Basquiat (1996)

Jeffrey Wright: Jean Michel Basquiat

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Basquiat : He says he's jealous of the moon, because you look at it. He's jealous of the sun, because it warms you. He says, "I feel you, even when I'm not feeling you. I talk to you when I'm not talking to you. I love you, even when I'm not loving you."... you know I love you, Gina.

• Basquiat : Ah, piss paint!

  Andy Warhol : Not piss paint, Jean, oxidation art!

  Basquiat : Ya, I hate cleaning brushes too.

• Rene : What's your name?

  Basquiat : Jean-Michel Basquiat.

  Rene : Oh my God, you sound famous already!

• [first lines] 

  Rene : Everybody wants to get on the Van Gogh boat. There's no trip so horrible that someone won't take it. The idea of the unrecognised genius slaving away in a garret is a deliciously foolish one. We must credit the life of Vincent Van Gogh for really sending this myth into orbit. I mean, how many pictures did he sell, one? He couldn't give them away. He has to be the most modern artist, but everybody hated him. He was so ashamed of his life that the rest of our history will be contribution to Van Gogh's neglect. No one wants to be part of a generation that ignores another like Van Gogh. In this town, one is at the mercy of the recognition factor. One's public appearance is absolute. Part of the artist's job is to get the work where I will see it. I consider myself a metaphor on the public.

  Basquiat : [scrawls onto a pillar]  PAY FOR SOUP BUILD A PORT SET THAT ON FIRE -SAMO

• Basquiat : I gotta get out of New York...

  Andy Warhol : Hey, we could go to Pittsburgh! I kinda grew up there. They have this room with all the world's famous statues in it, so you don't even have to go to Europe any more... just go to Pittsburgh.

• Basquiat : Hey Bennie, man, how long you think it takes to get famous?

  Benny Dalmau : For a musician or a painter?

  Basquiat : Whatever, famous.

  Benny Dalmau : Four years. Six to get rich. First you're gonna have to dress right, you know. Then you're gonna have to hang out with famous people, you know. Make friends with the right blonde people. Go to the right parties, yeah? Social life. Then you gotta do your work all the time, and you're not doing that. But I'm talking about the same kind of work, the same style, so people recognize you and don't get confused, you know? Then once you're famous, airborn, you know, you gotta KEEP doing it in the same way even after it's boring, unless you want people to get mad at you. Which they will anyway.

• [last lines] 

  Basquiat : Benny, fuck Hawaii. Let's go to Ireland. We'll stop in every bar and have a drink.

• Big Pink : Oh! How can I ever thank you?

  Basquiat : Can I squeeze your titties?

• Basquiat : Duck-man! Can I get two ducks, man?

• Cynthia Kruger : I just don't know if I can live with the green.

  Basquiat : You want me to make it a nice shit brown?

  Tom Kruger : I beg your pardon. Nobody makes fun of my wife but me.

• Basquiat : How long does it take to get famous?

  Benny Dalmau : Four years. Six to get rich.

• Basquiat : You check everyone's money or just mine?

  Counterman at Deli : Just yours.

• Basquiat : Whoa! Warhol!

  Benny Dalmau : That's Andy Warhol...

  [pause] 

  Benny Dalmau : He's a fuckin' homo.