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Empire of Pain

 Nan Goldin grew up in a suburb near Boston; her sister was gay, and thus she was institutionalized. (Yes, she was institutionalized!) The sister responded by placing her body in front of a commuter train; she was dead at the age of eighteen.


Nan overheard a report on the death, and then she overheard her own mother crafting a lie. ("We'll say this was an accident.") This was a formative moment; disgusted with the suburbs, disgusted with fear and hypocrisy, Nan seemed to choose a policy of truth-telling. She spent years in foster homes, and discovered the camera; it seems like photography kept her alive.

All this makes Nan such an interesting foil for the Sackler family. By taking on drug dealers, Nan understands that she is possibly sacrificing her career; powerful people like to protect other powerful people. It would be difficult to find an American fortune that has not grown out of oppression, destruction, monomania. If we're going to sniff around the Sacklers.....who might be next?

Goldin understands that she has to put pressure on certain Sackler-funded museums--because her name has currency in the art world. The call needs to come "from inside the house."

I like the documentary "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed" because it captures small moments. Clearly, Nan is formidable. When someone asks her how she feels about a certain museum display, she bluntly says, "I can't answer, because your body is blocking my view." (Is there a more tactful sentence available? Nan doesn't have time to wonder about this.)

Elsewhere, Nan thinks aloud about our carceral system. "Maybe America should abolish prisons," she jokes, "but the Sacklers should be locked up until that day. When the prisons disappear, the Sacklers should be the last--literally the last--to be freed."

There's also a nice moment at the Met--when security guards are lurking. Nan is standing among paintings from ancient Egypt. You can see her weighing her doubts--and there is an actual moment when she makes a decision. You watch the decision happening in her eyes. "Let's just start," she says. And she launches a protest that will become historic; it will be immortalized in the book "Empire of Pain," among other places.

It's so exciting when a smart director finds a subject that is worthy of her time.
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