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The McNay Art Museum is featuring 'Andy Warhol: Fame and Misfortune,' now through May 20. Although Warhol is best known for his visual art, he experimented with many artforms, including music and film. Texas Public Radio’s Nathan Cone has this overview of Warhol’s work on film, and a preview of some of the movies you can see at the McNay this spring.
February 2, 2012 · Andy Warhol’s work on film began in 1963 with a series of films based on simple actions, usually involving one subject on the screen. Kiss and Eat are each about 45 or 50 minutes long. Even those with a casual knowledge of Warhol may have heard of his infamous five-hour film, "Sleep,", starring the poet and performance artist John Giorno. In the movie, Giorno… sleeps. And the camera observes this. Nine people attended the premiere of "Sleep," and two reportedly left within the first hour. Warhol would continue to use film to explore static objects, culminating with "Empire," an eight hour static shot of the Empire State Building. In Empire, the building slowly emerges on screen, only to be lost in darkness hours later as the sun sets on New York and the building’s floodlights are turned off. It’s part film, part museum installation. You can leave anytime and come back to see something new. But then, that’s what life is like, too, isn’t it? I could stare out my window at the building across the street, wait a few hours, and look again and see how the light has changed. By putting it on film, though, Warhol brought that observational experience to the forefront. Like much of Warhol’s pop art, "Empire" is about the elevation of the mundane into something that one takes notice of as a work of art in and of itself.
Following his experiments in static filmmaking, Warhol dabbled in narrative, albeit with little structure. Six years before Stanley Kubrick’s "A Clockwork Orange," Warhol filmed an improvisational take on Anthony Burgess’s novel, calling it "Vinyl." "Hedy" is a chaotic tribute to actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr, and Edie Sedgwick, a frequent Warhol screen presence, is one of three subjects in a bedroom in "Beauty #2." Both "Hedy" and "Beauty #2" will screen this spring as part of the McNay’s Warhol exhibit, as well as the film "Since," and a series of “Screen Tests,” short filmed portraits of Nico, Lou Reed, Dennis Hopper, and other celebrities and members of the Factory crowd. Unlike a Hollywood screen test, where the subject is asked to interact with other actors in a scene, these screen tests are head-on head shots of the subjects, either staring at the camera, or in Lou Reed’s case, drinking a Coca-Cola. They’re not as vibrant as Warhol’s celebrity silk-screen portraits, but they also don’t elevate celebrity into iconographic status the way those silk screens do, even though some of the hanger ons at the Factory might have hoped Warhol’s name would make them famous. Andy Warhol’s screen tests are human, and in a funny way, kind of innocent.
In all, Andy Warhol shot more than 60 films between 1963 and 1968. After that, Warhol was onto the next thing, and the films that follow with his name above the title are more the work of director Paul Morrissey than Warhol himself. Those include the satires “Trash,” “Women In Revolt,” and horror exploitation films like “Andy Warhol’s Flesh for Frankenstein,” and “Blood For Dracula.” They’re more structured, and some even saw commercial release in theaters.
The McNay’s Warhol film exhibition also includes two films about Warhol and his Factory collaborators. Edie Sedgwick is the subject of the 2006 film “Factory Girl,” about the life of the troubled Warhol muse. Sienna Miller stars in the film, and Guy Pearce plays Warhol, which plays on February 12 as part of the exhibition. And you can also catch the critically acclaimed film “I Shot Andy Warhol,” directed by Mary Harron, on May 6.
Incidentally, there is a San Antonio connection to the world of Warhol on film. Near the end of Warhol’s time behind the camera, he was commissioned by Houston art patrons Jean and Dominique de Menil to produce a series of filmed sunsets that would have played at a chapel on the grounds of the Hemisfair in 1968. Only one of the films was produced, though, and it’s of a California sunset. Nice, but sadly not from the Lone Star State.
2/2/12
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