The trailer for Robert Mapplethorpe biopic has been released – Watch
The prolific photographer died due to complications with Aids back in 1989
By Steve Brown
The trailer for the new biopic about gay photographer Robert Mapplethorpe has been released.
Mapplethorpe was an American photographer whose work featured a number of subjects including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-portraits and flowers.
But his most controversial work is that of the homoerotic BDSM subculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Throughout his life and career, Mapplethorpe had a relationship with author Jack Fritscher and his 15 year relationship with art curator Sam Wagstaff.
The couple remained together until Wagstaff’s death from pneumonia arising from Aids in 1987.
Two years later, Mapplethorpe died at the age of 42 due to complications from the virus.
Directed by Ondi Timoner, the biopic titled Mapplethorpe stars Matt Smith as the prolific photographer alongside Marianne Rendon as Patti Smith and John Benjamin Hickey, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Kerry Butler.
While speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Smith said investigating Mapplethorpe made him reflect on being gay in 1970s and during the Aids epidemic.
He said: “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.
“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.”
Watch the trailer below: