For Callie Angell (1948”“2010)
I learned the news about the passing of Callie Angell the other day. It made me sad, a feeling that has stayed with me days later. I knew Callie Angell from when I lived in NYC in the ’70s. I didn’t know her well, but we hung around in the same circles and I often […]
Bike Boy
The motorcyclist has been a figure of rebellion in American popular culture in the Post-Second World War era, as exemplified by Marlon Brando’s role in The Wild One (1953). Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1964), a film that strongly influenced Andy Warhol, focuses on the image of the motorcyclist and uses montage editing to create connections between […]
13 Most Beautiful . . . Songs for Andy Warhol”™s Screen Tests
It is tempting to see many if not most of Andy Warhol’s films as portraits, even when they are mixed with narrative elements, such as The Closet, My Hustler, The Chelsea Girls, or Bike Boy. In some ways, the 472 Screen Tests, in their deceptive simplicity, provide the most accessible window into Warhol’s brilliant cinematic […]
Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America
Like Harmony Korine’s Gummo, Tony Stone’s Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America is the type of film that will polarize critics and audiences, even those sympathetic to independent film. Except for a few positive reviews – most notably by Manohla Dargis in the New York Times and a spirited defense of its originality by […]
Goodbye Solo
The location of Ramin Bahrani’s third feature Goodbye Solo (2009) has shifted from New York City – the setting for his first two films Man Push Cart (2005) and Chop Shop (2008) – to his home town of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. While the film clearly references Abbas Kiarostami’s A Taste of Cherry (1997), it actually […]
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, Mary Jordan’s absorbing documentary portrait of the legendary filmmaker and performer, certainly gives a strong flavor of this underground artist, whose importance never really has been disputed within avant-garde circles, even if he’s not a household name or nearly as famous as many of the other major artists […]
A Walk into the Sea
In 1966, Danny Williams, one of Andy Warhol’s former lovers and a significant force behind the psychedelic light shows of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, disappeared while visiting his family in New England. Following his early success as an editor for the Maysles brothers, Williams, a Harvard graduate, gravitated to the Factory in hopes of jump-starting […]
I, a Man
Andy Warhol’s first deliberate effort to make a commercial sexploitation film was I, a Man (1967–68 ), which was supposed to feature both Nico and Jim Morrison, but Morrison backed out at the last minute – possibly because Warhol wanted him to have sexual intercourse on-screen – and he was replaced by an actor friend […]