 1999 after some vicissitudes, it was chosen at the Cannes Festival in 2000 in the section “Quinzaine des Realisateurs”.
In 2005 he completed his second movie, “Face Addict” successfully presented at the 58° International Movie Festival of Locarno. It’s about the story of the artistic community of New York in the late seventies – early eighties, known as “Downtown Scene”, a journey into the discovery of New York 20 years later – through the protagonists of the musical and visual arts’ scene.
He’s currently producing and directing TV and cinema’s documentaries, as well as photographic projects.