February 12, 2004
Andy Warhol looks a scream - hang him on my wall.
And, while we're on the subject of Warhol, with an almost cosmic manifestation of the best kind of serendipity, my order of Warhol tapes showed up today. Fortunately, the bastard postman didn't wake me up at 9 this time, and wasn't forced to endure the sight of my unshaven face poking through the fly-wire, his eyes moving slowly down to my yellow, stained boxer shorts - my grasping fingers clawing at his body, raking across his chest and tearing his shirt as I attempt to snatch my parcel from him.
No, we had none of that. I was already awake, since I had to go and see me supervisor today, where we discussed my exegesis, and I laughed at him when he told me I need 50 references. Who the fuck is he trying to kid?
Already awake. And ready for action. I had stuffed myself full of McFood, and was already feeling the speed rush as the sugar rocketed through my veins, causing my pupils to dilate and my breath to come in shallow, ragged gasps. I'd been waiting for these tapes for quite a while. See, I'm rather enamoured of The Velvet Underground. Actually, I have a kind of love/hate thing going on with them - and though there are many things wrong with this world that are directly attributable to the behaviour of Mr. Reed, this is not one of them. Rather, it seems that whenever my life goes wrong, and things seem hideous and shitty - I have been listening to The Velvet Underground. Girl leaves - the Velvets were on the day before. Get drunk and do something unspeakable - listening to the Velvets that week. Fail uni? Spent too much time listening to The Velvets.
You get the picture.
But, I conquered my phobia of their rather wonderful catalogue last year - and rediscovered them. I went and saw Lou Reed - which confirmed my suspicions that the man is a genius, but an utter prick. Not unlike another leader of a certain art-rock band that I could name who's first name begins with R and ends in 'ogerWaters'. He's not quite a 'genius' though, admittedly. Bastard. Grr. I get mad just thinking about it.
So, I ordered Flesh, Trash, Heat, and Women In Revolt - not expecting too much, but figuring that if I'm going to be a film geek/art student poseur, the look wouldn't be complete with Joe Dallesandro's limp, heroin-filled penis sticking out of my television.
But, shockingly, I found the films curiously moving. Profoundly so. Holly Woodlawn was so beautiful in 'Trash', and so heartbreaking - a coil of emotional energy which was so uninhibited and savage that it seemed to manifest itself across the entire spectrum of human expression. She would whip frantically between lust, anger, pity, and loneliness in a matter of seconds - with a performance which simply demanded to be seen.
Flesh was a far more experimental, less accessible outing - with Dallesandro's constant nudity and slurred speech, despite being far more lucid than in Trash, rendering the action - or inaction, as it were - difficult to stomach. Flesh is probably the divider in the Warhol/Paul Morrisey partnership - a hybrid of both styles, with the devotion to interminably long, static shots that Warhol made so famous in 'Sleep' and 'Empire' - but with Morrisey's disturbingly right-of-centre political views, and unerring eye for capturing the myriad details of New York City street life. Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis, however, steal the film away from both filmmakers and fellow cast members in their brief scene, in which they simply talk about banal things - but do it with such style, confidence, and dignity that it is hard to think of them as transvestites (despite Jackie's three o'clock shadow) - and they become elegant, poised women before your very eyes. Candy's death a few years later becomes even more resonant and tragic when one considers what was lost. She was irreplacable.
Women In Revolt is a far more ramshackle affair - a crazed, speed-fuelled parody of the women's liberation movement, featuring Warhol's transvestite superstars - and a young Marty Kove, looking totally out of his element. Heat, with Sylvia Miles, is a far more polished affair - depicting Joe's adventures on the West Coast, attempting to rejuvenate his flagging career. Heat is undoubtedly the most watchable of the Warhol/Morrisey films - but it takes on a bitter aftertaste when one considers that Andrea Feldman, the other leading actress, wrote notes to her ex-boyfriends one day asking them to meet her beneath a building in New York, and then committed suicide by jumping off the top. Heat paints a terribly disturbing portrait of her emotional disintegration - much in the same way that 'Ciao! Manhattan' paints one of Edie Sedgewick, another doomed Warhol starlet.
And, speaking of Ciao! Manhattan - it finally arrived in my mailbox last week, and I found myself unable to shake the film for a few days. A documentary on a woman played by Edie Sedgewick, who is clearly Edie herself, the film tells the story of the downward spiral of a young 'socialite' who became the 'star of the underground New York film world'. One of the more upsetting scenes involves Edie recieving electroshock therapy - something which did actually happen prior to her death in 1972. Ciao! Manhattan is one of the most harrowing, ugly films I have ever seen - but even so, there is a truth, beauty, and grace within it, and Sedgewick's broken-angel screen persona could never be dulled, no matter how much speed she shot.
Which leads us neatly back to today. So, I grab this box and stampede inside, slamming the door shut behind me and lunging for a knife. I hacked away at the carboard and sticky tape, and yanked the tapes out - one by one. And then, there they were.
The Chelsea Girls, Nude Restaurant, Couch, The Life Of Juanita Castro, Lonesome Cowboys, and Blue Movie.
Forbidden films. Lost to time - unavailable to all but the most ardent, determined, dogmatic collector. Sitting on my bench next to my McWrappers and my empty coffee mug. I felt excitement. Ecstasy. The rush that only the archivist can know - a bloating of the heart, and a thumping of the blood as it gushes through the brain, the eyes unblinking and fixed - hands loose and grasping, and mouth dry. They're in my house. I've read about them, studied them, listened to people talk about them - I've read books, magazines, internet articles, website postings, song lyrics describing them, and bio chapters eulogizing them. But I've never SEEN them. And now I can.
With a shaking hand, I slipped 'Nude Restaurant' out of the sleeve and slipped it into the VCR. Viva's face filled the screen - as she launched into a twenty minute rap on her arrests, politics, the counterculture, and her bizarre family life. I was in ecstasy. Here were the images and sounds I had dreamed of. I lasted a half an hour, before I had to see more. I had to put each tape in. I whipped out The Chelsea Girls and slapped it in.
The Chelsea Girls is incredible. At four hours, roughly, it is a task to sit through - but it is one of the most unique and penetrative film experiences one can have. Two images, side by side, are projected simultaneously - the sound moving from one to the other to change your focus, as Warhol's superstars go about their everyday lives in the rooms of the Chelsea Hotel. They shoot up. They slap each other. They fight. Nico trims her bangs. Bridgid Polk shoots speed into Mary Woronov. Ondine takes confessions. Nico weeps. Ingrid Superstar describes her sex life. On and on they go, for literally hours - each image more perverse and assaultive than the last. It's an ugly mess - a raw, open wound of a film, depicting a group of intense, extreme personalities running wild. A liberating film experience.
It's a pity I have to work tomorrow. I'd rather just sit and absorb all of these new, wonderful things. But, unfortunately, Jean Baudrillard doesn't like me and wants my life to be more like pulling teeth than it usually is.
You have to wonder what would have happend if Warhol hadn't died. The old pudding-faced bastard probably would have continued to confound, disturb, and inspire. After all, he was a man who had little regard for the feelings of others - as those who worked at the Factory can certainly attest. How would he have responded to living in the age of pure image - the age that he basically kickstarted? Would he have been gripped by paranoid, postmodern nausea, or would he have simply uttered his usual resonse of 'Uh, yeah.'?
Most people don't seem to understand the life's work of the mop-haired little bastard. They think of him as The Soup Can Guy. I've always found his static art far less interesting than his film work. Intellectually and theoretically, what he was doing was great - fascinating, even. But when he got behind a camera, he gave us the cinema of pure image - voyeurism in an unedited form. True voyeurism - not necessarily sexualised, but simply existing for its own sake. In a sense, everything that is wrong with modern culture - empty voyuristic programming, emotionally vapid simulacra, and ironic posturing can be traced back to Andy and his narcissistic superstars.
I should hate him. So, fuck you, Andy. You're a bastard - and everything that is making me sick, as our culture becomes riddled with thicker and blacker slabs of cancer, is essentially your fault.
The worst part is that I really do love you. WHY did you have to be so damn GOOD?
Posted by David at February 12, 2004 11:26 PM | TrackBack