As of 2023, Laura Poitras has directed two of my favorite documentaries. While I love Citizenfour (2014) for its minimalist fly-on-the-wall look at Edward Snowden, there is something even greater in All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022). If viewed from a distance, it’s hard to know what I mean as it’s a more conventionally designed work that mixes archival footage with current events and talking heads. However, that’s to not understand what I am looking for in this medium. Whereas I look at narrative films for escapism, there is something specific and real about documentaries that will make me latch onto them and want to revisit them.
The most obvious thing is I want an interesting perspective. Tell me about a person or event who is worthy of my time. Allow me to see what they contribute to the world that is deserving of two hours. For me, there is something a bit selfish regarding the stories I want to spend time with. There is a need to “feel good,” though not in the trivial pop-doc way that usually wins over crowds. I want something realer. I don’t want an underdog story where one person climbs out of a struggle. What I want is a story that reflects a community coming together to overcome a problem. Maybe it's a byproduct of living in America for the past decade, but a sense of unity helps restore some faith.
Of the documentaries I’ve seen in the past five years, no story has endeared itself to me as much as Nan Goldin’s. She’s an activist whose journey has covered several decades and reflected another thing that I feel is essential. Through her art, she preserved the stories and lives of the queer community during a pivotal time. With the rise of the AIDS crisis, an alarming amount of young people were dying. Not only that, but society ostracized them, blaming heathenism and “the gay disease” while President Reagan failed to immediately acknowledge the problem. Maybe it helps that I saw How to Survive a Plague (2012) and had an emotionally overwhelming response in my Mid-20s. Knowing how dark this period was, especially before it became treatable, I’m aware of how many perspectives were lost to AIDS, and even then, I’m probably way off.
Maybe it’s why I’m precious about the idea of preservation. In the modern age when Florida has been pushing “Don’t Say Gay” for almost half a decade, there’s another wave of erasure in the works. It’s true that the internet means we’re more connected than ever before. There are more ways for the average person to document their experience, and I’m enthused by the community built around certain causes. I feel like we’re stronger now, or at least more knowingly. I can’t imagine how much more isolating it was to grow up queer in Reagan’s America during a time when you only had each other. Your lives were invalidated, and any accomplishments were removed from the records. Speaking as California suffered a months-long protest from school boards wanting to remove Harvey Milk’s name from textbooks, it doesn’t feel as far removed as I’d like to believe. Orange County isn’t flying pride flags in front of municipalities. Wasn’t this state supposed to be the liberal mecca?
This may be why I’m less interested in queer identity as a modern idea and more in connecting the dots backward. To me, it’s important to know that the conversation isn’t new. There is a need to recognize that being gay isn’t a “fad” and that it’s centuries old. There’s the story of endurance in the face of a society that hasn’t always been tolerant. Those moments of triumph scattered throughout give me hope, and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is maybe one of the most hopeful documentaries I’ve seen.
The fact that Goldin’s story didn’t end in the late 80s is the first sigh of relief I get watching this. While the current timeline isn’t specifically a queer struggle, the parallels are impossible to ignore. As most are aware, there is an opioid crisis in The United States right now. Goldin is going straight to the source, demanding that The Sackler Family and Purdue Pharma be held accountable for their contributions. In a very symbolic way, Goldin demands that their name be removed from art galleries like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. During this time, Poitras documents the various protests and discusses the medical history of how the modern opioid epidemic is like what she experienced during the AIDS crisis.
It is true that they’re theoretically targeting different groups. However, Poitras perfectly reflects how their outcomes will have the same cultural impact. The loss of any life is tragic, and watching industries carelessly ignore the public leads to harmful outcomes. There is a need to hold them accountable. Much like in the 80s and 90s, Goldin is there trying to raise awareness. There is a sense that she cares deeply not only about those directly in her life but for larger humanity. As someone aware of the toil of fatalities, she is aware of the emptiness that it can bring. Many have lost people already to opioids, and the design of the documentary suggests that this is history threatening to repeat itself.
As far as autobiographical works go, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed does a fantastic job of filling in the gaps of why Goldin would want to share these stories in the first place. For as dark as the greater subject may seem, there is hope infused that allows these lives to seem meaningful.
In her youth, Goldin connected with the queer community and discovered a world that was welcoming. It encouraged self-expression and not being ashamed to be yourself. While this came at the cost of economic disparity and occasional discrimination, there was a sense that everyone was stronger together. No matter what tragedies befell them, they could come back together and find a kind voice to listen. There are several subjects that Poitras focuses on throughout, and each one provides the nuance I love seeing. Given that most of them have died, efforts to make them more than a tragedy or statistic are powerful. Often all it takes is a silent video clip to feel the weight of their aura. Photographs of random nights in apartments are so jubilant that you remember why any of this matters. The protests are tributes to a life unlived. If Goldin could stop another person from dying, then maybe they could share their own stories next time.
The more that I think about the 1980s and 1990s, especially for the queer community, there is the reality that those are whole generations who never got to grow old. As they faced an unfathomable crisis, they lost stories but also a chance to mentor and encourage the next generation to be louder and prouder. I’m aware that even as a Millennial, we grew up in a more stigmatized time than Gen-Z and thus I don’t know that we got entirely there. As evident by my screenwriting teacher in college, some elders are willing to share their experiences. If anything, it allowed me to be more open-minded.
Still, I look to history hoping to find voices that provide clues on what it meant to live throughout the past 30 years that I’ve been alive. As a result, I’ve been watching Cheryl Dunye shorts and Derek Jarman movies. I’ve been looking for anything that covers this time and finds a meaningful celebration of life. What I love about Dunye’s work especially is how candid she is without resorting to “bury your gays” tropes. She’s mostly talking about the awkwardness of lesbian dating and it’s very funny. It’s a reminder that the queer community are humans with the same wants and needs as anyone else.
That is the larger point of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. It’s about preserving lives through art. In one way, it’s Poitras doing that for Goldin’s current endeavors. However, it’s also Goldin getting her friends and family to have accessible documentation that will hopefully connect with viewers. To me, the greater message beyond everything else here is that art has the power to immortalize. It’s a form of expression that has defined humanity for millennia, allowing each century to be connected through their own forms of expression. As much as legislature and wars say something just as meaningful, I think it’s the literature and portraits that say something just as meaningful. It’s more interpretive, able to hide clues and reveal truths that aren’t easy to notice. As I’ve noticed with my recent dives into 19th-century literature, the prose may be different but the emotional drives between what Leo Tolstoy was saying, and people today are not as different as you’d think. The trick is simply being honest enough to reveal greater universal truths.
The great news is that Goldin’s recent work has produced some positive results. The documentary ends with Sackler’s name being removed from a wing of a museum. It’s the start of dominoes falling and hopefully, justice will begin being served. It’s the awareness that it’s too late to stop what has happened, but it’s not too late to make a change. If the world can learn from the past, it can grow into something better. One can hope that nobody has to lose their life from a greater power’s negligence. Beyond that, it’s an awareness of the fragility of life and the need to embrace and love each other while we can. Essences should be captured. Stories should be scribed. The future deserves to know you existed.
I think it becomes clear how necessary it is in a year that had an overabundance of hate crimes against The LGBTQIA+ Community. Legislation continues to get worse. Children and teens must testify for their rights. The transgender community is facing genocide with some of the most hateful rhetoric imaginable. Elsewhere, I think of the headline-grabbing deaths of the slain queer ally Laura Ann Carleton, the suicide of Mayor Bubba Copeland, and 16-year-old Brianna Ghey. Even those I forgot to mention, those stories are heartbreaking and make you feel weary. How do you find any energy to move ahead in the world?
But I think it speaks to why All the Beauty and the Bloodshed resonates beyond its commentary on AIDs and opioid addiction. There’s no doubt that darkness exists everywhere right now, but what are we doing to make the world a better place? For Goldin, it’s raising awareness for causes deserving of it. There’s an effort to not let these stories be forgotten. They’re painful and damning examples of greater societal issues, but ignoring them won’t solve them. Removing Milk’s name from textbooks seeks to remove his cultural significance. In another time, Ghey’s death might’ve been a small article in the back of a newspaper. Maybe these problems have always existed, but the internet has made it easier to find people who always cared.
I hope that I have conveyed why this documentary is one of the greatest things I have seen in 2023. It’s as much about the greater theme of communities working together as it is about preservation through art and fighting for a greater future. It’s the hope we need to move forward and make a difference. Will we be grateful for those who sacrifice everything for us? I want to believe that I am. If nothing else, this is the hopeful message that I needed this year. No matter what happens, especially as 2024 is an election year that can potentially implode America’s dignity altogether, some remain optimists less because they’re naïve but because they notice the pain in the world and desire to heal it.
I hope 2024 is a good one. It needs to be after a year like this.
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