Andy Warhol Films
Paul Morrissey fans - calm down. I'll mention him, don't panic. This blog is dedicated to the 20th century's greatest pop-culture phenomenon. The platinum wunderkind that took the 1960's by storm, changed life on planet Earth and redefined the very concept behind what "art" meant. I think it's safe to say that most people (when they first think "Andy Warhol") think of his artwork - the painting, the stencils, the lithographs that made him a household name. It's still fair to say that a large percentage of those same people are aware that Andy also tried his hand at directing films. I dare say many of these people have actually had the pleasure of SEEING one of his films as they are impossibly hard to get your hands on.
These are not the types of films that would sell many tickets so theaters typically turn their noses up at them. Highly (and I do mean highly) artistic, these are less "movies" and more like moving pieces of art - consider the melding of his familiar painting work with the life of celluloid. Inadvertently, I found myself included in several "festivals" that screened some of Andy's harder-to-stomach films - so I've seen a great deal of this rare mess. A. Great. Deal...
While some of his films are astronomical with greatness - some of them are equally baffling. More than once, I shook my head and pondered why the hell anyone would have wasted precious film documenting what I'd just seen. No, really. A classic example of this would be his film Empire. You
will most likely never get the chance to see this - and if you do, run for your life. It's over eight hours long! That isn't daunting to you? Oh...I failed to tell you what you see during this eight hour film: just the Empire State Building. One, unmoving, static shot ... for eight solid hours. It's the equivalent of standing on the corner of 34th Street and staring up for 1/3 of your day. Thrilling? Riveting? Not really...yet...I sat there watching it for eight hours. Watching lights blink, clouds roll by, tourists flash cameras and somehow it stayed interesting. Maybe I was on some incredible drugs. Maybe I just like staring at things - the more I delved into the Warhol film canon, the more I realized this guy was a nutball...so thusly, this led to me loving him even more.
As his films became copious (and I do mean copious, he made hundreds), he recruited assistance from his "Factory" core players. Paul Morrissey stepped in as director and began filming Warhol's vision with a more modernistic, coherent eye. Flesh, Trash & Heat are excellent examples.
(Just a quick interjection - it's so hard to omit the Morrissey contributions. It's not that I prefer his direction of Warhol's ideas - it's just...so hard to separate the two. I even broke down and became weak in the #2 slot. I couldn't continue without also saying Bad is also an amazing film, even though this wasn't directed by Morrissey but by Jed Johnson. Maybe I should do a blog about Paul Morrissey soon. Hmm...)
Produced by Warhol and directed by Morrissey, the Warhol film phenomenon ended with a few moderate underground hits but nothing extravagant or impressive. It's kinda sad. He worked tirelessly for the entire decade and never really saw any giant pay off to his hard work. Sometimes that happens in art. Sometimes it doesn't. What we (as the living survivors) inherited was a gigantic body of work, some impossibly hard to watch, some extravagant examples of art-house cinema - but every single one of these films is a testament to the genius living inside Andy Warhol's freaky-looking giant, man-baby head.
5) "VINYL" (1965): Belive it or not - this is included in the book 1001 Films To See Before You Die and I think...for the most part...that's fair. Vinyl is the ultimate in "experimental" filmmaking. Approach this with an open mind, and you just might fall in love. This movie is credited as Edie Sedgwick's first screen appearance - despite the fact that she'd been in earlier Warhol films - and despite the fact that she has no lines ... you can see her! I remember this as being one of the first times I gave Andy Warhol a chance. I walked away really confused as to what I'd just seen. At 70 minutes, fluffed with a familiar soundtrack, familiar faces - this film barely has a cohesive plot at all. Supposedly, this was an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange and ... I'll admit, you can almost kinda see that (if you forget everything you know about Kubrick's version, take some powerful hallucinogenics and semi-lucid while you watch). This one earns a slot in the top five because more than anything else ... I remember Vinyl as the movie that gave me one of my favorite character names of all time. Scum Baby.
4) "EMPIRE" (1964): I already kind of exploded over this one a few paragraphs back. All I can do here is elaborate on how bland this movie is. Have you ever been in a museum and seen one of those digital projected images that changes very slowly? This eight hour marathon has the same appeal as one of those pictures - only you're staring at the Empire State Building. If you ever like to zone out and stare at images, giving your brain meat a rest - and simply sit back and appreciate the eye candy, this might be down your alley. This isn't really a movie. It's more like a rite of passage. One of Warhol's longest films, Empire occasionally gets a screening at MoMa. If you ever have eight hours to spare, give yourself a treat and go stare at a phallic object that twinkles for the length of a common work day. You'll be bored but at the same time - you'll find it kind of hard to stand up and march out. For some damn reason, it always feels like something is just about to happen when you watch Empire. Spoiler alert - it doesn't. It's still an incredible movie experience. Empire has actually been inducted into the Library of Congress' National Film Registry as well as being one of "The Thirteen Greatest Long-Ass Movies of All Time" by Nerve. Two odd tidbits - during three of the reel changes, Warhol and (legendary bad-ass, monster of moviemaking) cinematographer Jonas Mekas forgot to turn the lights out in the editing booth, so if you watch really closely during the split seconds when the reel changes - you can actually see Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas reflected like ghosts on the screen. It's pretty hot really. Another special tid-bit you can look forward to, after 6 1/2 hours of filming the ESB, the flood lights atop the famous building went out (as they do every morning around 5am), so the final 90 minutes of the film ... as the sun slowly rises ... you're pretty much staring at a black screen. Enjoy. This is art.
3) "LONESOME COWBOYS" (1968): Gay Romeo & Juliet - starring Joe Dallesandro's fine self, Viva's bad ass, and an entire legion of other Warhol superstars. One of the best collaborations with Morrissey (who plays writer this time), this spoof of the western genre is actually a really decent movie. Not nearly as experimental and trippy as some of the other films, Lonesome Cowboys is full-on gay lust in the dust. Yeah, that was punny and a nod to another great flick. This movie has so much hippie penis in it - it's not for everyone. To me, this is the best film that Morrissey assisted with. Warhol was still manning the director's chair while allowing his BFF to handle the script, casting and cinematography. It's a really solid entry and a precursor to what this dynamic duo would go on to create as the decade turned into the corduroy-slathered 70s. This probably wouldn't make most people's top five lists, but I don't care. I like this movie and I'll fight anyone who dares to challenge me over this. You heard me tell you that Joe Dallensandro was in it, right? Enough said.
2) "FRANKENSTEIN/DRACULA" (1973/1974): I couldn't help it. This is a "twofer" - I've never ever ever ever watched one of these without immediately watching the other, so in my mind - these two campy horror classics are one movie. The first time I ever witnessed this disgusting trainwreck was at a Jr High party and someone had (scandalous!) rented the VHS to play in the background. It was a big deal because these two familiar remakes were rated Batman Dracula (which is just ... wow, you need drugs for that one) so he'd finally returned with a proper budget and cluster of adoring "Factory" superstars to complete his dream. These truly are bad-ass movies. Forget they have anything to do with Warhol and based solely on the quality of them as horror films - they still kick ass. Gorey, gross, demented, shocking, graphic and hilarious - don't you dare watch one of these without allowing another 90 minutes afterward to immediately view the other. If you do - I'll find you. You don't want that.
X. Woowee! We were wild, excited and drooling by the time these began. I was the only one left in the room after ten minutes. It was simply too weird for anyone else - however; I couldn't get enough of them. Between the two, and if you twisted my arm in a way that caused me agonizing pain - I'd have to say Frankenstein is probably the better film. Simply based on the editing, script and production value. They were filmed back to back, almost over the same weekend - so the look of the film (as well as the stars, sets and costumes) were repeated. Directed by Paul Morrissey and produced by Andy Warhol - these two movies were a pet project for Andy. He'd once attempted the Dracula story years earlier in his experimental flick
1) "THE CHELSEA GIRLS" (1966): God, yes! What is the ultimate of ultimates? The weirdest of the weird? The juiciest of juicy? There is absolutely nothing better than The Chelsea Girls. Inspired by Nico's Chelsea Girl album, Warhol decided to make a movie based at the Hotel Chelsea that juxtaposed the idea of black and white, good and evil - using his friends as stars and various locations in the landmark hotel as background. No - it gets better: Warhol and Morrissey filmed different sections (around 33 minutes each), each was a semi-experimental, almost avant-garde type recitation, staring contest, close-up of a single person. The images were compiled until they had six and a half hours of footage - then the bad-ass part comes into play. To juxtapose the B&W theme, Warhol wanted to project the film in two halves simultaneously. The screen on the left would show the "white" (or happier, optimistic, pretty) things, while the screen on the right would show the opposite. Also taking into consideration the frame rate - this meant that everytime the two movies were projected, since they were using different machines - each screening would be slightly different from the next. It's really hard to explain and I pretty much just botched the Hell out of it - but for those of you who've actually sat in a theater watching the 210 minute spectacle, you'll agree - I nailed it. Roger Ebert's review stated it eloquently, giving it one star out of four "...what we have here is 3 1/2 hours of split-screen improvisation poorly photographed, hardly edited at all, employing perversion and sensation like chili sauce to disguise the aroma of the meal. Warhol has nothing to say and no technique to say it with. He simply wants to make movies, and he does: hours and hours of them" He says it like it's a bad thing - I don't understand. That's why I loved the damn movie! Since the nature of The Chelsea Girls is so unique - the home video options are almost nil. One Italian company did release a DVD of it, but it's not really the type of movie that works on a television, so it's out of print now. The Museum of Modern Art and the Andy Warhol Museum are the only two realistic places to catch a screening and when they announce one - you'd better go. It's the only chance you'll ever have to see something like this. And you should see something like this. The result is something beautiful.
These are not the types of films that would sell many tickets so theaters typically turn their noses up at them. Highly (and I do mean highly) artistic, these are less "movies" and more like moving pieces of art - consider the melding of his familiar painting work with the life of celluloid. Inadvertently, I found myself included in several "festivals" that screened some of Andy's harder-to-stomach films - so I've seen a great deal of this rare mess. A. Great. Deal...
While some of his films are astronomical with greatness - some of them are equally baffling. More than once, I shook my head and pondered why the hell anyone would have wasted precious film documenting what I'd just seen. No, really. A classic example of this would be his film Empire. Youwill most likely never get the chance to see this - and if you do, run for your life. It's over eight hours long! That isn't daunting to you? Oh...I failed to tell you what you see during this eight hour film: just the Empire State Building. One, unmoving, static shot ... for eight solid hours. It's the equivalent of standing on the corner of 34th Street and staring up for 1/3 of your day. Thrilling? Riveting? Not really...yet...I sat there watching it for eight hours. Watching lights blink, clouds roll by, tourists flash cameras and somehow it stayed interesting. Maybe I was on some incredible drugs. Maybe I just like staring at things - the more I delved into the Warhol film canon, the more I realized this guy was a nutball...so thusly, this led to me loving him even more.
As his films became copious (and I do mean copious, he made hundreds), he recruited assistance from his "Factory" core players. Paul Morrissey stepped in as director and began filming Warhol's vision with a more modernistic, coherent eye. Flesh, Trash & Heat are excellent examples.
(Just a quick interjection - it's so hard to omit the Morrissey contributions. It's not that I prefer his direction of Warhol's ideas - it's just...so hard to separate the two. I even broke down and became weak in the #2 slot. I couldn't continue without also saying Bad is also an amazing film, even though this wasn't directed by Morrissey but by Jed Johnson. Maybe I should do a blog about Paul Morrissey soon. Hmm...)
Produced by Warhol and directed by Morrissey, the Warhol film phenomenon ended with a few moderate underground hits but nothing extravagant or impressive. It's kinda sad. He worked tirelessly for the entire decade and never really saw any giant pay off to his hard work. Sometimes that happens in art. Sometimes it doesn't. What we (as the living survivors) inherited was a gigantic body of work, some impossibly hard to watch, some extravagant examples of art-house cinema - but every single one of these films is a testament to the genius living inside Andy Warhol's freaky-looking giant, man-baby head.
5) "VINYL" (1965): Belive it or not - this is included in the book 1001 Films To See Before You Die and I think...for the most part...that's fair. Vinyl is the ultimate in "experimental" filmmaking. Approach this with an open mind, and you just might fall in love. This movie is credited as Edie Sedgwick's first screen appearance - despite the fact that she'd been in earlier Warhol films - and despite the fact that she has no lines ... you can see her! I remember this as being one of the first times I gave Andy Warhol a chance. I walked away really confused as to what I'd just seen. At 70 minutes, fluffed with a familiar soundtrack, familiar faces - this film barely has a cohesive plot at all. Supposedly, this was an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange and ... I'll admit, you can almost kinda see that (if you forget everything you know about Kubrick's version, take some powerful hallucinogenics and semi-lucid while you watch). This one earns a slot in the top five because more than anything else ... I remember Vinyl as the movie that gave me one of my favorite character names of all time. Scum Baby.
4) "EMPIRE" (1964): I already kind of exploded over this one a few paragraphs back. All I can do here is elaborate on how bland this movie is. Have you ever been in a museum and seen one of those digital projected images that changes very slowly? This eight hour marathon has the same appeal as one of those pictures - only you're staring at the Empire State Building. If you ever like to zone out and stare at images, giving your brain meat a rest - and simply sit back and appreciate the eye candy, this might be down your alley. This isn't really a movie. It's more like a rite of passage. One of Warhol's longest films, Empire occasionally gets a screening at MoMa. If you ever have eight hours to spare, give yourself a treat and go stare at a phallic object that twinkles for the length of a common work day. You'll be bored but at the same time - you'll find it kind of hard to stand up and march out. For some damn reason, it always feels like something is just about to happen when you watch Empire. Spoiler alert - it doesn't. It's still an incredible movie experience. Empire has actually been inducted into the Library of Congress' National Film Registry as well as being one of "The Thirteen Greatest Long-Ass Movies of All Time" by Nerve. Two odd tidbits - during three of the reel changes, Warhol and (legendary bad-ass, monster of moviemaking) cinematographer Jonas Mekas forgot to turn the lights out in the editing booth, so if you watch really closely during the split seconds when the reel changes - you can actually see Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas reflected like ghosts on the screen. It's pretty hot really. Another special tid-bit you can look forward to, after 6 1/2 hours of filming the ESB, the flood lights atop the famous building went out (as they do every morning around 5am), so the final 90 minutes of the film ... as the sun slowly rises ... you're pretty much staring at a black screen. Enjoy. This is art.
3) "LONESOME COWBOYS" (1968): Gay Romeo & Juliet - starring Joe Dallesandro's fine self, Viva's bad ass, and an entire legion of other Warhol superstars. One of the best collaborations with Morrissey (who plays writer this time), this spoof of the western genre is actually a really decent movie. Not nearly as experimental and trippy as some of the other films, Lonesome Cowboys is full-on gay lust in the dust. Yeah, that was punny and a nod to another great flick. This movie has so much hippie penis in it - it's not for everyone. To me, this is the best film that Morrissey assisted with. Warhol was still manning the director's chair while allowing his BFF to handle the script, casting and cinematography. It's a really solid entry and a precursor to what this dynamic duo would go on to create as the decade turned into the corduroy-slathered 70s. This probably wouldn't make most people's top five lists, but I don't care. I like this movie and I'll fight anyone who dares to challenge me over this. You heard me tell you that Joe Dallensandro was in it, right? Enough said.
2) "FRANKENSTEIN/DRACULA" (1973/1974): I couldn't help it. This is a "twofer" - I've never ever ever ever watched one of these without immediately watching the other, so in my mind - these two campy horror classics are one movie. The first time I ever witnessed this disgusting trainwreck was at a Jr High party and someone had (scandalous!) rented the VHS to play in the background. It was a big deal because these two familiar remakes were rated Batman Dracula (which is just ... wow, you need drugs for that one) so he'd finally returned with a proper budget and cluster of adoring "Factory" superstars to complete his dream. These truly are bad-ass movies. Forget they have anything to do with Warhol and based solely on the quality of them as horror films - they still kick ass. Gorey, gross, demented, shocking, graphic and hilarious - don't you dare watch one of these without allowing another 90 minutes afterward to immediately view the other. If you do - I'll find you. You don't want that.X. Woowee! We were wild, excited and drooling by the time these began. I was the only one left in the room after ten minutes. It was simply too weird for anyone else - however; I couldn't get enough of them. Between the two, and if you twisted my arm in a way that caused me agonizing pain - I'd have to say Frankenstein is probably the better film. Simply based on the editing, script and production value. They were filmed back to back, almost over the same weekend - so the look of the film (as well as the stars, sets and costumes) were repeated. Directed by Paul Morrissey and produced by Andy Warhol - these two movies were a pet project for Andy. He'd once attempted the Dracula story years earlier in his experimental flick
1) "THE CHELSEA GIRLS" (1966): God, yes! What is the ultimate of ultimates? The weirdest of the weird? The juiciest of juicy? There is absolutely nothing better than The Chelsea Girls. Inspired by Nico's Chelsea Girl album, Warhol decided to make a movie based at the Hotel Chelsea that juxtaposed the idea of black and white, good and evil - using his friends as stars and various locations in the landmark hotel as background. No - it gets better: Warhol and Morrissey filmed different sections (around 33 minutes each), each was a semi-experimental, almost avant-garde type recitation, staring contest, close-up of a single person. The images were compiled until they had six and a half hours of footage - then the bad-ass part comes into play. To juxtapose the B&W theme, Warhol wanted to project the film in two halves simultaneously. The screen on the left would show the "white" (or happier, optimistic, pretty) things, while the screen on the right would show the opposite. Also taking into consideration the frame rate - this meant that everytime the two movies were projected, since they were using different machines - each screening would be slightly different from the next. It's really hard to explain and I pretty much just botched the Hell out of it - but for those of you who've actually sat in a theater watching the 210 minute spectacle, you'll agree - I nailed it. Roger Ebert's review stated it eloquently, giving it one star out of four "...what we have here is 3 1/2 hours of split-screen improvisation poorly photographed, hardly edited at all, employing perversion and sensation like chili sauce to disguise the aroma of the meal. Warhol has nothing to say and no technique to say it with. He simply wants to make movies, and he does: hours and hours of them" He says it like it's a bad thing - I don't understand. That's why I loved the damn movie! Since the nature of The Chelsea Girls is so unique - the home video options are almost nil. One Italian company did release a DVD of it, but it's not really the type of movie that works on a television, so it's out of print now. The Museum of Modern Art and the Andy Warhol Museum are the only two realistic places to catch a screening and when they announce one - you'd better go. It's the only chance you'll ever have to see something like this. And you should see something like this. The result is something beautiful.
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