"LOOKING AT THE PICTURES ritualistically takes a portrait of every interviewee as a homage to Mapplethorpe's stock in trade. Former lovers, family members, various collaborators and associates, including a sharp-tongued Fran Lebowitz, purvey their own insights and anecdotes about Mapplethorpe and his art, with one glaring missing input from Patti Smith, Robert's former girlfriend, although they remained friends until his passing, their intimate cohabitation during their salad days (from 1967 to 1972) is only alluded to through their common friend Sandy Daley, for one thing, how Robert discovered his sexuality is regrettably untapped. Thankfully, most of the interviewees are relatively forthcoming, and through their vivid accounts and recollections, audience feels capable of drawing a general picture of Mapplethorpe the artist, a driven, ambitious, self-centered, polyamorous go-getter and provocateur with an uncanny facility with the camera, achieving his American dream through his épater-les-bourgeois bravura, only too wrenching to find out that mortality sneaks up on him far sooner than usual, just when his star begins to rise."
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