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It's impossible for me to be objective about All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. It's a documentary that details anthropological change, leans into acute evidence of how the impact of social conditioning via abuse and neglect impacts mental health and conflates with mental illness, addresses the stigma of addiction and the necessity of social justice for the opioid epidemic.. Plus the fusion of art and activism gives self-reflexive credence to the ethos that art can affect, even change lives. All of these touchstones and ideas are so personal to me, and, to boot, I had the pleasure (if you can possibly use that word to describe the tender surreality of the experience) of seeing this with my mother, who had a front row seat to her own traumas like Nan's upbringing with her sister, and was one of the "lucky" parents who didn't have to bury her kid like so many giving tragic testimonies here. It's a film that ventures the spectrum of heartbreaking to empowering and lives somewhere in between but feeling the raw magnetism of both extremes in the face of alienation and denial on micro and macro levels. I have my share of skepticisms with the manipulate element of the documentary as a medium but I've always admired Laura Poitras as an ideal documentarian, fearlessly confrontational but never autocratically intrusive.

If the film has a fault (and I think it does), it's that Poitras is mining so many diverse bodies of waters in under two hours, that several don't feel properly excavated to the extent they demand to be by both the sociopolitical attention and the collective emotion in the doc. In hindsight, this would function better as a miniseries along the lines of O.J.: Made in America, but maybe it'll become that in some form some day. But if the biggest problem is its confined succinctness, you sure do get your money's worth of authentically cutting material within those walls. Regardless of how closely you identify with this content, I think many if not most members here believe that artistic mediums can influence our lives in a very deep way, and this film is about that; and in brazenly, intelligently, and compassionately being about it, so doing it.

therewillbeblus wrote: Sat Oct 15, 2022 4:16 am It's impossible for me to be objective about All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. It's a documentary that details anthropological change, leans into acute evidence of how the impact of social conditioning via abuse and neglect impacts mental health and conflates with mental illness, addresses the stigma of addiction and the necessity of social justice for the opioid epidemic.. Plus the fusion of art and activism gives self-reflexive credence to the ethos that art can affect, even change lives.

For Boston-area residents: Tomorrow’s afternoon screening at the Coolidge will feature a Q&A with P.A.I.N. advocates

Fiery Angel wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 9:58 pm from today's NEON press release:
NEON’S SLATE OF AWARD WINNING FILMS TO JOIN THE CRITERION COLLECTION, INCLUDING ALICE DIOP’S SAINT OMER, LAURA POITRAS’S ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED, RUBEN ÖSTLUND’S TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, BRETT MORGEN’S MOONAGE DAYDREAM AND CELINE SCIAMA’S PETITE MAMAN

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed should be a stacked release. Nan and PAIN members are eager to talk about their work, and there’s so much important context with both the subject’s own art and the epidemic’s history that couldn’t fit into a two hour feature

Now that my hopes for Warhol films on the Velvet Underground doc release have been definitively dashed, I’m now going to pin my unrealizable desires on a version of Nan Goldin’s slideshow ‘The Ballad of Sexual Dependency’ on the disc.

At the Q&A I attended with Never Cursed in NY, Nan talked about a few film projects she’s working on, which I think includes a reworking of that already elastic text projected in some museum in Europe (I don’t recall specifics, sorry). If Criterion sleeps on this for a bit, I could see some of her recent/upcoming(?) film work being included since that’s where she seems to be setting her artistic ambitions at the moment

TK

Wonder why this got a mainline release instead of being part of the Janus Contemporaries line?

I believe it’s just because of the rights holder. I think Neon is involved?

yes, Criterion is giving mainline treatment to Neon/Amazon/Netflix/etc (and charging us accordingly), while Skolimowski, Panahi, etc make their Criterion debuts on bare bones JC discs. somewhat baffling!

The Janus Contemporaries line is mainly for getting the Sideshow-distributed titles out on disc as quickly as possible. There’s nothing to preclude a later full Criterion edition, but I wouldn’t count on it.

It looks like this and Saint Omer are the last of the 5 Neon titles announced in January. I wonder if they’ll continue this partnership. I’m sure they’d love to get their hands on Anatomy of a Fall, especially if it gets Oscar nominations.

Matt wrote: Fri Dec 15, 2023 5:41 pm It looks like this and Saint Omer are the last of the 5 Neon titles announced in January. I wonder if they’ll continue this partnership. I’m sure they’d love to get their hands on Anatomy of a Fall, especially if it gets Oscar nominations.

And Memoria, if that's ever allowed on US home video. Odd enough Titane and Crimes of the Future went elsewhere. (At least initially.)

I'm pretty sure that second NYFF convo with Nan is the one Never Cursed and I attended. It's a good one! I hope they cut my question from the Q&A though - it was not interpreted as intended

brundlefly wrote: Fri Dec 15, 2023 5:57 pm Odd enough Titane and Crimes of the Future went elsewhere. (At least initially.)

Both of those were released by Neon themselves via their Decal Releasing. I suspect that they, correctly, felt those two were much more marketable than this or Saint Omer and that is why they opted to license these to Criterion.