All language subtitles for All The Beauty And The Bloodshed ENG

♪♪ [ambient strings]

- [woman 1] Do you need bottles?
- [woman 2] I have bottles.

[chattering]

Does anyone need bottles?

[Nan] What time? 4:15?

[woman] The timekeepers
are gonna give a signal.

[Nan] Okay.

Everyone has bottles? Okay.

- You ready to go in?
- Let's go.

[Nan] There's a guard
walking around looking puzzled.

I think he's trying to count
the number of people.

I'm really nervous, man.

- Let's start.
- [woman] Let's go, let's do it, go.

- [Nan] Mic check!
- [all] Mic check!

- [Nan] Mic check!
- [all] Mic check!

A hundred thousand dead!

A hundred thousand dead!

- A hundred thousand dead!
- A hundred thousand dead!

Don't do anything. You
can't do anything as far as...

- Temple of death!
- Temple of death!

- Temple of money!
- Temple of money!

- Temple of greed!
- Temple of greed!

- Temple of Oxy!
- Temple of Oxy!

- Sacklers lie!
- Sacklers lie!

- Thousands die!
- Thousands die!

- The Sacklers knew!
- The Sacklers knew!

- Their pills would kill!
- Their pills would kill!

They built this wing!

- They killed...
- Take this outside.

- Excuse me.
- [speaking inaudibly]

[all cheering]

[applause]

- Sacklers lie!
- People die!

- Sacklers lie!
- People die!

- Sacklers lie!
- People die!

[chanting continues]

♪♪ [classical]

♪♪ [chorus]

[Nan] It's easy to make
your life into a story.

But it's harder to...

sustain real memories.

[Poitras] What do you mean?

[Nan] Well, the difference between
the story and the real memory.

The real experience
has a smell and is dirty,

and is not wrapped
up in simple endings.

The real memories are
what affects me now.

[slide projector clicking]

Things can appear that
you didn't want to see,

where you're not safe.

And even if you don't
actually unleash the memories,

the effect is there.

It's in your body.

[wind gusting]

[man] All right.

♪♪ [classical]

It was a claustrophobic suburb.

"Don't let the neighbors know."

My mother used to say that all
the time. It wasn't just an attitude.

Actually, the neighbors did
know, we found out years later,

because there was so
much screaming in the house.

[Poitras] Tell me
about your sister.

[Nan] My mother insisted
that Barbara speak

in full sentences
at the age of one.

And so she stopped talking
for at least a year and a half.

Yeah, that was the first
act of rebellion by my sister.

She would just wash
my hair or hold me,

or these kind of things that
you need when you're a kid.

And she knew how to do that,

even though she hadn't
been mothered in that way.

She made me aware
at a very young age

about the banality and
deadening grip of suburbia.

She had a wildness to her.

She played the piano constantly.

Chopin, Rachmaninoff,
Tchaikovsky...

And you could tell how she was
feeling by how she was playing.

♪♪ [chorus]

The parakeets would sit on
her shoulders while she played.

She trusted me
with all her secrets.

She went on Saturday nights to
the movies to make out with boys.

That was when she stood
up for herself and yelled back.

And she talked to me
about feelings for other girls.

It was a period of
sexual repression.

And she was made
to fear her sexuality.

And a lot of it was
her need to be held.

She had a saying:
"Lean cat, savage cat."

I felt very close to her,

but she was in and out of
institutions for most of my childhood.

Once they started sending her
away, they kept sending her away.

My parents took away
her credibility and...

silenced her by
calling her mentally ill.

The police came into the house.

My father started wailing
on the front lawn, wailing.

They were talking to
my mother, saying that,

"We found your daughter
and she committed suicide."

And I heard my mother say,

"Tell the children
it was an accident."

My interpretation
from that minute was...

denial.

She didn't want us
to know the truth.

That's when it clicked.

[chattering]

[Nan] Okay, let's
try it towards the left.

- Yeah.
- [man] Or like in the middle?

I don't know.

Can you move over to the right?

Keep going, okay.

I can't really see
because your body...

Thank you. Wow.

Do you like it?

Okay, I just want to see one more
thing. Can you switch these two?

Okay, and one more idea.

A couple more ideas.

I could do this all
night. Watch out.

Yeah.

I was thinking
about this last night,

that people talk about
all kinds of relationships,

with their partner, their
children, their parents, and...

The relationships that
have mattered most to me,

probably my whole
life, are my friends.

I only escaped
because of my friends.

Right.

Yeah, that's better.
That's perfect.

♪♪ [ambient strings]

[Nan] "I survived
the opioid crisis.

I narrowly escaped.

My relationship to OxyContin
began several years ago in Berlin.

It was originally
prescribed for surgery.

Though I took it as directed,
I got addicted overnight.

In the beginning, 40
milligrams was too strong.

But as my habit grew,
there was never enough.

I went from 3 pills a
day, as prescribed, to 18.

The drug, like all
drugs, lost its effect.

So I picked up the straw.

My life revolved entirely
around getting and using Oxy,

counting and recounting,
crushing and snorting

was my full-time job.

When I got out of treatment, I
learned that the Sackler family,

whose name I knew from
museums and galleries,

were responsible
for the epidemic.

The Sackler family and their
private company, Purdue Pharma,

advertised and
distributed their medication,

knowing all the dangers.

I've started a group, PAIN,
to hold them accountable.

To get their ear, we will
target their philanthropy.

They have washed their
blood money through the halls

of museums and
universities around the world."

[Velasco] I had no idea that
it was going to actually have

the traction that it did.

It's definitely among
the, if not the most...

proud moments of my tenure
as editor of the magazine.

She knew how to use her power.
She's a figure that these museums

also wanted to work with,
they want in their collections.

She's a major
name in the art world.

When she published
the portfolio, that...

It was the fact she was
doing it that mattered.

I knew this would put her on the
line in a real serious way, and...

I was concerned for her
safety. I was concerned for...

whether she would be
drummed out of the art world.

I mean, I think that...

She was taking on a
very powerful family,

one of the most
powerful families.

[Nan] I mean, if anyone
belongs in jail, it's these people.

And as long as there's a
jail, they should be in it...

until the whole prison
system is dismantled.

They should be
the last to leave.

[all chuckling]

- Last one, lights out.
- Last one.

After I met Nan and we
connected on levels of...

you know, having experience
with addiction and stuff like that,

she said, "Why don't you come
to one of our PAIN meetings?"

Most members of PAIN have a
direct experience with addiction,

or loss of a loved one.

We have members
who lost their children...

to overdose,

that have family members
who are struggling,

or that they themselves
have struggled.

Yeah, but death is
the bottom line of this,

and that should be reminded.

- We should do a die-in of some sort.
- [Berio] Do we want to marshal numbers?

- [woman] Each of us will be responsible...
- Trusted friends.

[Berio] The focus on the family,

I would say there was a
little bit of fear in the group

about going straight for them,
although we felt that we should.

Yeah, this is the decisive one.

Nan actually said, "Do you
think my career will implode?"

And I said, "Probably."

I said, "Yes, these are
very scary, powerful people.

But then again, what
else can you do?"

And she said, "I think we
should take these people down."

And I said, "Well,
I'm with you."

And then we started meeting,
and we would sit in Nan's house

and dream up of
things we wanted to do.

He's really sweet.

[Nan] He's sweet on Alex, man.

Go on.

[Keefe] Let's see
where it all starts here.

I mean, there's literally so many of
these that it's hard for me to find...

Yes, this is September 2019.

I get this legal hold notice.

"Dear Mr. Keefe, I write
on behalf of my clients,

members of the
Raymond Sackler family.

You are hereby directed to preserve
and not to destroy, conceal, or alter

any and all documents and
communications in your possession

that relate in any way to any
members of the Sackler family,

the article, Purdue
Pharma, and-or OxyContin..."

And on and on and on.

One of the things that's so strange
about the Sackler family is that

we talk about them in monolithic terms,
but really it's three families, and...

they spring from these
three original brothers,

Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond.

[narrator] His name is
Arthur Sackler. For 40 years,

he has brought energy,
goodwill, and intelligence to art.

He owns thousands of works,

presently displayed not only
at the Metropolitan Museum,

but in university
collections as well.

[applause]

Knowing that the goal of
peace is engraved in your hearts,

Mrs. Sackler and I
present to you this verse...

[Keefe] Arthur dies before
the introduction of OxyContin.

And yet so much of
what's happened is, in part,

a function of Arthur's legacy.

His contemporaries knew
him as this great art collector

and this philanthropist.

And the dirty secret was that

he had come to this position
of prominence and great wealth

through the marketing of this drug,
which also happened to be quite addictive.

He creates a whole means of selling
Valium in which you're targeting doctors.

He devised a compensation scheme

in which he would get paid a
series of escalating bonuses

based on how much
Valium they sold.

Well, Valium becomes
the best-selling drug

in the history of the
pharmaceutical industry.

[narrator] From his
personal collection,

Sackler gave the Smithsonian carte
blanche to select a thousand pieces,

the best from a
lifetime of collecting.

[Keefe] The whole Sackler
enterprise has been about marketing,

the marketing of OxyContin,
but also the marketing

of the family name.

There's the family of the art world
and the museum world and philanthropy.

And then there's the kind of
grubby, unpleasant story of...

Big Pharma marketing
and addiction and death.

Don't be afraid to take
what they give you.

Often, it will be an
opioid medication.

Some patients may be
afraid of taking opioids

because they're perceived
as too strong, or addictive.

But that is far
from actual fact.

[Keefe] The Sacklers
owned Purdue,

this company that set
out very deliberately

to change the way in which these
strong opioids were prescribed,

and to do so, by claiming
that they weren't addictive.

A week or two after
my article came out,

I got this email, this
kind of cryptic email

from the studio of
Nan Goldin that said,

"The photographer Nan Goldin
would like to meet with you."

And I was a little mystified,
didn't know what it was about,

but we set up a meeting.

She had this kind of
"Roll up your sleeves.

We gotta do something. We gotta
organize. We gotta get out there!"

And I probably was...

I blush to think,

but I probably was gently
patronizing and said,

"Well, good for you, glad to hear
it. You keep me posted on that."

[Nan] I love working
in a material I know.

Blue valium bottles. [chuckles]

My anger at the Sackler
family, it's personal.

I hate these people.

But it's not about
my own addiction.

I mean, when you think of
the profit off people's pain,

you can only be
furious about it.

[man] Sacklers lie, people
die! Fund harm reduction now!

[all] Sacklers lie, people
die! Fund harm reduction now!

Sacklers lie, people die!
Fund harm reduction now!

Sacklers lie, people die!
Fund harm reduction now!

[woman] We consciously talked
about Act Up and what Act Up had done,

and how we wanted
for these actions

to make an impact.

This idea of a bottle was
the first object we created.

All the museums, institutions,
need to stop taking money

from these corrupt,
evil bastards.

[cheering and applauding]

I got thrown out of every school
and every house that I lived.

I got thrown out of
my parents' home.

I got thrown out
of my foster family.

I got thrown out of the
communal foster family.

- [Poitras] Seriously?
- [Nan] Yeah.

There's not one I can
think of that I... [chuckles]

Yeah, I made an art of it.

[Poitras] Okay, but why
were you with foster parents?

[Nan] A psychiatrist told my
father that if I stayed in the house,

the same thing would happen
as what happened with Barbara.

So my parents sent
me to a foster agency.

It was the Jewish adoption
agency on Beacon Hill.

Yeah.

I must have been 14.

The woman of the house
straightened my hair.

She wanted me to
be a WASP, basically.

I remember when I first went there,
I projectile vomited all over my room.

I must have been terrified.

I didn't remember that till now.

[slide projector clicking]

I landed in a hippie free school
that couldn't throw me out.

Satya School saved my life.

I was shy beyond social phobia,

like, crippling shyness.

There were like six months
that I didn't speak at all.

I think my sister's
suicide had silenced me.

Until I met David.

He said I was still
speaking in a whisper.

♪♪ [indie rock]

I was 15. He was 14.

He was a vision to me.

We met each other
both stealing steaks.

We were shoplifting.

Both of us converged in the
steak department. [chuckles]

- [Poitras] Are you serious?
- Yes.

Oh, I was a great shoplifter,
pretty much all my life.

I'm not sure how good
I am anymore, but...

That's how we became friends.

David was a great wit.

Very ironic, very precise.

And that was the
coin of the realm.

He taught me to use humor
as a survival mechanism.

He had this elegance and
he was very androgynous,

which was something I
was really attracted to.

And one night, we hitchhiked
to my brother's dorm,

'cause I was between homes,

and he laid down on the bed
and I laid down next to him.

And he got up and
laid down on the floor.

And I said, "Are you gay?"

And a light came on for him.

He always said that it was the
first time somebody recognized him.

Then he named me Nan.

So I brought him out
and he named me Nan.

So we liberated each other.

David was the eye of my storm.

"David and Tommy in a Sandpit."

That's one of my
first photographs.

We all got cameras
from Polaroid.

I attached to it more than
anybody else at the school.

It was the only language
I spoke at the time.

Suddenly I had, you know, a
personality, and it gave me a voice.

Photography was always
a way to walk through fear.

Taking a picture
is kind of protective.

It gave me a reason to be there.

♪♪ [indie rock]

David was living with
this most beautiful queen

in Cambridge.

Very quickly, I
moved in with them.

We went to Goodwill
pretty much every day.

All the rich women were
giving their clothes to Goodwill,

and they were exquisite clothes.

Like Fortuny gowns.

And we went to The
Other Side every night.

Right away, I
felt at home there.

I remember being really excited
to take pictures at that time.

It was like a flash of euphoria.

I know when a picture works.

I get a rush.

I would have the film
developed in a pharmacy,

and each of them would make a
pile of the pictures of themselves

and compete to see
who had the biggest pile.

If they didn't like one of the
pictures, they tore them up,

and that was okay with me.

I've always wanted the
people in the pictures

to be proud of
being in the work.

People have said, "Oh, I
didn't know I was that beautiful."

Which is, you know,
what I want them to feel.

My roommates, they were
running away from America,

and they found each other.

They didn't think, "We're
pioneers, we're rebels."

They just were.

It was about living out
what they needed to live out

in spite of the reaction
from the outside world.

♪ There's always those
Who spoil our games ♪

♪ By finding fault
and calling names ♪

♪ Always accusing ♪

♪ We love each
other but it seems ♪

♪ The love lives
only in my dreams ♪

♪ It's so one-sided ♪

♪ But in this life
I must confess ♪

♪ The search for
love and happiness ♪

♪ Is unrequited ♪

♪ I ask myself what have I got ♪

♪ And what I am
and what I'm not ♪

♪ What am I giving? ♪

♪ But answers come from those who
make The rules that some of us must break ♪

♪ Just to keep living ♪

♪ I know my life
is not a crime ♪

♪ I'm just a victim of my time ♪

♪ I stand defenseless ♪

♪ Nobody has the right to be
The judge of what is right for me ♪

♪ Tell me if you can ♪

♪ What makes a man a man? ♪

[Nan] While I was living with the
queens, I started going to art school

for photography.

Said I wanted the queens
to be on the cover of Vogue.

But in those days,
that was so far.

It was a time that was
really scary for them.

You could get arrested walking
down the street in Boston.

My roommates stayed home
basically, and they went out at night.

And survival was an art.

[seagulls cawing]

David and I started going
to Provincetown in '75.

It was the gay mecca.

I worked in a
Portuguese hot dog stand.

And then later, I got a job as a bartender
at the Pied Piper, the lesbian bar.

I was living in this
separatist lesbian community.

You know, it was sort of
like flannel shirts and tea.

And I'd come from taffeta
gowns and Quaaludes.

And so I was kind of the oddball

'cause I would wear pearls
and lipstick to the beach.

I fell in love with
this beautiful woman.

We were lovers, briefly.

She had lots of other lovers.

I was obsessed with her.

So I photographed
her constantly.

I have often used photography
as a sublimation for sex.

It's generally better
than sex. [chuckles]

I had a button machine.

You know, you take a
picture and put it on a button.

- [Poitras] You had a button machine?
- Yeah.

That was my way
of making a living.

Walking up and down
Commercial Street in my high heels

with my button machine.

And Cookie and Sharon, and
Divine, and John Waters came by

and had buttons made.

I knew Cookie from
John Waters' films,

and I already idolized her.

♪ I got lots of problems ♪

♪ Female trouble ♪

♪ Maybe I'm twisted ♪

I'd like to set
fire to this dump.

Just cause we're pretty
everybody's jealous.

It's like a prison here, even
at Christmas it's like a prison.

♪ Sunday morning ♪

♪ Brings the dawning ♪

Cookie was all about
finding what was funny in life.

Cookie and Sharon were
together for many years.

Sharon was working at a pizza
place, and Cookie came by one night

with her bicycle
and her son Max.

And he had long hair with gum
and popsicle sticks and leaves in it.

And Cookie had on these
little Springolator pumps,

but they were held
together with safety pins.

And Sharon thought,

"I'm gonna take
care of these people."

♪ Sunday morning ♪

And then Cookie said to
her, "I believe in timing."

Cookie took Sharon home with her

through a swamp
with big pussy willows.

And that was the beginning
of Cookie and Sharon.

It was a time of
freedom and possibility.

That's when I did
my first slideshows.

[Nan] You ready?

Does everyone have their chant?

"That's bullshit, get off it. They
made addicts just for profit."

- [woman] Ooh.
- We were flying last night!

[Kapler] We were ready to
do another New York action,

and the Met and the
Guggenheim to us are, like,

two of the most
important museums.

And we knew that the Guggenheim
had the Sackler Education Center.

So they were like
a big target for us.

An important part of
the museums we choose

is Nan is typically in
the permanent collection.

It's much stronger when
the message is coming

from inside the house.

- [woman] I'm not worried.
- What if they recognize me?

[Nan] By the time we did the
Guggenheim, our name was out there.

Other museums were alerted
that we might be coming.

I'm supposed to wear it so
that no one knows who I am.

[woman] That's not
drawing attention.

[man] Very subtle disguise.

I don't know. It calls a
little attention, doesn't it?

It's kind of horrible.

[Kapler] The attorney
general in Massachusetts

had just released
internal emails

and documents of the
Sacklers, which were vast,

and had really damning quotes.

One of them was the quote
from Richard Sackler, saying that

upon the launch of
OxyContin in 1996,

that OxyContin would cover the
country in a blizzard of prescriptions.

I just was like, "What if we
made a bunch of prescriptions

and throw that
back in their faces?"

[Kapler] We're trying
to align the banners

with the fountain right at
the bottom of the spiral?

- [Cullen] Yes.
- Okay.

Okay, "Shame on
Sacklers," right?

[Cullen] Yeah.

[Nan] The goal is to get
the names off the walls.

As long as the names are there,

they still maintain their
hold on their reputation.

They're still whitewashing
their reputation.

The museums are
still complicit in that.

[Cullen] The energy
was definitely right.

The whole museum was
already buzzing when we went in.

It was a packed Saturday night.

- Nan, are you ready?
- No, where is everyone?

We had a Signal thread,
but it was really like,

"Go at this time. If you
see prescriptions falling,

it's starting."

- [woman] Are we ready?
- [Nan] Yeah.

[people cheering and screaming]

♪♪ [orchestral]

[Kapler] I was at the bottom looking
up, and I checked out for a minute

because I was looking
up at the prescription slips

and just, like, in awe of
the visual that it created.

[cheering]

Say it loud, say it clear!
Sackler name not welcome here!

Say it loud, say it clear!
Sackler name isn't welcome here!

Say it loud, say it clear!
OxyContin got them here!

[Berio] I was holding
one of the banners.

We looked like we're hundreds
and hundreds of activists, right?

We were not
hundreds and hundreds.

People are shouting with
us. They're agreeing with us.

- No longer!
- No longer!

- No longer!
- No longer!

- The Sackler family must go!
- The Sackler family must go!

- The Sackler family must pay!
- The Sackler family must pay!

- People die!
- Sacklers lie!

- People die!
- Sacklers lie!

♪♪ [orchestral]

Say it loud, say it clear!
Sacklers are not welcome here!

Say it loud, say it clear!
Sacklers are not welcome here!

We have journeyed from the
Guggenheim down to the Met

to send a message.

A message of life and death.

My son was prescribed OxyContin
for a knee surgery in high school.

The doctors told him: "Take
the pills every four hours.

"Take them before the pain
starts. Take them on schedule."

When my son talked of his pain,
I said, "Did you take your pill?"

I became an accomplice
to my son's demise.

- That's not right.
- [activists] That ain't right!

My son became
addicted to OxyContin.

It progressed to heroin.

It took 11 years, but
it fucking killed him.

It killed him. It took his life.
He died alone in a bathroom.

I don't expect the Sacklers
to care about my son Jack.

[man] We care!

But 400,000 lives, right?

Somebody should care about that!

[woman] Yes!

[cheering]

[Poitras] And how did
the Guggenheim respond?

[Nan] They didn't say anything.

The museums were keeping quiet.

The first year,

it's like 25 museums were
supportive of the Sacklers.

Either said nothing
or were supportive.

They know the Sacklers
are a bad look for their PR.

[Poitras] Right.

But they're terrified of what
will be found out about them.

The rich people are scared
that we're going to dig into

the evil way they made money.

♪ Oh, yeah I had laid
such a tender trap ♪

♪ Hoping you
might fall into it ♪

♪ But love hit me
like a sudden slap ♪

♪ One kiss and then I knew it ♪

♪ What's this whole
world coming to? ♪

♪ Things just ain't the same ♪

♪ Any time the hunter ♪

♪ Gets captured by the game ♪

[Nan] I moved to
the Bowery in '78.

This place that should
have become a museum.

So many people lived there,

and it was one of the big addresses
in lower New York at the time.

It was a shithole loft
because there was no light.

It didn't have any
walls for a while.

Kind of dysfunctional,
but managed to function.

We used to fuck in the
elevator. There was a lot of drugs.

Always a lot of drugs, a
lot of coke, a lot of speed.

The Bowery was the Ballad.

The Bowery was the
Goldin headquarters.

And that's where I was
situated in the universe,

was the Bowery.

When I got to New York, this guy
gave me some names of galleries.

In those days, you went to
galleries with your portfolio.

So I called some galleries,
they weren't interested.

And then I went
up to see Marvin.

I walked in and showed these photos
that no one had ever seen before.

Totally bad prints and torn.

And immediately, we
understood each other.

She showed up one
day with a box of pictures,

showed up in this party
dress, a polka dot party dress

with a lot of crinolines,

and kind of weird makeup, and...

walked up the very fancy
stairs of this gallery and...

had this box of pictures.

And I opened up this box of
pictures, about 20 of them in it, and...

I had never seen
pictures like that in my life.

These portraits and pictures
of people living their lives

that really were unlike anything
anybody else was doing.

[Nan] He asked me to bring
more stuff, and I brought up a crate.

[chuckles]

And I got the cab driver to bring
me up by giving him a blowjob.

So that's how I
entered the art world.

[chuckling]

This was 1979.

♪♪ [funk]

The first week we were
there, the Mudd Club opened.

And I met Vivienne Dick.

Vivienne was curious
about everything,

and a lot of stuff that
happened, she took me to.

I mean, there were
different worlds in New York

that I was moving between,

and they didn't
necessarily like each other.

The world of Vivienne

and this woman I lived
with named Suzanne...

And Greer...

She was making her dolls all
the time, working constantly.

♪ You can't be funky
You can't be funky ♪

♪ You can't be funky If
you haven't got a soul ♪

And then there was
the world of Bruce.

And David.

And Cookie.

♪♪ [disco]

She was the center of
New York downtown life.

People used to say
we were marginalized.

And we didn't care.

Normal people were
marginalized to us.

Cookie was in films,
she was in plays.

And then she was
writing art criticism.

Cookie used to say,

"I don't know why people
think I'm wild. I'm not wild.

Wildness just appears
on the road in front of me."

You have to hear her voice,
and that tells you everything.

This kind of irony and humor.

"You should really wait for
Charlie to come back from the store.

He's the one to talk to. He's right
in there buying oranges for us."

She pointed to the Haight
Street Chinese fruit store.

But I'd had enough and thanked
them and left looking for more action.

These girls were Susan
Atkins and Squeaky Fromme

and Mary Brunner and others.

And I missed meeting Charlie
Manson by five minutes."

[Nan] Cookie was
working as a go-go dancer.

I was dancing in New Jersey

because you didn't have to
take your top off in New Jersey.

And New York was
topless. New Jersey wasn't.

♪♪ [disco]

So we'd take the
bus out to Paterson,

and go to these lowlife
bars and wiggle our asses,

and then get on the bus and
come back to New York. [chuckles]

I was dancing to
have money to buy film.

Then I started in
the whorehouse.

Yeah, that got pretty ugly.

I haven't kept many
secrets in my life.

But I never did
talk about it before.

But I think at this point in
my life, I should talk about it

because of the incredible
stigma around sex work.

Vivienne got really interested in
the fact that I had worked in a house,

and decided she wanted
to make a film about it.

It's a fiction film.

I'm playing the madam of
the house where I worked...

who was a monster.

Hi. How are you? Have
you been with us before?

She would have us
on our backs all day,

and then she'd come
home from Bloomingdales

showing off her lingerie.

I mean, sex work isn't
negative in itself, but it's no party.

It's one of the hardest
jobs you could have.

And so that's how
Tin Pan Alley came.

Somebody said, "You
should go meet Maggie."

She was hiring women
who had been sex workers

and kind of helped
people get out of it.

She was an incredible force.

She was a community organizer.

She was a great cook.

She was a radical.

And she was a ballet dancer.

So she hired me pretty
quickly. Like, immediately.

The bar was a safe space
for prostitutes and also a way

to work their way out of
prostitution if they wished to do so.

And it was a center
for those on the left.

The squatters movement,
the anarchist movement,

the Black movement,

people who were interested
in supporting political prisoners

from the Latin left.

And so it was really
a polyglot place.

It had hustlers, it had
artists, Reuters journalists.

It had people from
NBC who were on strike.

And it had the IRS.

When the IRS would come
in the afternoon to get drunk,

they were as hard to
handle as the bikers.

But the bar was
controlled by women.

It was very important to me
that we not have bouncers,

and not depend on male
strength for keeping the peace.

And so when people
behind the bar, including Nan,

decided that it was
time for someone to go,

that person would go.

- It's on the house.
- Oh, thanks, Nan.

[speaking indistinctly]

[Pinckney] Tin Pan
was very integrated.

The New Wave was not a
very integrated scene at all.

And also it cut across class lines,
which New Wave also didn't do.

I spent a lot of time at
Tin Pan, but I can't say...

Talk about repetitive
nights, you know?

[Nan] When I first
started, I loved it there.

The first two years...

I listened to people.

Really listened.

And they weren't used to that.

I was sort of the dominatrix
of the bar, and I got tips

because people wanted to
impress me, win me back...

And I would work till four in the morning
and then we'd go to the after-hours.

[saxophone playing]

[Smith] Tin Pan Alley became
a major kind of staging point

as people were planning
for the Times Square show.

It was multi-floor.

It was collaborative.

There was graffiti,

sculpture, there were painters,

lots of video work.

There was music...

[band playing jazz music]

[singing indistinctly]

The first floor is where most
of the performances were.

So Nan invited
everyone in the bar.

So, yes, I was anxious
to see her work and...

I, you know, was sitting on
the floor, and this music starts,

and the slides start.

♪ I put a spell on you ♪

♪ Because you're mine ♪

♪ Stop the things you do ♪

♪ Watch out! ♪

♪ I ain't lying ♪

♪ Yeah, I can't stand ♪

♪ No running around ♪

♪ I can't stand... ♪

[Smith] The work
was incredibly political.

It was about power,

and particularly about the
power that men have over women,

and how that power is
translated up in the society.

[Pinckney] The very first
time I saw Nan's slideshow,

it was extremely raucous.

What I remember
mostly is the noise,

not just of the music
or of the equipment,

but of people talking
to the screen...

commenting.

[Nan] At the beginning, the
audience would be made up

exclusively of the
people in the show,

so they would scream at me
if they didn't like something,

and scream if they
loved something.

So I edited according
to that to some extent.

And then I had those pictures of my
friend having sex with her boyfriend,

and she demanded I take
them out at some point.

And so that's when I started
photographing myself having sex.

I figured if I was showing her having
sex, I had to show myself having sex.

♪♪ [rock]

I was doing it at
underground clubs

and my boyfriend at the
time was spinning records.

♪♪ [funk]

So that's when
the music started.

I would start with
songs that I knew,

and then people would
send me music, literally.

But I changed them
every single time.

It was fun. It was really fun.

People would be dancing.

You know, it was fabulous.

♪ Somebody let me know ♪

♪ Who let the body in the
place Put a whistle in your face ♪

♪ Scream it out
and say, "Yo, hit it" ♪

[Nan] I was always
late for everything.

I didn't sleep. I mean, I
was up all night editing.

[Pinckney] You never
saw the same thing twice.

She changed the music,
she changed the slides,

she changed the order of them.

Sometimes her own changed
feelings changed the meanings of them,

because her photographs
don't hold just one meaning.

You know, a lot is going on
in a Nan Goldin photograph.

And I guess that's what made
people think it was so cinematic,

because to most people
they seem like characters,

whereas to the people
being photographed,

they seem like themselves.

She photographs from our side.

[Nan] The mid-80s was
when I was closest to Cookie.

She wasn't doing very well,
so this friend of hers told her

to spin a globe,

and wherever she put
her finger, to go there.

So she went to Italy
and she met Vittorio.

It was the greatest
love of her life.

It was a huge wedding.

Everyone in lower
New York was there.

Rene Ricard,

Greer, David Armstrong,

Francesco Clemente,

Teri Toye...

Peter Hujar was there.

And we were standing next
to each other taking pictures.

It was a beautiful wedding

And a wild party.

♪ Now there's a man ♪

♪ The living tool of Satan ♪

♪ He charges forth
While others are debatin' ♪

♪ Connivin', cocky knave
With all the trimmin' ♪

♪ I know one thing can
trim him down Women ♪

♪ In women he
meets deep authority ♪

♪ On them he feels
his old dependency ♪

[Nan] Once I started sharing
the work, I got a lot of shit.

"There's no such thing
as a good woman artist,"

was said to me
in, like, mid-80s.

It was really
heavy resistance...

especially from male artists
and gallerists who said,

"This isn't photography.

Nobody photographs
their own life."

It was still a
kind of outlier act.

It was basically a time of black
and white, vertical photographs.

So it's hard to understand that
that could have ever been radical.

I thought the art world was bullshit
and that Times Square was real life.

That's where I met Brian.

Our first date, we
went to see The Clash

right around the
corner from the bar.

And then we went up
to Harlem and copped.

And then he just stayed.

And he stayed for '81 to '84.

He was beautiful at the
time, and I fell in love with him.

He was very tender.

You can see it in Brian's eyes.

We had very good sex,

and that can keep people
together for a long time.

And then we
started fighting a lot.

And I was good at fighting.

He wanted to break up,
and I didn't want him to.

And then we went through
that a lot, trying to break up.

And then when I went
to Berlin, we'd broken up,

and then he came
to Berlin and...

And that story.

I did a slideshow at some loft,

and we went to a bar,

and then he realized
I'd been with this girl,

and he became jealous.

And that's what set it off.

We were so intertwined, we
didn't know how to break up.

So this was his
way of breaking up.

He punched me in
the face repeatedly,

like, boom, boom, boom.

And he went after my eyes.

I was bleeding, and there
was this girl, Sylvie, from Paris.

Sylvie came in and
dragged me out.

She saved my life.

He trashed the room and he
wrote in lipstick all over the room:

"Bitch, cunt."

He burned my diaries.

The greatest luck of my
life is that I left the slideshow

at the loft where I'd shown it.

Because he would
have destroyed it.

Yeah.

All the bones in the orbital
floor of my eye were broken.

- And, um...
- [Poitras] To go for your eyes...

Maggie said he
wanted to blind me.

My pictures of myself battered

were what kept
me from going back.

Women who've been battered
have come to me and told me

that they were able to talk
about it because of those pictures.

The struggle between
autonomy and dependency

is the core of The Ballad
of Sexual Dependency.

My father tried to get it
stopped from being published.

The pictures were one thing,

but they were so
afraid of the text...

'cause he said that I was trying
to prove that they killed my sister.

That's how he put it.

Brian was trying
to get it stopped.

It makes it even more radical,
all these men trying to stop it.

When I got back to New
York, I went to Tin Pan.

I was terrified because
there were all those men,

and I couldn't be
in a crowd with men.

Maggie thought I was
shooting dope and I wasn't,

but I was snorting it.

And I remembered when
I quit Tin Pan, I thought,

"Oh, now I'm gonna
get really strung out

because there's
nothing to stop me."

And I did.

It's a little scary around here.

A New York Post reporter called
me cold without being introduced.

He called me on my cell phone.
He said he got it on the internet.

We have to really have the facts

if we're going to go
up against this family.

They could sue us, right?

[Kapler] After a
few of our actions,

Purdue Pharma started
taking out full-page ads

in The New York Times,

saying, "Of course we
care about the opioid crisis.

We're in the market of opioids."

People are still accepting
Sackler donations.

[woman] What's happening
with the National Portrait Gallery?

I don't know what's going on with
my work being in the show or not.

What do people think?

[woman] It would
be a serious blow

if Nan Goldin refuses
to show her work there

because of Sackler money.

So...

[Kapler] Nan was set
to have a retrospective

with the National Portrait
Gallery in the U.K.,

but they're in the
middle of accepting

a $1.3 million grant
from the Sacklers.

So Nan told them that she would
not do her retrospective with them

if they were to accept it.

[woman cheers]

[Nan] Unbelievable!

Oh, man, it's working,
right? It's working.

[Kapler] I can't believe it.

[Velasco] When the
National Portrait Gallery

refused the donation from the
Sacklers, this is a watershed moment.

This is an incredible
rush to think that

people are actually beginning
to rethink how we do things.

[Nan] Let's go over what
happened in one week.

I think it doesn't happen
to activist groups very often.

On Tuesday, the
National Portrait Gallery

was the first to refuse money.

[all] Yeah!

On Thursday, the Tate crumbled.

On Friday, surprisingly,
the Guggenheim.

[man] Yeah.

And that was shocking.

[clapping]

Okay, and then those dirty deep
bottom-feeders, the hedge fund,

refusing to take the Sackler
money, which is unprecedented.

[all cheering]

[Kapler] The domino
effect was huge.

The fact that this is happening
by all these major museums,

and also Nan has her
hand in every single one,

including the Tate, is major,
and then the Met followed.

But it was not
good enough for us.

We had a very clear demand:
No longer accept Sackler money.

You know, then the next part
obviously is take down the name.

[Keefe] Subsequently, we
then saw this WhatsApp log

that came out from the
Mortimer Sackler family members,

and you actually see them
start to talk about Nan Goldin.

They talk about it solely as a matter
of public relations management.

You don't have a single person
who says, "Well, wait a second,

maybe there's some
substance to this critique.

We should look hard
at what we've done.

Is there some way we can make amends?
Are there questions we should be asking?"

Instead, it's just entirely,

"How do we manage
this PR problem?"

[Poitras] When did you know
you were being followed?

I was leaving Nan's by
myself on a Friday night.

And...

I noticed a car.

I noticed that the person
sitting in it is obscuring his face.

And the second I'm
directly across from him,

he kind of looks at me.

The next week, as I'm
crossing my direct street,

up to the stop
sign pulls this car.

And I looked at him.

And I just kept walking.

I walked for like 15 feet or
so, and when I looked back,

he was just taking
my photo from his car.

And, like, I'm just having
a memory of that moment

because it's like...

There is no...

I don't think I've experienced a
greater fear than that moment,

'cause I don't know
who the fuck this guy is.

But I know it's the same
guy from the week before.

So I think I even yelled at him,
but I don't even know if he knew.

He peeled out,
and I was terrified.

And then,

imagine my shock

when the next week,
exactly a week later,

this guy is outside of Nan's.

We just walked
out of Nan's house.

The same car is in
front of the house again.

[man] And the guy is...

right there...

watching me film him right now.

[horn honking]

[Kapler] He's
pulling out right now.

I went out with my wife and two
children. I have two small boys.

We walked out one day to run an
errand, and we were getting into the car,

and a neighbor came
over and she said,

"Hey, I don't want to freak
you out, but just up there,

there's a guy who's parked
across the street from my house

in an SUV, and he's been there all
day, and I think he's watching your house."

So the first thing I
thought, of course,

is that I knew that Nan
had had this experience

and Megan had
had this experience.

Um...

And so it felt of a piece
in terms of the M.O.

When I was fact-checking my book,
I asked Purdue if they knew anything

about these people who've been
following Nan and Megan and me,

and Purdue came back and said,

"Absolutely not. We would
never do such a thing.

That's outrageous."

Really strenuously denying it,

and in my queries to the Sacklers,
I asked the same thing, and...

There were some of
the things I asked about

that they came back and denied.

And this was not one of them.

[man] Bob is one of
our board members.

[Kapler] Hi, how are you?

[man] Now, admittedly,
it's a little crazy...

[woman] So has anybody
had a Narcan kit before

or have been through
a Narcan training?

Yeah, I got a kit a
couple of weeks ago.

I have a kit in my house,
but I haven't been trained.

Okay. So I'm just going to go
over a couple of the essentials,

signs and symptoms
of an opiate overdose,

and how to use Narcan

to reverse an opiate
overdose, okay?

So if you see somebody who you think
could be experiencing an opiate overdose,

you say, "Are you okay?"
They don't respond.

You do the sternal rub,
they still don't respond.

You may shake them.
If they still don't respond,

that's when you're
gonna give Narcan.

So you're going to give
Narcan and call 911.

You can do whichever you
want to do first, but do both.

Open it up, hold it, spray
it up their nose, okay?

If it's not an overdose, it's not
gonna hurt them and won't work.

But if it is an overdose,
it's gonna save their life.

Okay?

[Cullen] Focusing on harm reduction
is what's going to bring people

out of this crisis.

Safe consumption sites, reducing
stigma, and helping drug users

is the long goal, so...

[woman] Okay, we're
gonna start the hearing.

Good morning.

I'd like to welcome
you to today's hearing

on the adequacy of funding for
substance use disorder services.

Our next witness is Nan Goldin,

founder of Prescription
Addiction Intervention Now.

I'm gonna speak, by and large,
from the personal experience.

That maybe will help
inform you of what it means,

some of these bills
that you're trying to pass,

what it actually impacts
on a human being.

I wouldn't have gotten off
Oxy without buprenorphine.

On a small dose of buprenorphine,
cravings for opioids are reduced.

At larger doses,

you can't even feel the
effects of opioids if you try.

I was one of the lucky ones

who was able to access MAT
immediately and afford good treatment.

Doctors need to pay to
train and receive a waiver

to prescribe buprenorphine,

when no such certificate is
required to prescribe OxyContin.

Again, this is a policy
that increases the stigma

in the medical community about
treating people addicted to drugs.

People need to be kept alive.

Addiction is not a moral
issue. It is not a criminal issue.

Harm reduction means not only

recovering the harm caused
by the disease of addiction,

but also the harm caused by
the social and moral assault

on people with
substance use disorder.

[woman] Thank you very much.

It's important to hear from people
who take Medication-Assisted Treatment.

But I'm not ashamed of it.

- No.
- And it's not my road to recovery.

- It is my recovery.
- That's important to share.

People think you have to be off
everything in order to be in recovery,

and that's certainly not true.

[Nan] Yeah, the
stigma is terrible.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Lock arms?

[Kapler] We joined with Housing
Works and Vocal New York,

who really wanted
to do an action...

- [man] We are here...
- [all] We are here...

- to draw attention to...
- to draw attention to...

- Overdose Awareness Day!
- Overdose Awareness Day!

- No stigma!
- No shame!

- No stigma!
- No shame!

- No stigma!
- No shame!

- No stigma!
- No shame!

[Miescher] In order to
do the harm reduction,

the safe consumption sites
invite people in and say,

"Look, whatever you're dependent
on is not what we question right now.

We just want you to be
able to do it in a safe way,

not put anybody at risk.

Here's how to shoot
up in a clean way.

You don't know what you
bought, we'll test it for you."

- [all] Hey, Cuomo, what do you say?
- How many people died today?

[chanting continues]

No more deaths! No more
deaths! No more deaths!

[shouting and cheering]

[slide projector clicks]

I went to rehab for
the first time in 1988.

I had been kind of
isolated from my friends.

I thought I was going
back to my community.

And then I realized most of
the people were dead or dying.

[activists] We'll never
be silent again! Act Up!

We'll never be
silent again! Act Up!

[chanting continues]

Act Up! Fight Back! Fight AIDS!

Act Up! Fight Back! Fight AIDS!

[clamoring and cheering]

[Nan] It was like World War II.

That we watched everybody get wiped
out, and there was nothing we could do.

I got a call from Artists Space,
and they asked me to curate a show.

I wanted the subject
of it to be AIDS,

and I was told there hadn't
been any shows about AIDS.

I asked all my friends
to contribute something

because I wanted it
to be a community.

It was the first show I curated.

[Wojnarowicz] Mortality no
longer feels like some abstraction

that I could push away
to the age of 80 or 90, or...

There's no longer a luxury of
pushing the idea of mortality away.

[Nan] David Wojnarowicz
was my spiritual guide.

He was my political guide.

[Wojnarowicz] "If you wanna
stop AIDS, shoot the queers,"

says the governor
of Texas on the radio.

And his press secretary later
claims the governor was only joking,

and didn't know the
microphone was turned on.

He didn't think it would hurt his
chances for re-election anyways.

And I wake up every morning.

I wake up every morning in this
killing machine called America,

and I'm carrying this
rage like a blood-filled egg.

And there's a thin line,

a thin line between the
inside and the outside,

a thin line between
thought and action.

And that line is simply made up
of blood and muscle and bone.

I've been looking all my
life at the signs around us,

in the media, or
on people's lips,

the religious types outside
St. Patrick's Cathedral

shouting to the men and
women in the gay parade:

"You won't be here next year!
You'll get AIDS and die! Ha, ha!"

Nan Goldin curated
this show with the idea

of choosing the work
of people that she knew

who were affected by AIDS,
who were living with AIDS.

She wanted to dispel the
notion of the AIDS victim.

I'm hardly a victim
if I can resist.

What I see is institutionalized
ignorance about this epidemic.

She also wanted to deal
with issues of sexuality

in the midst of this epidemic.

That there was sexuality,
there was safe sexuality,

and that this was going
to continue to occur

despite the silencing of that
information by a church or government.

[Nan] There's really
important work in the show.

Like David's.
Like Peter Hujar's.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia.

Mark Morrisroe.

Greer Lankton.

Darrel Ellis.

People both really well-known
and people unknown.

It was about the
loss of a community

and trying to keep
people's legacy alive.

I called David and asked
him to write for my catalog.

I sent him pictures of some
of the work that was in it,

and I said, "You can
write whatever you want.

I'll support
whatever you write."

I was asked to
write a catalog essay

pertaining to a show dealing with
AIDS and a community of people.

So I started talking about
what I was experiencing

right there in my life and dealing
with image and representation

and everything seen through the framework
of having a taboo disease in this society.

[Nan] I love that this
tiny little skinny catalog

with thumbnail reproductions
in black and white

could cause a major
political shake-up.

[reporter 1] At the Artists
Space Gallery in Tribeca,

preparations are still
underway for next week's exhibit,

but the National Endowment of
the Arts has canceled its grant.

[reporter 2] The National Endowment
for the Arts refuses to sponsor

an art show here
in New York City

because it deals with
AIDS and homosexuality

and also offends some
political sensibilities.

One thing I want to point
out is that it's artist-organized.

It's organized by a
photographer named Nan Goldin...

[Nan] Susan Wyatt, the director,
got nervous about David's writing,

and so she took it to the NEA.

[reporter 3] The catalog reportedly
criticizes Senator Jesse Helms

for his position on
homosexuality and art,

and calls New York Cardinal
O'Connor "a fat cannibal in a black skirt."

[man] You think the
phone is gonna ring again?

Any minute.

- What do you think it's gonna be?
- It's probably Cardinal O'Connor

expressing his direct
support of my statements

and admitting that since he
does feast on the body of Christ

that he is a cannibal.

And that, yes, he does have
a penchant for black skirts.

He is fat, translucent,
and immoral.

[Nan] After the news first
broke, David called, really upset,

and told me that they were
trying to make him take out

"fat fucking cannibal
in black skirts."

I think it's very
dangerous and very scary.

I see an outbreak of McCarthyism
and a blacklisting of artists

if this is continued
to allow to happen.

What happened is that the artistic
focus of the show really was lost,

and what turned out to be
the show in its present form

was not, and is not,
sound artistically.

[reporter] Composer Leonard
Bernstein managed to become embroiled

in the controversy.

This after declining the
National Medal of Arts

because of the NEA
action taking away the grant.

And the thing that makes me
laugh is, if at this point in time,

images and words that can be
made by an individual have such power

to create this storm of
controversy, isn't that great?

It means that the control of
information has a crack in its wall.

[phone rings]

Hello. Yeah.

Hi.

Well, it's just been a zoo.

[reporter on TV] Senator Alfonse
D'Amato tore up an art catalog...

[Wojnarowicz] How can they
ignore the political aspect of AIDS?

Is the fact that I may
be dying of AIDS in 1989,

is that not political?

Is the fact that I don't
have health insurance

and I don't have access
to adequate health care,

is that not political?

♪♪ [ambient]

[Nan] Vittorio was given
three months to live,

and he started drawing cartoons.

He was still alive a
year and a half later.

That's the wake of Vittorio.

Cookie had already
lost her voice.

But she was constantly writing

so people could see what
she needed and wanted.

Then Sharon came back
to take care of Cookie.

The picture of Sharon
nursing Cookie...

To me, this is the
meaning of love.

I was raging.

"Call this doctor.
Call that doctor.

Someone's gonna
be able to help her.

There's gotta be something. There's
a treatment out there somewhere."

And then to realize there
was no doctor to call.

It was just... I didn't get it.

♪♪ [ambient]

We had Cookie's memorial
at St. Mark's Church,

and the next day,
Witnesses opened.

[Wojnarowicz] My name
is David Wojnarowicz,

and I'd like to read this
in memory of Peter Hujar,

Keith Davis, Bebe Smith,

Cookie Mueller, Vittorio.

One of the first steps in
making the private grief public

is the ritual of memorials,

and I've attended a number of
memorials in the last five years,

and at the last one I attended, I
suddenly found myself experiencing

something akin to rage.

And what made me angry,

what made me angry was
realizing that the memorial

had little reverberation
outside the room it was held in,

and at the same
time, worry that friends

will solely become
professional pallbearers,

waiting for each death of their
lovers, friends, and neighbors,

and polishing their
funereal speeches.

Perfecting their
rituals of death

rather than a relatively
simple ritual of life,

such as screaming
in the streets.

[activists] Not the church! Not the
state! We decide what art is great!

[chanting continues]

Step on the sidewalk,
can't stay in the street.

[Wojnarowicz] I imagine
what it would be like

if friends had a demonstration
each time a lover or a friend

or a stranger died of AIDS.

And I imagine
what it would be like,

each time a lover, friend,
or stranger died of AIDS,

or of this disease.

Their friends, lovers, or neighbors
would take their dead body

and drive with it in a car 100
miles an hour to Washington, D. C.

and blast through the
gates of the White House

and come to a screeching
halt before the entrance,

and then dump their lifeless
forms on the front steps.

But bottom line, even
a tiny charcoal scratch

done as a gesture to
mark a person's response

to this epidemic means whole
worlds to me if it's hung in public.

And bottom line,

we have to find our own forms
of gesture and communication.

You can never depend on
the mass media to reflect us

or our needs or
our states of mind.

[chanting indistinctly]

NEA, stop your tricks!
Art is sex and politics!

[Nan] Mark Morrisroe
died soon after it opened.

♪♪ [ambient]

David Wojnarowicz died in 1992.

People don't really understand
the anger and frustration

and pain of those years.

They don't understand
what we went through.

It's still killing people.

It never went away.

David Armstrong died in 2014.

You know, we spent
a lot of a life together.

Decades of friendship.

[in French] Sacklers, we're
dying! And the Louvre covers it up!

Sacklers, we're dying!
And the Louvre covers it up!

[chanting continues]

Many people have started to
refuse donations from the Sacklers,

including the Guggenheim
Museum, the Met Museum, the Tate,

and the National
Portrait Gallery,

as well as medical
institutions worldwide.

We need to demand that the
Louvre stand by and hear us,

and be the first to
take down their name.

[snare drum playing]

[Poitras] Can I
ask you a question?

[Nan] What?

When you overdosed,
were you alone?

[Nan] Yeah.

Totally.

I thought it was dope, so I
snorted it and it was fentanyl.

A lot of people want fentanyl,
but I was not prepared for fentanyl.

And I just went out like that.

I just went out.

And then I came back,
and then I went out again.

Nobody brought me
back. I just came back.

I'm so lucky that I
came back by myself.

I mean, all the judgment of
people who are addicted to drugs

are stigmatized without
understanding what the experience

of not having these drugs is.

To have to go
through withdrawal...

Your brain is stripped
of its opioid receptors,

so you have no protection
from any kind of pain.

It's not just the physical part.

It's like...

the darkest...

you can go.

It's a darkness of the soul.

It's unbearable.

♪♪ [ambient strings]

[dial tone over phone]

[man 1 over phone] Okay, I am here.
You can come by whenever you want.

- [woman] Hello?
- [man 1] Hi.

- [woman] What did you say?
- I'm here at the restaurant.

You can come here
whenever you want.

- Great. How many did you get?
- All that you wanted.

[phone disconnects]

[dial tone]

- [woman] Yeah?
- [man 2] Hi.

- [woman] Who is it?
- You still in the bed?

[woman] Oh, no, I
never went to sleep.

You know what really
hit me as peculiar?

And I've been thinking
about it all morning.

Misery does not love company.
Misery loves attention...

- [woman laughs]
- in this case.

♪♪ [ambient strings]

[chattering]

[Nan] The supply
has become very dirty.

Basically lethal.

Okay, here we go.

Fentanyl is in everything now.

And this is fentanyl here?

[woman] So fentanyl
has, like, one big peak.

Coke has two peaks right here.

And they're at slightly
different numbers.

- [Nan] Okay.
- Here you can see this deviates.

[Nan] You want to show
them the bloody ones you did?

No, but it's good, 'cause then
it will be obvious it's not real.

- [woman] What is our messaging?
- [Cullen] Our messaging is:

"Purdue is bankrupt,
but the Sacklers aren't.

"Their personal wealth has
all been made from OxyContin

and it needs to be
taken from them."

[Nan] I think the messaging is the
Sacklers are getting away with murder.

We want their money and
where we want to spend it.

[Keefe] The company ends
up declaring bankruptcy.

That's this kind of amazing
escape hatch, because...

what happens is that
Purdue, the company, says,

"Listen, we realize
there's all these lawsuits,

but we don't have the resources
to fight or settle them all,

and so instead we're
gonna declare bankruptcy

because our coffers
are almost empty."

But the reason that the coffers
are almost empty, we now know,

is that behind the scenes

for a decade leading up
to this bankruptcy plea,

the Sacklers have been quietly
siphoning money out of the company.

So they took more than
$10 billion out of the company

before it declares bankruptcy.

- Whose money?
- Our money!

- Whose blood?
- Our blood!

[chanting continues]

♪♪ [ambient strings]

[man] You think they
could get away with this?

Of course. Yes.

I never expected that
they'd be held accountable.

I don't think that much
money can be taken away

from a billionaire family.

The fact that a bankruptcy
court is deciding a public...

Like, a public
crisis issue, is crazy.

That's the problem.

So I've been involved since
the beginning, basically.

At some point, a light
bulb went on and I said:

"Let's bring the activism
into the courtroom,"

and ever since then, we've
been fighting in the court.

And we weren't exactly
welcome the first time.

You know, we're like little
assassins, we go in... and get out.

I told the lawyer for Purdue
that I'm doing it pro-bono.

He was like, "What?"

He was like, "What? Wait, what?"

You know, because they
spent $30 million a month

on legal fees and
professional fees in this case.

There's like 80-something
attorneys and people on this call.

That's a lot.

[man over speaker] Good
morning, this is Judge Drain.

This is a completely
telephonic hearing.

We're here today in
re: Purdue Pharma L.P.

Your Honor, we think
there's a huge mistake here.

We think the process that the
DOJ went through was wrong.

We think that the results, which
are completely vague and baffling

to me and my clients, is wrong.

The DOJ neither invited
input from Purdue's victims,

nor the public, nor apparently any
members of the House and Senate.

The negotiation
between these two parties,

the DOJ and Purdue/The
Sacklers alone,

is not sufficient to make
this kind of policy decision.

My clients are like the
Ghost of Christmas Past,

they're here to tell you in 2007,
they saw there was a problem,

the problem got worse,

and this is our moment,
their moment, to tell you

we gotta make sure
that the future is safer.

[judge] Okay, well...

All right, thank you.

[Huebner] Good
morning, Your Honor,

and good morning to
everyone who is on the line.

Your Honor, Mr. Quinn
many times used the phrase

"Purdue/The Sacklers."

The kind of suggestion that Purdue
and the Sacklers are in this together

is really not helpful.

And it's just... It's not fair.

[Nan] This is so depressing.

Thank you so much, Mike.

Thank you so much for
going out there and battling.

I feel proud to be doing it,
and, whatever. We're in it.

The fact that our group
is in the bankruptcy,

at the front of the bankruptcy,

fighting every single thing
tooth and nail is amazing.

- Yeah, it's pretty funny.
- It's fucking crazy.

- Is there any chance of criminal charges?
- No.

The way the plan's structured,

if the DOJ filed criminal
charges against the Sacklers now,

it would blow up the
whole bankruptcy.

So effectively, they just
dodged criminal liability.

We followed these people
into bankruptcy court

and we're watching them completely
manipulate the justice system.

There's no justice for
us, only for billionaires.

So all we can hope is that
the money in the settlement

that goes to the states
goes to the right places,

that it goes to harm
reduction and not policing.

[cheering and applause]

That it goes to groups like
you that are saving lives.

[judge over speaker] This is
a proceeding in federal court.

It is being held remotely,

but the rules and decorum
of a federal court apply.

So let me confirm.

I see David Sackler on the
screen, and I see Theresa Sackler.

Richard Sackler is on the phone

and will stay on the phone
throughout this proceeding.

Dr. Sackler, can you
confirm that for me?

[Richard Sackler] Yes, Your Honor, I
am here on the phone and I'm listening.

[Price] Before we start, there's
one clarification I wanted to make.

I believe Richard
said that he is listening.

I believe he's also supposed
to say that he is watching.

He's supposed to be
watching the video but not seen.

Can he confirm that?

[Richard Sackler] I
can confirm that I saw...

I'm seeing everything.

[judge] Okay, and
that's important.

And thank you for
raising that, Mr. Price.

All right, the first person
who will speak today

is Tiffinee Scott.

Richard.

David.

Theresa.

We have never met,

but I feel like I already
have a relationship with you

due to OxyContin.

Have you ever provided
Narcan to one of your children?

Have you revived one of your
children from an overdose?

I have.

There are no words
to describe my pain.

In May of 2020, she
was found unresponsive,

lifeless in bed by
me, her mother.

The deceit and horror you
all caused, shame on you.

I remember the day Trent told
me he was addicted to OxyContin.

He called me from the campus
of the University of Alabama.

I could tell in his voice,
there was great fear.

I drove the three hours,
he met me in tears,

we wept together.

"Dad, I can't stop taking Oxy.
Dad, I'm afraid I'm going to die."

- And he did.
- This is so hard.

[man] I encountered
opioids for the first time

shortly after you
launched OxyContin.

And I am one of the living
survivors of your monumental greed.

I hope that every face,

every single victim's face haunts
your every waking moment...

It won't.

and your sleeping ones too.

[judge] Thank you.

The next person to
speak is Nan Goldin.

It's nice to finally see
the Sacklers face-to-face.

The Sacklers' so-called apology,
which was mandated by this settlement,

is insulting to all of us who
have been damaged by them.

One family is largely responsible
for the onset of this crisis

that has led to the deaths of
over half a million Americans

and caused irreparable
damage for generations to come.

Yet their settlement grants them
immunity, not just for themselves,

but for generations
of Sacklers to come.

Purdue has been found
guilty of federal crimes,

but its private owners
have never been prosecuted.

We hope the Justice Department
will pursue criminal charges.

Thank you.

[judge] Okay, thank you.

[woman screaming on recording]

[dispatcher] They're on the
way, they've been dispatched.

Has he taken anything?

[man] I just don't know.
He has in the past.

[woman screaming and shouting]

[Kapler] Oh, my God.

[man speaking indistinctly]

- [dispatcher] You said he's 20 years old?
- [man] Yes.

- [dispatcher] What's his name?
- Pardon me?

- What's his name?
- Bryan... [indistinct]

- [dispatcher] We're on the way, okay?
- [man] Thank you, sir.

4,804 days.

Richard, if you're
still listening,

that's how many days since
I made that horrifying call.

I have lived with the pain and heartache
as a result of the loss of my only child,

a pain you will
never understand.

I can only echo the
pain and suffering

that Kristy feels and that all
of us that are here today feel.

I want to point out to the Sacklers that
by the time this two-hour hearing is over,

you can add 16 more
people to your death list.

[Nan] I asked my father

for records from the
hospitals she'd been in.

And he gave them to me
without reading them himself.

So this box came.

"The Box," I think of it as,
with the primary documents.

♪♪ [choir]

There was the history
of Barbara for me to read,

and I was terrified.

I wanted to know, but
I didn't want to know.

I didn't understand that
the first place she was sent

was actually an orphanage.

And then she burned down
the curtains and ran away.

She's described as a
rebellious adolescent.

It says in the interviews
that the psychiatrist thought

that Mrs. Goldin
should be in the hospital,

not Miss Goldin.

And that's actually written
in the hospital record.

My mother had been
sexually abused for years

by a family member.

And when my sister hit puberty,
my mother couldn't cope with it.

My sister didn't have any outlet.
She didn't have any context.

It was not mental illness.

I just knew how hard it
was for her to be alive.

She wanted a home so badly.

If she had found people,
if she'd been loved,

she would have survived.

♪♪ [classical]

[train horn wailing]

[Nan] Persons in the area told
police they had seen Miss Goldin

a short time before

when she asked when the
next train was due to pass.

Shortly before 5:30 p.m., person
said Miss Goldin put her pocketbook

on the ground next to the tracks,
then lay down across the tracks

as the Capitol
Limited approached.

The train's engineer
told police they saw her

and nailed the brakes, but
were unable to stop the train.

Pathological examiner
ruled her death as a suicide.

Other significant conditions
contributing to death:

severe mental depression.

[Nan] I mean, that's the
problem. You grow up being told,

"That didn't happen. You didn't
see that. You didn't hear that."

And what do you do? How
do you believe yourself?

How do you trust yourself?

How do you continue
to trust yourself?

And then how do
you show the world

that you did experience
that, that you did hear that?

And so that's the
reason I take pictures.

- Nan, what are you doing?
- [Nan] Beautiful, you look beautiful.

- Nan, does that have sound?
- Yeah.

Oh, my dear.

Let's go, honey.

My mom's a dance fanatic.

- [chuckles]
- [slow music playing on speaker]

And she's gonna teach her
old husband how to move it.

I like to do this...

- Go, Mom!
- Go for it.

[Nan] My father and mother
were not equipped to be parents.

They had children
because it was expected,

more than it was about
nurturing other human beings.

That looks good!

- Yeah, but hold it up more.
- [Mr. Goldin] Is that high enough?

- [Nan] Yeah, that's beautiful.
- You can see it?

[Mrs. Goldin] Barbara loved Nan
very much. They were very, very close.

When she died, she
had in her pocketbook

a very beautiful,
small book of Psalms.

And she had this
wonderful quotation from...

Conrad.

The Heart of Darkness.

Joseph Conrad.

She was also, like
Nan, a very wide reader.

And I have the
quotation upstairs.

But it had in it
something about...

uh...

- Can you stop?
- Yeah.

- You should get the quotation.
- Stop.

- [Mrs. Goldin] Something about regrets.
- Yeah. Infinite regrets.

Is it on now?

Quotation from
Heart of Darkness...

[Nan] And it was just
written on a piece of paper?

"It's a droll thing life is,
that mysterious arrangement

of merciless logic
for a futile purpose.

The most you can hope for is
some knowledge of yourself...

that comes too late.

A crop of
unextinguishable regrets."

[Nan] I think this story
is an important story,

not just for me,

but for society.

About conformity and denial.

And also about stigma.

The wrong things are kept
secret, and that destroys people.

My sister was a victim of all that,
but she knew how to fight back.

Her rebellion was the
starting point for my own.

She showed me the way.

- Let's turn off for a minute.
- [Poitras] Yeah.

♪♪ [orchestral]

[Cullen] Oh, wow.

[chuckles]

[Nan] Wow.

We did it, baby.

Four years of work.
Congress didn't do anything.

Justice Department
hasn't done anything.

Bankruptcy court,
you know, completely...

left them better than ever.

You know, they're completely
vindicated by bankruptcy court.

And so this is the only place
they're being held accountable,

the only place.

And we did it.

[Kapler] Wow.

[Keefe] Oh, my
goodness. What a feeling.

- Incredible.
- It's amazing.

[Kapler] The Sacklers
are now "private sources."

Here, stay there.

It doesn't say what
private sources.

[both chuckling]

Beautiful.

- Oh, man.
- It's so good.

It's hard to believe.

♪♪ [orchestral]

♪♪ [chorus]

♪♪ [rock]

♪ Unlock my love ♪

♪ And set me free ♪

♪ Come fill me up ♪

♪ With ecstasy ♪

♪ Surround my heartbeat
With your fingertips ♪

♪ Unbound my feet,
untie my wrists ♪

♪ Come into my
world of loneliness ♪

♪ And wickedness,
and betterness ♪

♪ Unlock my love ♪

♪ Unsuffer me ♪

♪ Take away the pain ♪

♪ Unbruise, unbloody ♪

♪ Wash away the stain ♪

♪ Anoint my head
with your sweet kiss ♪

♪ My joy is dead,
I long for bliss ♪

♪ I long for knowledge
Whisper in my ear ♪

♪ Undo my logic, undo my fear ♪

♪ Unsuffer me ♪