Basquiat

B L A C K We HEAR "Waltzing Matilde," by Tom Waits. INT. MUSEUM OF MODERN ART � DAY (DREAM SEQUENCE IN GRAINY BLACK AND WHITE) Fade out music. Silence. A well-dressed black BOY and his MOTHER walk through several galleries. They stand before Picasso's "Guernica," holding hands. The mother is disturbed. Crying. The boy looks up, confused and frightened, concerned to see his mother crying in public. She looks at him tenderly. Her brow furrows. She stops crying. She stares just above his eyes. Something's happening: she looks with wonder at the top of his head... his eyes roll upward, trying to see � it's a crown! He raises his hands. He touches it. A beam of light illuminates the crown, casting its glow on his mother's face. The beam gets whiter, the rest of the screen gets black. INT. CARDBOARD BOX Silence. In darkness, we hear a VOICE � imbued with a sense of its own history: VOICE (O.S.) Everybody wants to get on the Van Gogh boat. There's no trip so horrible that someone won't take it. The idea of the unrecognized genius slaving away in a garret is a deliciously foolish one. We must credit the life of Vincent Van Gogh for really sending this myth into orbit. How many pictures did he sell? One? He couldn't give them away. We are so ashamed of his life that the rest of art history will be retribution for Van Gogh's neglect. No one wants to be part of a generation that ignores another Van Gogh. The beam of light shines through a small hole.