Beginning with his formative years as a Brooklyn transplant in Brownsville, Texas, Julian Schnabel: A Private Portrait chronicles the personal life and public career of the celebrated artist. The trajectory of the gregarious Schnabel’s meteoric rise to the apogee of the Neo-Expressionist movement began with his move to New York in the late 1970s.The film neatly captures the stages of his career as he moves from young art world upstart to superstar of the 1980s Manhattan art scene to his deft transition to filmmaking with lauded works like Basquiat, Before the Night Falls, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Writer/director Pappi Cosicato’s documentary is a kaleidoscopic blend of material from Schnabel’s personal archive of home movies and photographs alongside newly shot footage capturing the artist in studio and at home. Commentary from friends, family, curators, and artists including Al Pacino, Mary Boone, Jeff Koons, Vito Schnabel, and Willem Dafoe — not to mention the artist himself — completes a fascinating and complex image of one of modern art’s most boisterous and provocative figures.

—Jason Gutierrez

After the Premiere Screening: A conversation with director Pappi Corsicato and the film’s subject Julian Schnabel. Moderated by Laurie Anderson.