Made the same year as Warhol's "Sleep," "Eat" and "Haircut," "Blowjob" is a 30 minute static shot of a man's face against a brick wall. His shoulders, encased in black leather, appear occassionally. Nothing more. The motionless camera only whirs away taking picture after picture. It is static and, much like it's subject, unmoving.

Due to the title of the film, and some action of the subject, it is pretty obvious that the film subject, a hunky man, is receiving the titular blowjob. But with Warhol's keen eye and witty artistic ideal, the film becomes so much more.

First and foremost, one must consider the time that the film came out. 1963 was the dark ages sexually. Not only was showing any sort of nudity or sexual act taboo, it was illegal. Warhol circumvents this problem by showing the sexual act but not focusing on the sexual coupling. His subject's face is all that is shown. The film is obscene yet not obscene. The unidentified "actor" in the piece is obviously participating in a sexual act, and the film is pornographic, yet not legally pornographic.

Warhol flirts with our imagination. We have to fantasize about the sexual act that is occurring off camera. Warhol (and his camera) makes us voyeur, but like the best voyeuristic situations, something is obscured. Our imagination often conjures up far more perverted and pornographic ideas than what is truly happening because our own minds know much better what will turn us on than any filmmaker. Warhol's pornography is a pornography of the intellect, not the libido. Yet the film is, in effect, an homage of and a spoof of pornography. It also pays homage to the pornography of the past as well as foreshadows that which was yet to come, pornography which often culminates with the focusing on a person's face during the achievement of a sexual climax.

Warhol plays with power and sexuality. His subject is both powerful and powerless in this image. Powerful because he is obviously towering over the person who is performing the sexual act upon him. Yet powerless because that person has the sexual situation entirely in their control. They decide when to perform or not. Warhol's static shot of the man's face supplies ideals of both images of power giving the film tension and drama. And Warhol plays with sexuality in that the sexual performer is off screen. Here again, in the theater of our imagination, we ourselves can imagine who is the person off screen sucking a cock. In a way, this idea is homosexual because only a gay man would seemingly be interested in being in this position. It is feminine in the exact same respect, but imagining the blower as female does remove some of the tease and tension of the film. Ideally, as a gay man who likes to give blowjobs, the film is the perfect pornography. We see the man's face as he is pleasured. It is a pleasure many gay men have provided for a long, long time. And finally, the image of the receiver is that of a hustler, someone being paid for his body. The subject is both excited and bored. We could care less. He is objectified in that he is the sexually powerless. He is at our service. And yet he holds the power as it is his body were are really fantasizing about, it is his mind we are trying to engage. It is his sexual need we are thinking of satisfying. This is the power politics of homosexuality. Knowing that the film was made by Warhol makes it even more convincing as a homosexual film.

With "Blowjob," Warhol began to break the barriers that he would soon put asunder with later films. Sexuality and societal morals were always of key issue in Warhol's work. "Blowjob" is one of Warhol's earliest films and one that deals cleverly and thoughtfully on this theme. It may be one of the most important 60's films ever made.

Note:

Shot on 16mm with no sound. The film is actually about 8 or 9 reels spliced together.

Current prints are so aged that the B&W is now more of a golden and black.

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