All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

It is Goldin’s courage and determination that make her an effective activist, and her empathetic eye that makes her a great artist.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed lives up to its promise. It’s a brilliant, compelling, confronting examination of Goldin’s work through the years.

A tremendous documentary, a striking piece of work that is so tender yet biting.

What becomes clear from the film, which vividly details the cultural backdrop as well as Goldin’s work, is that fear has never been part of Goldin’s vocabulary, either creatively or personally.

The wonder is how the different aspects of the project — biography, elegy, contemporary journalism — dovetail so seamlessly.

Whatever one’s familiarity with this searing chronicler of lives on the margins, the film is riveting and essential.

Artist Nan Goldin’s activism in holding the Sackler family accountable for the opioid crisis is seen as a natural extension of her rebellious, freely lived and proudly messy life in Laura Poitras’ well-structured, powerful documentary.

A personal view of a mass disaster. [Full review in Spanish]

If Goldin (or her work) doesn’t appeal to you, well, a good deal of this movie won’t either. Then again, if her style of activist/artist hits a sweet spot, then All the Beauty and the Bloodshed may strike you as both eye opening and admirably outraged.

The documentary is the great American story of the outsiders coming in and rising up.