ANDY WARHOL: A DOCUMENTARY FILM, 2006, United States, 240 min.
Language(s): English Genre: Documentary
Release Data: November 2006
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Director(s): Ric Burns
The story of iconic cult pop artist, Andy Warhol, who changed the way we see the world by eradicating the distinction between commercial and fine art, and dissolving the lines between painting and photography. However, despite endless public press and the label of “genius”, Warhol remains an enigmatic figure, dedicated in our minds – and his – to the championing of the shallow. This new biography attempts to illuminate its subject’s alleged dilemma between his “aura” and his “product” by chronicling his life from the point of view of scholars rather than the “famous” with whom he surrounded himself. The entire first half of the film focuses mainly on his early life and manages to come up with a lot of new material that may help to explain where he came from and the early experiences that helped to mould his character.
A frail and effeminate child from a poor family in Pittsburgh’s Czech immigrant community, Andrew Warhola was always painfully shy and ashamed about his physical appearance. As a child, he quickly developed the primal longing of the outsider, nose firmly pressed to the glass separating him from beauty, glamour and fame. Although he would never overcome his blotched skin, bulbous nose and early hair loss (concealed under a series of bad wigs) he would become famous himself and the ultimate voyeur of fame in others. Early on, he perceived mass culture as a malleable substance which could create fame – a discovery that led to his own meteoric ascent to the top of the New York art world. His own rising star was a beacon to a richly diverse crowd of misfits who saw him as the fellow outsider who had figured out how to be famous. Although the second half of the film completes Warhol’s story, ending with his death in 1987, the wonderful material on his early life, much of it rare and new, is really the heart of this film and the main reason to see it.
This is an always absorbing, occasionally revelatory, portrait of a man whose very existence is important because of what it tells us about ourselves as a society in which every aspect of life has become a commodity. Narrated by Laurie Anderson, the film features interviews with many of its hero’s contemporaries. The filmmaker (brother of Ken Burns of Civil War fame) manages to insert a keen sense of humour by highlighting the whole Warhol mystique through a series of juxtapositions, such as the experts whose comments are immediately contradicted by those of the following expert. This is an intellectual history of Warhol, that bucks the previous trend of filmmakers to cover him through star-studded biodocs; here, the hope is clearly to present something more profound. And, despite being four hours long, it is – like its namesake – always entertaining
Themes: Fine Arts
Notes: The director is certainly acquainted with fame having been the Editor of the 72nd – 76th Academy Awards.
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