All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

In selected cinemas now

Laura Poitras’ powerful documentary explores the extraordinary life of the photographer and activist Nan Goldin, renown for her work with LGBTQ communities and during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Goldin makes for a fascinating subject and interviewee, and Poitras’ structuring of the film into several distinct chapters provides viewers with a thorough career retrospective. Praise ought to go to the former for her candour, as All the Beauty and the Bloodshed touches on aspect of her life – specifically her older sister’s suicide and Goldin’s previous experiences as a sex worker – that she had not previously discussed at length.

However, the emotional power of the documentary comes from its coverage of Goldin’s efforts via the activist group Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (P.A.I.N.) to hold the now defunct Purdue Pharma and their billionaire founders the Sackler family accountable for the devastation caused by the opioid epidemic. Goldin, herself a recovering OxyContin addict, and P.A.I.N. specifically targeted leading art institutions that had previously been associated with the Sackler’s by staging a number of guerrilla-style protests aimed at raising awareness of the family’s complicity in the pain, suffering, and death of millions of people. Amazingly, theirs was a campaign that eventually led to many of those institutions choosing to sever all ties with the Sackler’s.    

Awarded the Golden Lion at the 79th Venice International Film Festival, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is a formidable film that prompts one to think about the vitality of photography not only as an art form, but a means of preserving one’s memories and chronicling crucial moments in history.