Digital Video magazine — May 2016
Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures Follows the Photographer’s Gaze

Airing on HBO on April 4, Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, the documentary feature from directors Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato (Party Monster, Inside Deep Throat), debuts in conjunction with simultaneous retrospectives at The Getty Museum and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Look at the Pictures follows Mapplethorpe’s early beginnings as a young artist in New York City through his meteoric rise in the art world to his untimely death in 1989 at the age of 42. His death, from HIV/AIDS, occurred just months before the National Endowment for the Arts exploded into controversy fueled by his work, and the film’s title comes from a speech delivered that same year by Senator Jesse Helms denouncing Mapplethorpe’s art, which pushed boundaries with frank depictions of nudity, sexuality and fetishism, igniting a culture war that continues to this day.

With complete and unprecedented access to The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, the film draws upon archival materials and features never-before-seen photographs and footage — including rediscovered audio interviews with the artist himself — with intimate revelations from nearly 50 family members, friends and partners. The film, which had its premiere at Sundance, also offers viewers long looks at Mapplethorpe’s most controversial imagery, including what could be arguably called his most confrontational photograph, “Self Portrait with Whip.”

Editor Langdon F. Page and co-editor Francy Kachler used Avid Media Composer to assemble the documentary feature. “It’s like returning to an old friend,” Page says of revisiting Avid workflows after using Apple Final Cut Pro 7 for several years. “The interface works as well as it always has, but it’s able to carry the weight of new codecs and all the new technologies.” (Read full story…)