When it comes to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, many friends should have heard of it.
Every year in early May, European and American celebrities gather here to attend the Met Gala, known as the "Spring Festival Gala in the fashion industry".
The full name is the Metropolitan Museum of Art Charity Ball in New York, which dates back to 1971.
The purpose of the evening is to celebrate the opening of exhibitions with different themes each year, and to raise donations for the museum.
On its donation list, in addition to European and American celebrities, there are also well-known large conglomerates, such as the Rockefeller family.
At the end of 2021, it also received its largest donation in history.
A Chinese-American couple, Tang Xiaoqian and Xu Xinmei, gave 125 million US dollars (about 860 million yuan).
However, the Metropolitan Museum does not refuse to give all its capital.
In 2019, it publicly stated that it would stop accepting donations from the Sackler family.
The Sacklers, one of the world's most powerful families, previously donated more than $200,000 to the Met.
That's not a small amount, so what made the Met avoid it ever since?
It's all about a strange woman.
Through her own efforts, her life has turned around more than 180 degrees from a stripper, a prostitute-girl to a world-famous celebrity artist.
It is also because of her that the shady behind this family's charitable donation, the biggest pharmaceutical scandal in the United States has been exposed.
This year's awards season's hit documentary "All Beauty and Blood and Tears" tells this story.
This documentary is not small.
At last year's Venice Film Festival, it won the Golden Lion Award, and this year it was nominated for an Oscar.
The domestic audience also has a good evaluation of the film, with a Douban score of 8.0.
Its related events were adapted into a high-scoring American drama as early as two years ago, Douban's 9.4 points "Addiction Dose".
Now, let's take a look at what kind of scandal has attracted so much attention.
01
The story begins with a protest in New York in 2018.
In the shot, a group of people gather together, divide the yellow medicine bottles in the bag, and carry them into their respective pockets.
Someone asked, is the time almost 4:15?
It seems that a big operation is being planned.
It wasn't long before they all showed up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The yellow medicine bottles that were originally in my pocket were forcefully thrown into the pool in the museum.
After a while, there were many medicine bottles floating on the surface of the water, densely packed.
The group threw and chanted:
"The temple of death, the bronze smelly pavilion, the greedy tower, the temple of painkillers,
Sackler lied and killed thousands of people!
Sackler knew that their pills were killing people..."
It is clear that this is an organized and planned protest action.
People who came to visit the museum stopped to eat melons, and the scene became more chaotic.
The security guards quickly rushed to control the situation and took away the banners from the group.
And they seemed to have expected it for a long time, not only did not resist, but applauded.
It turned out that they had already planned the next step.
The protesters lay on the ground in various positions, directly relying on the walk.
When not speaking, looking at the past from afar, it is like a cold corpse.
The protests have reached such an extent that the security guards have disappeared.
The protest, which took place at the Metropolitan Museum, ended in an initial victory for the group.
The "leader" of action is the hero of this documentary, Nan Golding.
South Golding is a social activist and a well-known photographer.
Many people may not know her name, but have seen some films that have been influenced by her work.
For example, Wong Kar-wai's "Spring Light".
Art director Zhang Shuping and photographer Du Kefeng mentioned Nan Golding's name in previous interviews.
And the reason why she confronted the powerful was not because she was also a victim, but because she was uncomfortable with the Sackler family's use of the patient's illness as a tool to earn black money.
Angry about this, she decided to use her fame to speak up for the victims and expose the exploitation and oppression of the victims by the capitalists.
02
However, few people know that Nan Golding, who has always been keen to speak up for the underprivileged, had a tragic childhood.
Nan was born in 1953, the second eldest in the family, and has an older sister on top.
The sisters have had a good relationship since childhood, and they talk about everything, and for Nan, her sister is her first enlightenment teacher.
They live in an era of sexual repression.
The older sister, who had feelings for girls, was regarded as an outlier in that era, and was sent by Nam's parents to various mental institutions for psychotherapy.
When Minami was 11 years old, her depressed sister committed suicide by lying on the rails.
The death of her sister devastated her, and for 6 months, she did not speak.
What Ling Nan didn't expect was that misfortune would soon come to her turn.
A psychiatrist told Nam's father that if he didn't send her away, he would repeat his sister's mistakes.
So, Nan was sent to foster care by her parents.
As a teenager, she has been in different foster homes and has seen through all the warmth and coldness.
Coupled with social fear, Nan almost cut off communication with the outside world.
At that time, photography was her only hobby, allowing her to overcome her fear to express her ideas.
In addition, her friend David is also the driving force for her to come out.
David is a year younger than Nan, and the two know each other in a strange way, meeting them while stealing something from a store.
Originally, they each stole their own, but later bumped into a place selling steak.
By chance, the two became friends.
David was humorous and wise, helping Nan relieve his distress and no longer be silent.
He has an elegant temperament and looks indistinguishable, which fascinates Nan deeply.
However, because of David's sexual orientation, the two are just friends.
Later, Nan followed David to many places, there were speakeasys, there were gay neighborhoods.
Every time she arrives in a new place, she gets excited, using her camera to capture the strangers and landscapes she meets.
She always wanted the people in the photo to be proud to appear in her work.
It was also at that time, while studying photography at art school, that she had the idea of having her friends on the cover of Vogue magazine.
However, with her ability at the time, achieving this goal was tantamount to wishful thinking.
However, Nan Golding never gave up.
03
Nan came to New York to develop, and in order to make a living and buy film, he did a lot of work, including the meat business.
She worked as a stripper, and unlike her best friends, she took a bus to New Jersey to dance.
Because you need to be shirtless in New York, not in New Jersey.
Later, she also sold her body.
It was only with the help of a female bar owner that he got out of the sea of suffering and gradually became the operator of the bar.
The experience pained Nan and never talked about it.
It wasn't made public until the documentary was made because she felt that women engaged in sex work were stigmatized.
While struggling to make a living, Minami was always looking for opportunities for his photographs to be seen.
1979 was an important year for her.
This year, she finally met Bó Lè, and a curator was willing to exhibit her photographic works.
To bring a box of photos to the gallery, she even made a deal with the taxi driver for an invisible person.
In this regard, she did not shy away from this, confessing that she entered the art world at the cost of selling her physical services.
At the time, Nan's work seemed to be very unpopular in mainstream art circles.
"Female artists also want to excel, it's delusional."
"What kind of photography is this, who will photograph their own life!"
A series of critical and mocking voices poured in, making her physically and mentally tormented, and felt that the art world was rotten.
Just then, she met a man named Brian.
The two soon began dating, and the relationship lasted three or four years.
When she first fell in love, Brian was gentle with her, and Nan felt that she had met the right person.
Unexpectedly, later, the two began to quarrel constantly and break up.
After the breakup, Brian, who saw Nan dating the girl, became angry and beat her.
Nan's eye bones were broken, and he nearly lost his sight.
She photographed herself suffering domestic violence to remind her not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Not only that, but she also showed these photos.
Many women who have had the same experience have been inspired and have the courage to speak out about the harm they have suffered.
Since then, speaking up for the people at the bottom has become a cause for which Nan fights.
She has held exhibitions on AIDS and resisted black-hearted capitalists like the Sacklers.
04
In 2014, Nan used painkillers for an operation.
The painkiller prescribed by the doctor is the famous OxyContin.
OxyContin is produced by Purdue Pharmaceuticals and was very popular in the United States in the 90s.
Although this medicine lasts for about 12 hours, it can be addictive.
After many patients become addicted, they can only be forced to increase the dose, and eventually develop to the point that it is difficult to quit.
Minami also suffered, increasing from 3 tablets a day to 18 tablets a day.
This "opium" has made countless people's lives out of control, or depressed, or criminal, or even to death.
One of his mother's sons died of a drug overdose, and it was OxyContin who killed him.
Countless parents and families, like her, have experienced the premature death of their children.
This is the biggest medical scandal of the century, with more than 500,000 people dying as a result, which is absurd.
Purdue Pharmaceutical, behind it is the wealthy aristocracy of the United States, the Sackler family.
The family can have such a prominent position and great wealth, and its dirty secret is through the sale of addictive drugs.
They developed a set of ways to sell to doctors, hyped their painkillers, and formed a huge gray industry chain.
It is not easy to get this capitalist to pay for the abuse of OxyContin.
Nan became the butterfly that flapped its wings but caused a tsunami.
After undergoing alternative drug addiction, she successfully kicked her addiction.
After this, an organization called "Pain" was also established.
The members of the group, mostly victims of OxyContin, as well as the victims' families.
In addition to helping more patients with drug addiction out of their predicament, there is also the fight against the Sackler family.
The Sackler family was first developed by three brothers.
Arthur is a well-known collector, and his collection is displayed in museums and galleries around the world.
The bloodstained money was laundered through the Salek family's funding of museums and exhibition halls.
So, there is the scene at the beginning of the documentary.
Nan led members of the Pain group in protesting at the Metropolitan Museum.
Their protests began with the charity of the Sackler family.
They want the museums to reject the Sackler family's donation and remove the Sackler family's name.
Minami also has such determination.
At the risk of being removed from the art world and assassinated by the Sackler family, she resolutely resisted and held accountable.
Another reason for choosing the museum is also because her work is in the permanent collection there, and the voice of insiders will be more powerful.
As it turns out, it is.
In March 2019, the National Portrait Gallery wanted to exhibit South's work, and the museum was also donated by the Sackler family.
Nan made a condition that she agree to exhibit her work if they refused the Sackler family's $1.3 million donation.
Unexpectedly, the National Portrait Gallery really refused, which is also the first art institution to refuse the Sackler family's financial donation.
Subsequently, more and more museums and galleries joined the ranks.
Among them, many well-known museums, such as the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, have refused and removed from the list.
After the shady medical treatment in the United States that operated by capital and killed at the bottom was picked up, the Sackler family was fiercely attacked by public opinion and became the target of public condemnation.
In order to avoid nearly 3,000 civil lawsuits, Purdue Pharma directly filed for bankruptcy.
In order to avoid legal prosecution, the chaebol Sackler family directly chose to settle and pay $6 billion in exchange.
The compensation is just a drop in the bucket, and overdoses in the United States have cost more than $1 trillion.
Although the Sackler family eventually withdrew and was not held accountable, their true colors have been clearly seen.
Even if they want to use philanthropy to whitewash their name, they can't save their image in the public's mind.
Today, the "Pain" organization led by Nan is still helping drug addiction victims out of their predicament.
Overall, "All the Beauty and Blood and Tears" cleans up this incident and is a documentary worth watching.
Although the documentary is not very technical, the story it tells is shocking and inspiring.
One of the most interesting quotes in the documentary comes from Nan Golding.
She said to the camera:
"It's easy to turn life into a story, the hard thing is to maintain the most authentic memories, and the difference between a story and a real memory is that the real experience is dirty with taste, and it is not wrapped in a bland period."
Although she knows that there is a disgraceful side to her life, she still bravely stands up and speaks up for the marginalized and vulnerable.
With such a strong heart and light in her eyes, she is worthy of respect for playing a bad hand beautifully.
Bluestone Movies | Mei Liqing
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