Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe

United States, Germany

2007

76 Min

Color, Black and White

1.33:1

English

Currently 4.2/5 Stars.
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EXEC Stanley F. Buchthal, Maja Hoffmann, David Koh

DP Christopher Felver, Harry Geller, David Koh, Eric Koziol, Paul Lundahl

CAST Sam Wagstaff, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pierre Apraxine, Dick Cavett, Dominick Dunne, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Ingrid Sischy, Patti Smith, Truman Capote, Henry Geldzahler, Joan Juliet Buck, Eugenia Parry, Jeffrey Fraenkel, Clark Worswick, Ralph Gibson, Holly Solomon, Jean-Jacques Naudet, Agnes Martin, Richard Tuttle, Tony Smith, John Szarkowski, Philippe Garner, Raymond Foye, Tukey Koffend, Paul Walter, John Richardson

A look at the life and contribution of Sam Wagstaff (1921-1987), curator, trend-setter, collector of photographs, and lover and guide to Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), told chronologically with archival footage, photographs, and contemporary interviews. Wagstaff is upper class, handsome, and gay, reinventing himself after World War II as a curator, with extraordinary success. By the 1970s, he’s friends with Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, his mother has left him a fortune, and he’s collecting old photographs by the score. Many who comment discuss his largely forgotten contribution to art – the discovery of photography. The film sets the record straight. –IMDb