‘All The Beauty And All The Bloodshed’ Director Laura Poitras On Telling Layered Story of Nan Goldin And Her Quest To Expose The Sackler Family
30.12.2022 - 21:15
/ deadline.com
Individuals confronting the might of powerful institutions. That thematic focus unites much of the work of documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras.
The Oath, from 2010, revolved around two men — one Yemeni, the other Saudi — entangled in the Bush administration’s war on terror. The 2015 Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour centered on cyber intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who exposed top-secret details of the NSA’s global surveillance program. Poitras returns to the Oscar race this year with All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, her film about artist Nan Goldin, who confronted the powerful Sackler family, billionaire owners of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma.
Goldin became addicted to Purdue’s signature drug and later founded the organization PAIN to shame museums into cutting ties with the Sacklers, who burnished their name by donating handsomely to major art institutions.
DEADLINE: When did you first become familiar with Nan Goldin and how did the documentary come about?
LAURA POITRAS: I encountered Nan’s work when I was in film school. I encountered The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, first as a book, and then I saw it being projected [as a slideshow]. I was really inspired by what she was doing in terms of cinematic language and in terms of framing, of mise en scène and using slideshows as a narrative device, just really groundbreaking. So, I knew her work in that way, but I didn’t know her personally.
We met first when I was releasing Citizenfour — I was traveling with it, we happened to be at the same festival. And then fast-forward to 2019 where we met again, and this is how this current film came about. She told me she had been documenting the work of PAIN, her organization confronting the Sacklers, and I was just