When people describe who I am, if they don't
say, 'Andy Warhol the Pop artist,' they say, 'Andy Warhol the underground
filmmaker.'
Andy Warhol, POPism
Andy Warhol was not only the twentieth century's most “famous”
exponent of Pop art but, “a post-modern Renaissance man”: a commercial
illustrator, a writer, a photographer, a sculptor, a magazine editor, a
television producer, an exhibition curator, and one of the most important
and provocative filmmakers of the New American Cinema group of the early
1960s. (1) The influence of Warhol's filmmaking can be
found in both the Hollywood mainstream film, which took from his work a
“gritty street-life realism, sexual explicitness, and on-the-edge performances,”
and in experimental film, which “reworked his long-take, fixed-camera
aesthetic into what came to be known as structural film.” (2)
At the beginning of the 1960s Warhol emerged as a significant artist in
the New York art scene, his first Manhattan show – at the Stable Gallery
in the fall of '62 – featuring Coca-Cola, Dance Diagram,
Do It Yourself, Elvis, Marilyn and disaster paintings.
In 1963 Warhol established a work space in a vacant firehouse – a hook
and ladder company – on East 87th Street, and later that same year
moved his studio to 231 East 47th Street, the space which came to be known
as the Factory. Around the same time, Warhol employed art-school student
and poet, Gerard Malanga, as his studio assistant. Malanga in turn introduced
Warhol to the underground filmmakers and poets Marie Menken and Willard
Maas, and also took Warhol to regular screenings at Jonas Mekas' Film-makers'
Co-op on Park Avenue South and the Charles Theater on East 12th Street.
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Kiss
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Across the summer of '63 Warhol made regular visits to a guest house that
his friend, the Magic Realist painter Wynn Chamberlain, was renting in Old
Lyme, Connecticut. It was over a weekend in Old Lyme that Warhol claimed
he began to develop the idea of an 8-hour film of a man sleeping. Complicated
by the limitations of Warhol's silent 16mm Bolex, that could only shoot
100 foot (or 4 minute) lengths of film, the completed Sleep (1963)
ran for not quite 6 hours, even when projected (as were all of Warhol's
early films) at the silent speed of 16 frames per second. Along with Warhol's
Kiss and Haircut (both 1963–64), and Blow Job,
Eat, Empire, and Henry Geldzahler (all 1964), Sleep
belongs to Warhol's early series of silent, black and white
films that emphasise stillness and duration. As Callie Angell points out,
it is possible to follow the development of Warhol's minimalist technique
from the early experimentations with multiple camera setups and internal
editing of Sleep, Kiss and Haircut through to the stationary
camera and single shot reels of Blow Job, Eat, Empire
and Henry Geldzahler. (3) Blow Job is typical
of the series, isolating (across its nine short reels) a single figure before
the camera. In this case, the camera “documents” the tortured
expression of a young man – shot in close-up against a rendered brick
wall – as an unseen participant administers the blow job of the film's
title.
Warhol's early “structural” films were an expression of the then
emerging aesthetic of minimalism (found especially in the music of
John Cage and LaMonte Young), but this was not the only influence. Among
the guests at Chamberlain's house at Old Lyme over the summer of '63 was
the underground actor and filmmaker Jack Smith. Smith was filming Normal
Love, his follow-up to the “scandalous” Flaming Creatures
(1962), and Warhol later acknowledged his influence: “I picked something
up from [Jack] for my own movies – the way he used anyone who happened
to be around that day, and also how he just kept shooting until the actors
got bored.” (4) Warhol shot an early “newsreel”
– Andy Warhol Films Jack Smith Filming “Normal Love”
(1963) – but more importantly he shared with Smith a camp aesthetic
(Warhol would go on to make a film titled Camp [1965]) and a fascination
with Hollywood and its star system. It was during a star-struck visit to
Los Angeles in the fall of '63 that Warhol shot the first of his parodic
narrative films – Tarzan and Jane Regained … Sort of (1963)
– in his suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel, with Taylor Mead as Tarzan
and Naomi Levin as Jane. Other parodic films from the period included the
unfinished Batman and Dracula (both 1964, and both featuring
Jack Smith) and Warhol's tribute to Lester Persky – Soap Opera
(1964) – starring an early Warhol “Superstar,” Baby Jane
Holzer.
In 1964 Warhol's filmmaking became centralised at his silver
painted and foil covered studio, the Factory. Fuelled by amphetamine, the
Factory became a site of constant activity or “production,” attracting
the lowlife friends of Billy Name (Billy Linich) who lived in the back,
and also artists, writers, students, and celebrities. Extending the multiple-image
“portraiture” of his celebrity silkscreens and the technique of
his motionless films, Warhol documented the Factory scene in some five hundred
100-foot silent portrait films (shot between 1964 and 1966) known as the
Screen Tests. Warhol had become a regular at the Film-makers' Co-op
and the individual Screen Tests – 4-minute close-up shots of
motionless subjects facing a stationary camera – were shown there weekly
under the title Andy Warhol Serial. The Screen Tests typified
Warhol's “industrial” or serial mode of production and were later
recycled in such projects as The Thirteen Most Beautiful Women and
The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys (1964–65) and provided a model
for other ongoing cumulative projects such as Kiss, Couch,
and Banana (1964–65). (5)
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Empire
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Toward the end of 1964 Warhol purchased his first sound camera, a single-system
16mm Auricon which enabled him to shoot continuous 33-minute reels. Warhol
had used the same type of camera for his 8-hour epic, Empire (his
first “sound” movie without sound), but he employed it
now for a number of “dramatic” collaborations with “scriptwriters”
Chuck Wein and Ronald Tavel, the latter from the Theater of the Ridiculous.
Tavel had appeared for the shooting of Warhol's first sound film, Harlot
(1964, starring Mario Montez as Jean Harlow), and Warhol subsequently employed
Tavel to prepare scenarios for films such as Screen Test #1, Screen
Test #2, Suicide, Vinyl, The Life of Juanita Castro,
Horse, Kitchen, and Space (all 1965). These sound features
– which typically consisted of two, single-shot 33 minute reels –
launched Warhol Superstars such as Edie Sedgwick, Gerard Malanga, Pope Ondine,
and Ingrid Superstar, in a series of self-creating performances.
(6) Vinyl is representative of Warhol's theatrical
featurettes from 1965. Devised from a scenario that Tavel adapted from the
Anthony Burgess novel A Clockwork Orange, Vinyl has Gerard
Malanga, J.D. MacDermott and a small group of “extras” (including
Edie Sedgwick and Ondine) play out a scene of spontaneous violence and torture.
The “narrative” is punctuated by a number of Pop songs of the
day, and features one startling moment when Edie, perched decoratively on
a stool, sipping occasionally from a glass, accidentally knocks over her
drink, breaking her pose and the “dramatic action.” (7)
At the beginning of 1966 Warhol began his collaboration
with a group of musicians calling themselves the Velvet Underground and
introduced them to actor/singer Nico (Christa Pãffgen). Mekas had
moved the Film Makers' Cinémathèque to West 41st Street and
was in the middle of an event called “Expanded Cinema.” Warhol's
contribution to the series – “Andy Warhol Up Tight” –
had the Velvets and Nico play against the backdrop of films like Vinyl
and Empire, and Malanga performed on stage, whipping a long strip
of phosphorescent tape in the air. (8) In the spring Warhol
took the idea of multimedia performance a step further incorporating his
film-work and Superstars into the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a
“happening” featuring live music and performance, multi-screen
film projection and elaborate light shows. With his publicity machine now
in full gear, Warhol claimed that, with one thing or another, his “company”
was reaching all quarters:
We had My Hustler [the 1965 Chuck Wein collaboration] playing
uptown at the Film-Makers' Coop in the Wurlitzer Building on West
41st Street. [E]ven farther uptown [we had] my opening of the silver
helium-filled pillows [Silver Clouds] at the Castelli Gallery with
my yellow and pink Cow wallpaper all over. … And at the Dom,
a big Polish dance hall on St Mark's Place [which we'd sublet and
equipped with five movie projectors and five carousel-type projectors],
we put on The Erupting [sic] Plastic Inevitable. (9)
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The
Chelsea Girls
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Warhol took his experimentation with multiple formats into his magnum opus
The Chelsea Girls (1966), a three-and-one-quarter hour epic made
up of twelve 33-minute unedited and unrelated reels projected in pairs.
Each of the segments featured various Warhol Superstars – Nico, Ondine,
Brigid Polk, Gerard Malanga, Ingrid Superstar, International Velvet –
playing themselves in episodes (ostensibly) unfolding in different rooms
of the Chelsea Hotel. The Chelsea Girls brought together not only
the minimalism and theatricality of Warhol's earlier films, but followed
the work of Jack Smith and the Kuchar Brothers to narrow the gap between
the underground and the mainstream, replicating in its “widescreen”
format and histrionic modes the methods of the Hollywood blockbuster. The
individually numbered and titled reels – Brigid Holds Court
(The Duchess), The Queen of China (Hanoi Hannah), The
Trip (Eric Says All) – include some of the Superstars' finest
“performances” and the final pairing of the sublime Nico Crying
and the explosive Pope Ondine Story is nothing short of inspired.
The Chelsea Girls opened at the Filmmaker's Cinémathèque
in the summer of '66 and, following good reviews in the mainstream press
(Newsweek called it “the Iliad of the underground”),
went into commercial release nationally the following year.
Warhol followed up the success of The Chelsea Girls
by beginning to assemble reels for an even more ambitious project, the 25-hour
**** (Four Stars, 1966–67). He also set about producing
a series of commercially oriented, “sexploitation” films in collaboration
with Paul Morrissey, his principal filmmaking assistant since 1965. The
series of narrative oriented films – I, a Man, Bike Boy,
The Loves of Ondine, The Nude Restaurant and Tub Girls
(all 1967–68) again featured Warhol Superstars, in particular Viva
and Ondine. Along with the 8-hour Imitation of Christ (1967) and
unedited versions of the five commercially released features, a total of
94 reels were incorporated into the once only screening of **** at
the New Cinema Playhouse on December 15–16, 1967. (10)
Following the production of **** (and again with exploitation markets
in mind) Warhol and his entourage set out for Arizona where they filmed
Lonesome Cowboys, a pseudo-Western starring Viva, Taylor Mead, Louis
Waldon, Joe Dallesandro and Eric Emerson. In the spring of '68 the troupe
travelled to California to make (the unreleased) San Diego Surf.
(11) The editing of these two projects was interrupted
in June '68 when Valerie Solanas, a periodic Factory visitor, shot and critically
wounded Warhol. Warhol was hospitalised for almost two months, and Morrissey
took over the Factory's filmmaking operation, to make Flesh (1968),
the first Morrissey-directed “Warhol film.” Warhol went on to
direct one final film, Blue Movie (aka Fuck, 1969) but Morrissey's
Flesh – followed by Trash (1969–70), Women in
Revolt (1970–72), Heat, L'Amour (both 1971–72),
Andy Warhol's Dracula and Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (both
1973–74) – had redefined (or realised) the Factory's film
production as a fully commercial venture.
© Constantine Verevis, October 2002
Endnotes:
- Peter Wollen, “Andy Warhol: Renaissance Man”
in Colin MacCabe et al (eds.), Who Is Andy Warhol?, London, British
Film Institute and The Andy Warhol Museum, 1997
- Michael O'Pray, “The Big Wig”, Sight
and Sound, October 1999, p. 20
- Callie Angell, "Andy Warhol, Filmmaker",
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, The Andy Warhol Museum, 1994,
pp. 125-26
- Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol
'60s, New York, Harper and Row, 1983, p. 31
- Angell, p. 140Callie Angell, “Andy Warhol, Filmmaker”,
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, The Andy Warhol Museum, 1994,
pp. 125–26
- Angell, p. 132
- Gloria Berlin and Bryan Bruce, “The Superstar
Story”, CineAction!, December 1986, p. 55
- Warhol and Hackett, p. 148
- Warhol and Hackett, p. 162
- Angell, p. 137–38
- Berlin and Bruce, p. 59
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Andy
Warhol
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Filmography
A definitive filmography
for Andy Warhol's “released” films has yet to be compiled. The
following list is based on the filmography found in Stephen Koch's Stargazer
and the cataloguing and preservation project described in The Andy
Warhol Museum.
All films listed are black and white with sound unless stated otherwise.
Films are dated to the year/s they were made, not the year of release.
Sleep (1963) 16mm, 16fps, 6 hours, silent
Andy Warhol Films Jack Smith Filming Normal Love (1963)
16mm, 16fps, 3mins, colour, silent
Tarzan and Jane Regained … Sort of (1963) 16mm, 16fps,
2 hours
Haircut (No. 1) (1963) 16mm, 16fps, 33mins, silent
Kiss (1963) 16mm, 16fps, 50mins, silent
Dance Movie (1963) 16mm, 16fps, 45mins, silent, also known
as Roller Skate
Salome and Delilah (1963) 16mm, 16fps, 30mins, silent
Batman (1964) 16mm, 16fps, no running time available,
silent
Dracula (1964) 16mm, 16fps, no running time available, silent
Eat (1964) 16mm, 16fps, 45mins, silent
Blow Job (1964) 16mm, 16fps, 30mins, silent
Empire (1964) 16mm, 16fps, 8 hours, silent
Henry Geldzahler (1964) 16mm, 16fps, 100mins, silent
Couch (1964) 16mm, 16fps, 40mins, silent
Shoulder (1964) 16mm, 16fps, 4mins, silent
Mario Banana (1964) 16mm, 16fps, 4mins, silent, also known
as Mario Eats a Banana
Harlot (1964) 16mm, 70mins
The Thirteen Most Beautiful Women (1964) 16mm, 16fps, 40mins,
silent
Soap Opera (1964) 16mm, 16fps, 70mins, silent, also known
as The Lester Persky Story
Taylor Mead's Ass (1964) 16mm, 16fps, 70mins, silent
The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys (1965) 16mm, 16fps, 40mins,
silent
Fifty Fantastics and Fifty Personalities (1965) 16mm, 16fps,
no running time available, silent
Ivy and John (1965) 16mm, 35mins
Suicide (1965) 16mm, 70mins, colour
Screen Test #1 (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Screen Test #2 (1965) 16mm, 70mins
The Life of Juanita Castro (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Drunk (1965) 16mm, 70mins
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Warhol
directing Edie Sedgewick in Beauty
#2
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Horse
(1965) 16mm, 105mins
Poor Little Rich Girl (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Vinyl (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Bitch (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Restaurant (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Kitchen (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Prison (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Face (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Afternoon (1965) 16mm, 105mins
Beauty #2 (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Space (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Outer and Inner Space (1965) 16mm, 70mins
My Hustler (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Camp (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Paul Swan (1965) 16mm, 70mins
More Milk Yvette (1965) 16mm, 70mins, also known as Lana
Turner
Lupe (1965) 16mm, 70mins
Hedy (1966) 16mm, 70mins, also known as The Most Beautiful
Woman in the World, or The Shoplifter, or The Fourteen Year
Old Girl
The Velvet Underground and Nico (1966) 16mm, 70mins
Bufferin (1966) 16mm, 35mins, also known as Gerard Malanga
Reads Poetry
Eating Too Fast (1966) 16mm, 70mins, also known as Blow
Job #2
The Chelsea Girls (1966) 16mm, 195mins, two-screen, colour
and b/w
**** (1966–67) 16mm, 25 hours, colour, also known as
Four Stars
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The
Loves of Ondine
|
The Loves of
Ondine (1967–68) 16mm, 86mins, colour
I, a Man (1967–68) 16mm, 100mins
Bike Boy (1967–68) 16mm, 96mins, colour
The Nude Restaurant (1967–68) 16mm, 96mins, colour
Tub Girls (1967–68) 16mm, no running time available,
colour
Lonesome Cowboys (1967–68) 16mm, 110mins, colour
Flesh (1968-69) 105mins, colour
Blue Movie (1968–69) 16mm, 90mins, colour, also known
as Fuck
Trash (1969-1970) 103mins, colour
Women in Revolt (1970-72) 98mins, colour
L'Amour (1971-1972) 90mins, colour
Heat (1971-72) 115mins, colour
Andy Warhol's Dracula (1973–74) 93mins, colour
Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (1973–74) 93mins, colour
Bad (1976) 109mins, colour
Select
Bibliography
Callie Angell, “Andy
Warhol, Filmmaker”, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, The
Andy Warhol Museum, 1994
Gregory Battcock (ed.), The New American Cinema: A Critical
Anthology, New York, E. P. Dutton, 1967
Gloria Berlin and Bryan Bruce, “The Superstar Story”, CineAction!,
December 1986, p. 52–63
David Bourdon, Warhol, New York, Harris N. Abrams, 1989
David Bourdon, “Warhol as Filmmaker”, Art in America,
59 (3), May/June 1971, pp. 48–53
John G. Hanhardt, “The American Independent Cinema, 1958–64”,
in Barbara Haskell (ed.), Blam!: The Explosion of Pop. Minimalism and
Performance, 1958–1964, New York, Whitney Museum of American
Art, 1984
David E. James, Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the Sixties,
Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1989
Stephen Koch, Stargazer: Andy Warhol's World and His Films, London:
Calder & Boyars, 1974
Colin MacCabe et al (eds.), Who Is Andy Warhol?, London, British
Film Institute and The Andy Warhol Museum, 1997
Gerard Malanga, Archiving Warhol: Illustrated History, London,
Creation, 2002
Jonas Mekas, “Sixth Independent Film Award”, Film Culture,
33, 1964, p. 1
Debra Miller, Billy Name: Stills from the Warhol Films, Munich–New
York, Prestel-Verlag, 1994
Michael O'Pray (ed.), Andy Warhol Film Factory, London, British
Film Institute, 1989
Michael O'Pray, “The Big Wig”, Sight and Sound, October
1999, pp. 20–22
Carel Rowe, The Baudelairean Cinema: A Trend within the American Avant-Garde,
Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan Research Press, 1982
Juan A Suárez, Bike Boys, Drag Queens, and Superstars: Avant-Garde,
Mass Culture, and Gay Identities in the 1960s Underground Cinema,
Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1996
Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol '60s, New York,
Harper and Row, 1983
Articles
in Senses of Cinema
Blow
Job by
Sam Ishii-Gonzalès
Drella
and the MacGuffin by Michael Eaton
Web
Resources Compiled
by author and Albert Fung
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Warhol
at work
|
Andy
Warhol
Contains
links various images.
Andy
Warhol – Artist and Filmmaker
A list of books and videos related to Warhol.
Andy
Warhol on the Internet
A list of Warhol links on the internet.
The Andy Warhol
Foundation
The Andy Warhol Homepage
The Andy Warhol Museum
Film
Directors - Articles on the Internet
Links to many articles on Warhol.
Warholstars
Dedicated to the Warhol Superstars, plus much more.
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