November 27, 2022 – This documentary combines a personal journey of tragedy and triumph, artistic achievement and activism, centered on photographer, author and activist Nan Goldin.

Growing up in the Boston area, Goldin long ago embarked on a journey of rebellion against societal norms, a bohemian lifestyle combined with artistic and sexual experimentation, but at the center of it all is the suicide of her sister, Barbara, who died at the age of 18 in 1965. Nan was only 11 years old at the time.

Nan Goldin says in the film that Barbara was the first to rebel against her parents, and for that, she was institutionalized. Nan said Barbara showed her the way to break free from the buttoned-down conformity and repression of her parents. Within a few years after Barbara's death, Nan left home as a teenage minor and quickly found photography as a way to deal with her grief and anger.

Nan fell into a bohemian lifestyle in Boston, with friends in the underground transgender and gay community. Her best friend at the time was photographer David Armstrong, who started exhibiting his photos in 1977. Nan says in the film that David did not even realize he was gay until she asked him if he was gay.

Nan's first solo photographic exhibition, centered on the Boston transgender and gay communities, was in 1973. In the film, she takes boxes of her photos to different galleries, and nobody had ever seen anything like them before. Most photos of gay and transgender people had shown them as oddities or freaks. Nan's photos celebrated the gay and transgender people and in them she showed their beauty and joy. A number of her photographs are overtly sexual.

Nan had sexual relationships with both men and women. One of the most volatile relationships was with a man identified only as Brian. He finally beat her badly, ending their relationship. She photographed her own battered face. Nan and Brian are included in her most famous exhibit, a slide show called, “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.”

Later, during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, Nan became an activist, trying to get the U.S. government to fund research into AIDS treatments. In 1989-90, Nan curated “Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing” which documents the fight against AIDS by those directly affected by it. A considerable part of the documentary is devoted to her friends who died in the epidemic, including Cookie Mueller, David Armstrong and David Wojnarowicz. The film is dedicated to the memory of fellow filmmaker and film executive Diane Weyermann and it includes a lengthy memoriam listing as well.

Later, Nan would take the lessons from the influential ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) campaign in her battle against the makers of Oxycontin. After being addicted to Oxycontin and nearly dying from fentanyl, Nan was one of the founders of P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now).

The film shows video of several P.A.I.N. demonstrations at museums protesting the Sackler family that owned Purdue Pharma, makers of Oxycontin. The Sackler family was very influential in the world of art, donating works of art and large sums of money to museums and art galleries all over the world.

P.A.I.N. targeted the Sacklers, and the museums and other institutions that accepted money from them. In one demonstration, they threw Oxycontin pill containers into a reflecting pool and posed as dead people around the pool. In another, they dropped phony money printed to show the Sackler's connections to the museum.

The protests eventually resulted in a number of museums, galleries and universities disassociating themselves from the Sackler name and no longer accepting donations from the Sacklers, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the British Museum and Serpintine Gallery.

Although over half a million deaths resulted from addiction to Oxycontin. This highly addictive pain medication was marketed as non-addictive, but the Sacklers faced no criminal penalties. The family withdrew some $10 billion from Purdue Pharma before the company declared bankruptcy. A bankruptcy court ordered the family to pay $6 billion. In return, the family is to be shielded from future civil liability, and perhaps future debt as well.

In bankruptcy court testimony shown in the film, Nan argues that the Sackler family should face criminal prosecution. Nan clearly feels that the Sacklers got off way too easy. She also argues that some of the bankruptcy settlement money should go towards the organizations that are working to save the lives of people addicted to Oxycontin.

Director Laura Poitras (“Citizenfour”) successfully combines Nan's personal, professional and activist lives together in a compelling narrative, weaving together film interviews, photos and archival footage into a single package. It is a sobering look at tragedy and injustice, and those who fight back against mass indifference and try to bring about change. This film rates a B+.

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Copyright © 2022 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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