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But unless youre disturbed by pickle shots (in which case why are you watchingMapplethorpe?
), the movie is shock-free.
Rendon has big eyes and no trace of punk shes a Patti Smith without armpit hair.
But how do they see the world?
This is another rebel-artist movie in which the characters are defined by their attitudes rather than their ideas.
It hits its marks and breezes on.
Its not inept there are few bad scenes.
It doesnt risk enough to be bad.
But we dont feel the force of his Catholicism or anti-Catholicism in the images.
Where is that devil of which Mapplethorpe speaks?
(But was it reallythatfar out of the art mainstream in the mid-70s?)
Other scenes are meant to show Mapplethorpes gradual estrangement from humanity.
Er, what did he think he was?
Patti Smith drops out ofMapplethorpeearly, by the way.
Its as if the most defiantly cocksure photographer of the 20th century was a virtual capon.
