From the Chicago Reader:
Mapplethorpe may have gotten all the headlines, but the real center of this video documentary is Samuel Wagstaff Jr., the wealthy art curator and collector who became the photographer’s longtime lover and sugar daddy. Given Wagstaff’s relative obscurity and the close relationship between the two men, writer-director James Crump may have felt pressured to frame this as a twin portrait. Yet the flashy, Vanity Fair-style treatment of their public lives, which necessarily culminates in Mapplethorpe’s notorious shows, isn’t nearly as interesting as the aesthetic focus on Wagstaff’s eclectic tastes. With Patti Smith and Dominick Dunne.–J.R. Jones
In Chicago, This movie is currently playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center
Filed under: queer film | Tagged: documentary, robert mapplethorpe
