Robert Mapplethorpe: Trailer released for film on gay photographer’s life
A trailer has been released for the biopic on gay photographer Robert Mapplethorpe’s life.
American photographer Mapplethorpe was renowned for his photography on BDSM gay sub-culture in the the late 1960s and early 1970s in New York City.
Mapplethorpe’s photography sparked a national debate over the public funding of homoerotic artwork.
Mapplethorpe was also known for his work photographing male and female nudes, celebrities, self-portraits, and flowers.
Mapplethorpe renowned for covering homoerotic BDSM sub-culture in New York
The photographer had dated author Jack Fritscher and also had a 15 year relationship with Sam Wagstaff, an art curator.
Mapplethorpe and Wagstaff remained together until the art curator died from pneumonia caused by AIDS in 1987.
In 1989, Mapplethorpe passed away from AIDS-related complications.
The Mapplethorpe biopic, set to be released on March 1 in the USA, is directed by Ondi Timoner.
Watch the trailer below:
It will feature Doctor Who star Matt Smith as Mapplethorpe and Marianne Rendon as Patti Smith, who the gay photographer had a close friendship with.
Matt Smith to play Robert Mapplethorpe in biopic
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Smith said looking at Mapplethorpe’s life made him think about what it would be like to be gay in the 1970s in America.
“Just investigating that moment in time, it certainly made me reflect on being a homosexual in the ’70s in New York and the way they were treated for a disease that was completely misunderstood,” he told the publication.
“You think with what we know now about HIV and Aids, you think if only we could have imparted a bit of the medicinal knowledge and the cultural understanding of that thing.
“It was appalling really what happened to gay men then, and the way they were treated, and what they had to go through.
“It’s amazing how far we’ve come in being able to treat that particular disease. It absolutely made me think about that.
“He died so young and if he were around now, then he’d live out the whole of his life and still be a brilliant, prolific artist I’m sure.
“Because he was prolific. He just worked and worked and worked.”
