Hedy (variously known as The Most Beautiful Woman In The World, The Shoplifter or The Fourteen Year Old Girl) features a large cast including Mario Montez, Jack Smith, Mary Woronov and Ingrid Superstar and has an original score by John Cale and Lou Reed. Some films such as the Edie Sedgwick portrait Outer And Inner Space (1965) and the legendary The Chelsea Girls were conceived as dual screen projections, but most of the double reel features from this period were sometimes presented in this manner, usually at performances of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. By this time he had progressed to incorporate either improvised soundtracks or scripted scenarios by Ronald Tavel and his output was incredibly prolific. The early silent films like Kiss (1963-64) and Empire (1964) gained the respect of the film community and in 1965 Andy Warhol announced his “retirement” from painting in order concentrate on movies. It was a novel experience to be confronted by floating forms that were soft and resilient and seemed to be both utterly passive and totally free.” (Description of the silver clouds show by David Bourdon in his book on Warhol, 1989) Although their movements were mainly dictated by air currents or passersby, they often appeared to express behavioural traits of their own. Susceptible to air currents, changes in temperature, and static electricity, they endlessly rearranged themselves. “The buoyant clouds were a striking sight as they grazed aimlessly about the room, clustering in mid-air just below the ceiling. Willard Maas, USA, 1966, 16mm, colour, silent, 5 min (Andy Warhol on Willard Maas and Marie Menken in Popism – The Warhol Sixties, 1980) She filmed lots of movies, some with Willard, and she even did one on a day in my life”. Marie was one of the first to do a film with stop-time. They wrote and filmed and drank (their friends called them “scholarly drunks”) and were involved with all the modern poets. “Willard and Marie were the last of the great bohemians. Marie Menken, USA, 1965, 16mm, colour, silent, 22 min In 1965 she made a stop motion portrait of Warhol at work in the Factory and her husband Willard Maas documented the silver clouds exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery one year later. Marie also starred in Warhol’s films The Life Of Juanita Castro (1965) and The Chelsea Girls (1966). ![]() It was through Marie, Willard and the poet Charles Henri Ford that Andy was introduced to Gerard Malanga, who was to become his assistant during the intensely productive mid-1960s period. Marie Menken and Willard Maas were two of the people responsible for Warhol’s move towards cinema. It’s a popular misconception that The Factory was simply a drop-in centre for drop-outs and dope fiends, but this view does not take in to account the enormous number of creative people that worked with and around Andy Warhol in the sixties – an incredibly artistic crowd which at various times included The Velvet Underground, Piero Heliczer, Angus MacLise, Ronald Tavel, Billy Name and many others. From 1963-68 at the Warhol Factory the entire history of cinema was recreated and rewritten by a considerable cast of Superstars and assistants. There he saw works by Jack Smith and Ron Rice that deeply influenced his approach to cinema. Taylor Mead, Home Movies: NYC to San Diego, 1968, 19 min PROGRAMME NOTESĪndy Warhol’s interest in experimental film developed in the early 1960s when he began to attend screenings organised by Jonas Mekas. ![]() Willard Maas, Andy Warhol’s Silver Flotations, 1966, 5 minĪndy Warhol, Hedy (double screen), 1965, 33 minīruce Torbet, Super-Artist Andy Warhol, 1967, 21 min Taylor Mead’s fast paced film diary includes on location footage from the unreleased San Diego Surf. Andy made Screen Tests for inclusion in Match Girl – a neglected but beautiful work made in the Factory by Andrew Meyer. Super-Artist is a long lost documentary of the Warhol Factory shot in 1965. Marie Menken’s film is a portrait of Warhol in his studio, and her husband the poet Willard Maas shot the silver balloon show at Leo Castelli’s gallery. Edie Sedgwick stars in this beautiful film which will be shown here in a double screen format. By the time of Lupe he had formed his own style that now owed little to his early influences like Jack Smith and Ron Rice. He recreated the history of cinema from the kiss through the silents to the talkies before developing his own commercial features. When Andy Warhol decided to retire from fine art to concentrate on movies it was a major endorsement that increased awareness of the avant-garde film.
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