A while back I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of Just Kids and fell in love with the story of Patti and Robert. I had always had a crush on Patti: Her boyish style, the simplistic photographs in black and white that adorned Google Image Search and best of all, the cigarette she always had, limp in her hand (which I later found out was a mere prop).
Now, the life of her lover, Robert Mapplethorpe, will be getting some big screen treatment. A controversial black and white photographer (who took many of the snaps of Patti for her album covers and so on) Robert died of AIDS in 1989.
Acclaimed writer-director Ondi Timoner will be taking on the task of telling one of the most iconoclastic and mythologised artist’s story and has cast Girl’s Zosia Mamet as Patti and Dr Who‘s Matt Smith as Mapplethorpe himself. Known for producing thought-provoking documentaries, it will be interesting to see what Ondi’s take on Mapplethorpe’s story will entail. After all, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has fallen in love with the image of him.
Fluffpot 