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Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures
Documentary - 2016
7.3
97%
75
Nude men in rubber suits, close-ups of erections, objects shoved in the most intimate of places—these are photographs taken by Robert Mapplethorpe, known by many as the most controversial photographer of the twentieth century. Openly gay, Mapplethorpe took images of male sex, nudity, and fetish to extremes that resulted in his work still being labelled by some as pornography masquerading as art. But less talked about are the more serene, yet striking portraits of flowers, sculptures, and perfectly framed human forms that are equally pioneering and powerful.

Details

Rated:
TV-MA
Runtime:
105 min
Release date:
16 Jun 2016
Country:
DE, US
Languages:
English
Budget:
$0
Revenue:
$0
Awards:
Nominated for 2 Primetime Emmys. Another 6 nominations.

Top Critics Reviews

fresh:
Though an undoubtedly fascinating journey into the artistic mind (and the 1970s and 80s New York City), Look at the Pictures never quite breaks free from the lionizing of Mapplethorpe and appeasing people who already defend him.
– Joe McGovern,
Entertainment Weekly,
1 Apr 2016
fresh:
Look at the Pictures mirrors what Mapplethorpe did with his own life and career: It uses the pictures to tell a version of Robert Mapplethorpe while leaving us with the nagging feeling that there was much more to him than met the eye.
– David Wiegand,
San Francisco Chronicle,
4 Apr 2016
rotten:
Each chapter of Mapplethorpe's biography - his Catholic boyhood in Queens, his renowned romances with Patti Smith and the collector Sam Wagstaff, his devotion to and aestheticizing of s/m - is given the same cursory treatment.
– Melissa Anderson,
Village Voice,
5 Apr 2016
fresh:
Look at the Pictures: It restores a sense of the forbidden to Mapplethorpe that's been lost in the years of worship.
– Hank Stuever,
Washington Post,
5 Apr 2016
fresh:
The thing you learn from this in-depth doc is how much of a trail he blazed.
– Cath Clarke,
Time Out,
19 Apr 2016
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