Chelsea Girls (1966)
"I never
liked the idea of picking out certain scenes and pieces
of time and putting them together because it ends
up being different from what really happened - it's
just not like life. What I liked was chunks of time
all together, every real moment... I only wanted to
find great people and let them be themselves and talk
about what they usually talked about and I'd film
them for a certain length of time and that would be
the movie." - Andy Warhol in 1980
Andy Warhol's three and a half hour
"film," his first to break through from the underground
into the middle-upper class world of suburban art
houses and college campus film societies, is sometimes
engrossing, sometimes boring, sometimes genius, sometimes
stupid, sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, sometimes
perfect and sometimes a mess. But it is always Warhol.
And it is always a Warhol film.
Warhol had, by the time this film
was put together in 1966, been experimenting successfully
in the "public" with avant- garde and underground
films. Albeit, the public was mainly at pretentious
"underground" film screenings in New York City. Warhol
celebrated his own technical ineptitude and incorporated
many of his "art" techniques into his filmmaking as
well. He filmed using 16mm, initially without sound
and in black and white, and using continuous shots
that ran the length of one roll of film. He would
not stop the camera once it had been started.
But with "Chelsea Girls," we see
Warhol the filmmaker in transition, between silence
and sound, between black and white and color, between
girls and boys, between amphetamines and acid, between
the avant-garde and narrative, between home movies
and Hollywood, between the underground and the mainstream.
Before this, Warhol had played enormously
with "time" in his films. His first real notable film
was "Sleep," in which a man slept for 8 hours during
a film that ran for 8 hours. He had made "Screen Tests"
at the Factory, his "studio," when celebrities and
pretty people had visited. They simply sat for 3 minutes
while a roll of film ran in a the movie camera. These
were considered "one take" portraits. Warhol had begun
to create films that not only ran endlessly ("Sleep"
ran eight hours, "Empire," a single shot of the Empire
State Building as New York turned dark in real time
also ran that long) but in multiple projections.
No source I have ever seen has listed
more than two projectors running side by side for
a Warhol film. It is mentioned at times that Warhol
used more during the days of his "Happenings" often
called the "Exploding Plastic Inevitable" (as was
also named his discotheque) however these were never
simple film "screenings" but rather multimedia extravaganzas.
Regardless, "Chelsea Girls," a real "film," used two
projectors running side by side. Sound was to be provided
by a particular projector at a particular time (presumably
never both at once). Warhol (or perhaps Morrissey
or some other underling) may have detailed precise
instructions for the projectionists where the film
was screened as to which of the 12 reels were to be
screened on which side and in which order. (See notes
below.)
Warhol's films' allure for the upper-middle-class
was the freakshow atmosphere of the Warhol sphere.
By now the man himself was a household word and the
satellites personalities around him would soon also
become well known in the world of cinema, the world
of the intelligentsia, and the world of pop culture.
Edie Sedgwick, Ondine, Mary Woronov, International
Velvet, Ingrid Superstar, Brigid (Polk) Berlin, Erik
Emersen and a few others would soon be the "Superstars"
Andy desired to be associated with. (They all appear
here). Joe Dallesandro, Jackie Curtis, Candy Darling
and Holly Woodlawn were waiting in the wings. (As
was Valerie Solanis, who shot Warhol in 1968 and effectively
moved Andy into the mainstream by simply scaring him
as much as she scared him into retreat).
For cinemaphiles, "Chelsea Girls"
stands on the precipice of the Paul Morrissey days,
when Warhol would move away from the camera completely
and simply allow Morrissey to make films under his
recognizable name. Morrissey was far more interested
in traditional storytelling than Warhol and the films
after "Chelsea Girl" would move from the obscure and
the avant-garde to the narrative and more easily understandable.
"Chelsea Girls" also shows the camera
being used much more typically (albeit occassionally
irritatingly as well). For a long time in the cinematic
world of Warhol, the camera had been stationary and
the image static. This was becomming less and less
so by 1966. Although usually on a tripod here, the
camera is also panned, tilted and the zoom and focus
settings are occasionally adjusted.
"Chelsea Girls" stands now, some
40 years after it was made, as a testament to this
transition in the Warhol world that was beginning
to take place. The film is full of "inside" references
that at the time were utterly boring and pretentious
but have now taken on the form of historical document.
When Berlin utters names she isn't supposed to in
the film, while continuously looking at the camera
and acknowledging she is being filmed, the effect
is remarkably different in 2003 than it was in 1966.
We want her to name- drop. We want to hear the references
to the people she is talking about, those which we've
read about in the numerous Warhol books, the Warhol
"Diaries" and the endless parade of autobiographies
by Warhol Superstars, hangers-on and associates. (Lou
Reed of the Velvet Underground, often referred to
as Andy's band, would the first to create the be-
all, end-all of Warhol sphere name-dropping with the
song "Walk onthe Wild Side.")
Since "Chelsea Girls" is not a film
as much as a sequence of shorts, and since it is somewhat
rarely seen, I'll recount what I saw via my experience
of viewing it at the Alamo Drafthouse here in Austin
in October 2003:
The screening begins with a film
with sound on the left. The film is black and white
and features Nico cutting her bangs. Her hair is straight
and perfect. She does not talk much. Eventually the
camera zooms back and we see she is in a kitchen.
She is eventually joined by an attractive, young blonde
haired man and a young child. What little dialogue
there is here is not memorable because it isn't audible
as much of it is drowned out by the running of water
in the sink (making sound in a sound film as infuriating
as a static shot of man sleeping for 8 hours is in
a visual film). Much visual tension is created by
Nico having the sharp scissors near her eyes.
After a few minutes, a film begins
on the left hand side of the screen. Nico becomes
silent and the sound now comes from this new image.
Ondine is in a dark room and begins chattering incessantly,
as we have been told he often does. He calls himself
"The Pope" and begins to listen to a confession by
a female. Ondine is boisterous and catty and leads
the "confession" by making comments about the female.
He turns from confessor to analyst to friend to accuser
and back again. He accuses her of being a lesbian
and frequenting lesbian bars. She denies this but
begins to gradually play along. The film is silly
and obviously and poorly improvised. For Warhol scholars,
there is a bit to be interested in when thinking about
the societal "mores" of the time and how they are
called into question with discussions of homosexuality,
incest, and Catholicism (almost all of Warhol's sphere
were lapsed Catholics). By today's standards, however,
these discussions are, of course, quite tame.
The most striking thing about this
moment in the film is the juxtaposition of dark and
light as the Ondine (left) side is very black, as
is Ondine's hair, and sparsely lit while the Nico
(right) side is bright, daylight and features three
blonde "performers." Nico often peers into a round,
silver- framed, hand-held mirror, also causing a "lighter.whiter"
image to appear at times due to the reflection. In
addition to the brightness of the right hand side
of the frame, Warhol (and by Warhol, I mean, of course,
whoever shot it) begins to play with the rectangle
of the frame by moving the camera so that a white
wall comes into the foreground, taking up half of
the right-hand half of the screen.
This images causes a visual relationship
with some of Warhol's prints which, in addition to
featuring multiple images, also often featured large
canvases with one simple image to the left or the
right, with much "white" space left blank. The effect
here, when projected beside the left hand image of
the dark Ondine segment, again reflects Warhol's uses
of multiple "panels" in his images. His frame is often
cut from two's into four's during this segment with
the foreground becoming a "forth," pure white panel.
The image on the right disappears
after the 35 minute reel ends and (presumably while
a projectionist sets up the next reel) only the left
side remains kenetic for a bit. When the right side
of the screen begins anew, the sound also comes from
that side leaving Ondine (momentarily) silent. The
right side of the screen is filled with the visage
of Brigid Berlin and she begins her scene by shooting
up another girl in the ass with a hypo full of a drug
(presumably amphetamines). Berlin talks about drugs
for a bit and mentions that "Andy" won't let her come
to the factory because he is paranoid about her drugs.
(A whole book could be filled about Andy and drugs).
This scene is meant mostly to shock with the open
use of drugs but, much like the sexual discussions
in the Ondine segment, it seems tame by today's standards.
The whole Brigid segment is silly and pointless as
Berlin talks, shoots herself up, and makes several
"inside" references. Perhaps the most important thing
the segment did in 1966 was make those in Warhol's
sphere of interest to the public as many names and
code names are dropped. Berlin even refers to "Drella,"
Warhol's nickname which was a combination of "Dracula"
and "Cinderella." There is also discussions of lesbianism
and some minor female nudity. Berlin also has her
hair fixed by a make-up man who sits off camera but
is dragged on screen to help her preen. She then talks
on the phone incessantly making drug deals.
That Berlin acknowledges she is
in a film is important for "film" and time are important
to the themes of the film. It is also important that
the artifice of filmmaking be exposed with this film
for the climax of the film to have the dramatic resonance
that it should. But more about that later.
A few minutes into the Berlin segment,
the Ondine film ends and a reel begins in silence
on the left where a older balding man and a cute young
hustler lay in bed. The hustler wears only white cotton
briefs. Our attention is consistently drawn away from
the yammering and silly Berlin to the (silent) sexual
playfulness on the left hand side of the screen. Here,
also, both films seem to be taking place in "bedrooms,"
giving an authenticity to the idea that these events
are all taking place simultaneously in rooms of the
infamous Chelsea Hotel in NYC (hence the film's name).
On the left side of the screen,
two fully dressed females (I think one is Mary Woronov)
come into the scene and sit on the bed. One of them
turns the cute hustler over on his front, so his back
is exposed, and then tethers his hands together with
a man's belt. He is playfully wrestled with by the
woman and the man in bed with him during his imposed
submission and since the play with his briefs, eventually
his ass and then his pubic area is exposed. Later,
his penis will be exposed for a moment. The nudity
and the playfulness of the scene is quite erotic,
something that was beginning to become common in Warhol
films. (Warhol thought pornography would be the next
big artistic and cinematic movement in America and
he was somewhat correct). Eventually the hustler is
freed, the women leave and are replaced by Gerard
Malanga (Warhol's main assistant who was also becoming
one of his film stars) and a couple of other fully
dressed cute boys. Eventually, the boy closest to
the camera begins to eat an orange seductively and
the camera often zooms into his suckling lips.
When the Berlin films ends on the
right (and silence ensues), it is replaced after a
bit (the projectionist must change reels again) by
a sound film with Mary Woronov in it. She sits on
a bed with another young woman. A third is made to
stay under a desk. Mary plays Hanoi Hanna, a sadistic
lesbian dominatrix. (She looks like a butch Susan
Dey). She calls the other girl with her "Joe" and
she verbally berates her and the woman under the desk,
who presumably has asked or paid to be kept there.
The scene represents the best acting in the film as
Woronov rarely breaks character. Playing upon the
news of the day, the Vietnam War, Woronov begins to
improvise a newscast much like Tokyo Rose, only she
is, of course, Hanoi Hanna, and interviews the other
girl asking her questions (and correcting her answers)
about how she wants to go home and how she will sleep
with another man if her soldier boyfriend does not
come home soon. Like much of the film, the relevance
and the immediacy of this segment has lost much punch
over the years. The segment mainly remains as an amazing
document of Woronov's beauty and acting talent.
During much of this segment as well,
the camera comes in and out of focus. And as Warhol
and "Chelsea Girls" blurs the line between fantasy
and reality, between art and the cinema, between acting
and "being," the visual image is blurred literally
as well. With the political overtones of the piece,
the effect also becomes a stark and bold comment about
what is real and what is not, something young people
were beginning to question about the Vietnam War right
at this time.
While this plays out on the right
of the screen, an interesting thing begins to the
left, what appears to be the same scene begins to
play in silence, with Woronov, International Velvet
and the other stars of the scene in the same room
and in the same costumes. But in this scene, they
are mainly serene and happy. One who has heard about
the film for years is shocked by this. We do not expect
the same thing to be happening on both sides of the
screen (negating the marketing storyline of the film
that it is different rooms in the Chelsea that we
are being exposed to). Instead, in this segment, we
are not being exposed to different rooms, but seemingly
the same room under different experiences. The juxtaposition
is stunning. Are we seeing an alternate reality? Is
this peace vs. war? heaven vs. hell? dominance vs.
submission? Has Warhol peeled away the layers of pretense
and facade, of anger and contrition which has lead
to the bitter and contrived persona that Woronov exposes
here? Are we seeing the eventual outcome of two different
paths that a person might go down being faced with
a "choice." These deeper connotations of juxtaposed
images are not what one probably expected Warhol to
address when they walked into the film over an hour
before.
When the image on the right flickers
to its end through the projector this time, we are
again faced with silence. When a new image appears,
we are back in the bedroom with the balding man and
the hustler. Once again, we are surprised to be "revisiting"
a space in the cinematic Warholian Chelsea Hotel.
This part of the playing out of the film is not expected
as we presumed (incorrectly) that we were to be treated
to many different rooms and many different experiences
in the three hour run time of the film. Oblivious
to our continuing shock, the film continues unabated.
This time, the boys are visited by drag queen Mario
(Maria) Montez and she sings a song for them. The
hustler is interested in her sexually but the balding
"john" brushes her away and she leaves. When the hustler
begins to speak (and exposes himself as being a bit
too "gay" to be taken seriously as a "male" sexual
image), the film on the left side is changed again
and sound begins to emanate from that screen, leaving
the nelly hustler mute.
Vibrant color enters the screen
for the first time and we are affronted by the bloated
and ugly facade of Marie Menken. Here, Menken plays
Malanga's mother while his latest conquest, a silent
Woronov, sits to the side. She is Malanga's (presumably
sexual) slave and she sits waiting to do his bidding
(dressed in a man's shirt and necktie) while his annoying
mother blathers on and on about the situation. The
scene does not work because no one believes Menken
could ever be Malanga's mother (let alone a female)
and she annoyingly steals and uses Malanga's infamous
whip repeatedly, much to our misfortune. To elevate
the boredom, the cameraman begins to zoom, pan and
tilt frantically to add an element of interest to
the stunning boredom of the scene. The color film
becomes quite effective because the room's white walls
are decorated with much colorful (albeit badly drawn)
artwork. Eventually, the cameraman begins to pan from
left to right slowly and then quickly back to start
again repeatedly. With the columns of the room acting
as divisions of a "panel" of a painting, the film
once again becomes decidedly Warholian.
The jumpy nature of the segment
is insufferable. Thank goodness nothing interesting
is really going on in the scene or the viewer would
be frustrated into furiousness. One wonders if the
quick and incessant moves of the camera weren't mainly
simply meant to quiet Warhol's cinematic critics who
by now had chastised him for his static camera and
"boring" films where nothing happened. Here, still,
nothing happens except that the cameraman becomes
as bored with the scene as we are and, much like a
child, begins to zoom quickly in and out and to pan
and tilt wildly about the room.
Sound also begins to become important
in the film as an audio recording is played (presumably
of The Velvet Underground - the music sounds like
Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" in an infantine stage)
and musical stings of feedback escalating in volume
begin to punctuate the scene.
Meanwhile, a female appears again
in the bedroom on the right and the cute male hustler
is relegated to the background (leaving only the fake
"male" Woronov for the gay viewer to be sexually interested
in). The female looks a bit like Goldie Hawn and foreshadows
that TV actress' immensely popular quirky idiot character.
The supposedly more hip but equally dopey doppleganger
here amuses herself (and us) by falsely inadvertently
giving the camera the finger.
After the silent, black and white
film on the right ends, a color one begins and sound,
thankfully, turns from the annoying Menken, the disinterested
Malanga and the silent Woronov to the right hand screen.
Humorously, although sound is obviously being used,
the person on camera is silent for several minutes.
The subject is an attractive young man who seems to
have red hair and has a red light shined upon him
as he sits in a darkened space. For the first time,
we see color juxtaposed against color, but here the
color red practically floods the right side of the
screen.
As the boy on the right sits, he
also plays with a mirror and begins to look at his
reflection. Soon, the colors of the lights illuminating
him change to cool blue. He begins to speak and continues
a monologue for his entire 35 minutes on the screen.
Eventually, it is obvious he is on acid and a hustler.
He looks at his reflection and begins a monologue
often discussing how he enjoys seeing his reflection.
In 60's lingo he tells the camera, "Sometimes I like
to sit and groove on myself."
This is the most obvious of Warhol's
many homosexual moments in the film and the boy soon
begins to strip and show off a gorgeous body, including
his ass and his pubic patch. He is eventually naked
but often hidden in the darkness of the place where
he stands and sits. We never see his penis. The boy
talks about how he likes to make other people happy,
how he doesn't consider himself "gay" even though
he often has sex with "gentlemen," and how he likes
his body. Near the end, he engages in a lengthy monologue
about sweat and even licks his own body a bit. The
segment ends on an interesting piece of dialogue where
he is cut off mid-thought, but the place where he
is cut off makes a pointed and poetic statement...
(I can't remember exactly what it was now).
While the boy is "grooving on himself"
for 35 minutes to the right, the left side of the
screen is filled with a film in which the boy appears
with a group of others, apparently standing and watching
something that is happening behind the camera. It's
as if they are spectators at an event. There is no
cheering or jeering (or talking either) but simply
lots of looking about. The lighting is dark but a
spotlight is moved from person to person making them
the center of attention in the (half) frame from moment
to moment. The boy is dressed in the same clothes
he has on in the other singular scene (or at least
the ones he HAD on). Nothing interesting or sexual
happens in the left side of the screen. (How these
people keep their hands off of him for 35 minutes
is beyond me). The entire effect, coupled with the
boy's verbal monologue, is very "trippy" and indicative
of things to come cinematically. It is easy to see
"Easy Rider," "2001," "Zabriske Point" and other psychedelic
films emerging soon after this segment.
When the film resumes on the right
side of the screen, we return to the beginning of
"Chelsea Girls," in a way. We are back in Pope Ondine's
apartment. Those in the know realize that the "climatic
moment" (and the most famous moment) of the film is
about to flicker across the screen.
Pope Ondine shoots up and eventually
begins again listens to the confessional of a whiny
female. Soon after beginning, the girl calls Ondine
a "phoney" and he proceeds to slap the shit out of
her and kick her off the set. The effect is chilling
but what is even more remarkable is what happens after
as Ondine wanders about his darkened room for quite
a while (leaving us with a black square where a frame
of film once was and again representing the Warholian
visual ideal). We continue to hear sound from the
room as Ondine continues to talk and ramble about
the "set." Evoking Hollywood, Warhol allows an outburst
of violence to become his climax.
What is most remarkable about this
outburst is the word that causes it; "Phoney," for
truly nothing about Ondine's segments here are "real."
Only Woronov is more of an actor than Ondine. (And
she is a much better one than he). That Ondine would
react so violently to that particular word in a scene
that rings of phoniness and improvisation is fascinating.
It plays subtly and elegantly into Warhol's ideal
and the film's self-referential nature (established
earler by Berlin). Although there are moments of stark
reality in the film, the only "real" thing Ondine
does is to react violently when he is called a "phoney."
It is a Moebius strip of the Warholian self-referential
ideal. What is more "real" than reacting violently
to being called a "phoney" in a movie? What is more
phoney than playing someone whom you are not in reality
in a film where you smack someone who calls you a
"phoney?"
Like much of the film, the line
between reality and cinematic fantasy is blurred beyond
recognition. We are seeing a film of a man pretending
to be something he is not who only becomes real when
he is exposed as a pretender, as a fake. When the
mask comes off, when the real world comes rushing
in vacuously, Ondine reacts as if he has been demeaned
and devalued. By being called a "phoney," he feels
he has been violently assaulted. And he reacts in
kind. The viewer must ask themselves this: What is
real and what is fake? What is real in art and what
is fake?. What is real in films and what is fake?
And, finally, What is real in life and what is fake?
Does life end where film begins? Or does life begin
where film ends?
The rest of the film is anti-climatic.
On the left, a trippy color image begins as Nico,
evoking the beginning of the film, sits and has psychedelic
colored lights shined upon her in near silence. (The
light of the beginning, by contrast, is blinding white).
Eventually she cries. Is it because she has moved
from black and white to color and in the wake of this
has lost her own cinematic "reality?" Is it because
the film has ended and therefore, the artifice of
life, has ended? Nico mourns the death of something
here, perhaps the death of film.
Meanwhile, Ondine, in dark blackness,
eventually returns to the "set" and begins to try
and figure out what to do to fill the remaining time.
After being called a phoney during a fake "time,"
and reacting by violently evoking reality, real time
becomes insufferable for us and for Ondine. And since,
in the Warholian ideal, the camera is never turned
off, not even so one can figure out what to do when
it is turned back on, he is lost in time. Here and
only here does he exist between two worlds, in limbo
between the fantasy of the cinema and the reality
of honesty. While others, like Polk and Ingrid Superstar
have never bought into the fantasy, Ondine has bought
into it with his entire being and thus, once removed
from it, is adrift. (He virtually ceases to exist).
Ondine mentions the name "Paul" a few times and we
assume it is Morrissey behind the camera. This seems
much like a drowning man calling for God. Morrissey
will not stop the camera. "Paul" believes in the Warholian
ideal as well (it is indeed Warhol's first cinematic
commandment) and as a devoted man, an apostle, does
not relent. "Drella" would surely bannish him to hell
for committing such a sin.
Ondine never really comes up with
anything interesting to say or do and we are left
to consider the idea of "life vs. art." Ondine keeps
mentioning how much time is "left" and we must consider
the Warholian ideal of filling the entire reel each
time he does this. Here, again, Warhol is self- referential
and blatant about his filmmaking devices and his filmmaking
ideals.
This is "life" because time ceases
to be manipulatable. This is "fantasy" because it
has all the fascination and the fear of voyeurism.
This may have happened literally in the past (when
the film was shot) but it is also cinematically happening
NOW! (when we view it). We are stuck, like Ondine,
in this capsule of time and nothing but the passage
of time will save us. (Albeit, we have more freedom
of choice and can opt to walk away, but that seems
highly improbable this close to the end of the film).
Warhol has reached his ideal of
becomming a machine because he has become the camera
and the projector. He has also become God by becomming
the camera and projector and while it is the camera
that ensalves Ondine it is the projector that enslaves
the viewer. Warhol is the machine and the machine
is God. We are powerless in its grasp.
The 210 minutes running time of
the film has seemed like exactly that, 210 minutes.
But these last few minutes are the most obvious and,
therefore, the most excruciating, (With all the inside
references, time is also like a bad practical joke
being played out). The relationship to life itself
is astounding. What is more obvious when consdiering
life than considering death? Do we not feel more alive
when danger, when death, is near? Like Ondine, we
pray for the end of the film even though, subconsciously,
we both know the end is, in effect, death. Ondine
went home from the set and went on with his life.
We will go out of the theater and go on with ours.
But that moment the film ends is a moment an alternate
reality ends. And what is life but an alternate reality?
What is death but the end of a reality. This is exactly
what Warhol's films are all about. Reality. Time.
Life. Death.
When the Ondine segment finally
ends, the sound switches to the left hand screen.
It is again the sound of Velvet Underground's feedback
music. It sounds ethereal. This plays for another
minute or so and then the image goes black but the
sound continues. There are no titles (visually or
- as is usual in the early Warhol films - audibly).
Warhol's "Chelsea Girls" is a landmark
film. Not only did it bring the artist and filmmaker's
themes to the forefront of cinema, it brought them
to the forefront of America. Warhol's life has become
film has become art. Like art after the emergence
of Warhol, film would never be the same once his genius
was proclaimed.
Warhol's obsession with real time
and cinematic time (which we now know is, in itself,
an obsession with death) is vastly important to the
idea of "film." Isn't watching a film not the most
obvious of the few places where one can lose themselves
and thus lose track of time? Like having sex and experiencing
the "high" of drugs, watching a film is one of the
few places where one can have an experience in which
the body becomes secondary to the mind. Warhol's films
capitalize on this idea by either exploiting it, negating
it, or, even more likely, both.
What is most amazing about "Chelsea
Girls," and much of the Warholian ideal, is how what
happens here has evolved into our modern culture via
the pop culture of reality based TV. Could there have
been a "Real World" without Warhol? Well, yes, of
course there would have but that's not the point.
Warhol isn't amazing because he started trends, he
is amazing because he is a precursor to what is happening
right NOW even though he died almost 20 years ago
and even though this, his most influential film, was
made almost 40 years ago. Warhol's entire film work
may be easily condensed (much like Campbell's Soup
is) with his most often quipped quote, "In the future
everybody will be famous for 15 minutes" but the fact
is, he began to actively court that idea with his
films and with his life becoming art. That isn't just
a quote. It is yet another ideal.
Warhol said, "If you want to know
who I am look at my paintings." Tangentially, if we
want to know who we are, we only need to look at Warhol's
films. (We are nothing if not creatures tethered by
time). Not only a reflection of society because his
camera captures images and then interprets them onto
the screen in real time, but because our individual
reactions to his films are an amazing reflection of
the people we are. Some will be bored (and I have
an immediate reaction to and "judgement" of anyone
who is bored by Warhol), some will be shocked, others
intrigued, others provoked, others amused, others
disinterested. Warhol's films work not because they
"take us away" from ourselves but for precisely the
opposite reason as well, because they put us inside
ourselves. Left with only a reflection of real life
to see, our brains are immediately engaged with thoughts,
perceptions, and judgments (much like they are in
"real" life). We are abuzz with ideas, even if the
main one is simply this: I could be doing something
else right now! (And isn't that a reflection of the
most basic question of existence: Why am I here?)
"Chelsea Girls" made Warhol a film
superstar. His films after this would be increasingly
more narrative but they would also continue to expose
the "freaks" and the "fringe" people of society. Drug
users, homosexuals, drag queens, hustlers and the
hideously ugly would continue to be the focal points
of his films. Surprisingly he would never return to
side by side projection in a filmmaking enterprise
again. His next film would be a massive undertaking,
however, exploiting the ideas of "Chelsea Girls" and
his earlier films (having several short film combined
to make one film) and again playing with time. It
would last not three and a half hours, nor eight,
but much more. It's title would reflect this in a
Warholian self-referential way, "The Twenty-four Hour
Movie."
Notes:
Also with Angela "Pepper" Davis,
Albert Rene Ricard, Rona Page, Ronna, Ed Hood, Christian
Aaron "Ari" Paffgen, Dorothy Dean, and Patrick Flemming.
Some scenarios may have been written
by Ronald Tavel. The "Hanoi Hanna" scene was supposedly
written by Tavel in L.A. and mailed to Warhol in New
York. Woronov claimed she was the only one in the
film who "learned her lines."
Billy Linnick (AKA Billy Name) may
have helped with some lighting. Malanga may have assisted
with sound.
Some sources list the start time
between "sides" as five minutes, this sounds about
like what was used in the screening I witnessed.
Nico, Berlin and International Velvet
lived at the Chelsea and it may be correct to assume
their scenes were filmed there. Scenes were also said
to be filmed at the Factory and at the Velvet Underground
apartment.
It is rumored that International
Velvet was expecting a call from a modeling agency
during the shoot. This is why she is so upset when
Woronov does not allow her to answer the phone.
Some screening "programs" of the
time list the film's segments as "The Bed," "The John,"
"The Trip," "The Duchess" (a nickname for Berlin),
"Hanoi Hanna," "The Pope Ondine Story," "The Gerard
Malanga Story," and "Their Town."
The film was promoted in several
places giving each segment a room number but when
the Chelsea Hotel threatened to sue, this marketing
ploy was dropped. Some sources list these as "Room
732 - The Pope Ondine Story," "Room 422 - The Gerard
Malanga Story," "Room 946 - George's Room," "Room
116 - Hanoi Hanna," "Room 202 - Afternoon Room," "Room
632 - The John," "Room 416 - The Trip," "Room 822
- The Closet."
"The Closet" was a scene with Nico
and Randy Bourscheidt living in a closet and was dropped
from the film before its wide release. Sources indicate
that it may have been screened under the title of
the segment as a full length Warhol film (66 minutes).
"The Afternoon" was a segment that
starred Sedgwick but was said to have been taken out
at her request when she signed on with Albert Grossman,
who also managed Bob Dylan.
Writer Robert Heide claims that
"The Bed" was based on his play of the same name and
that Warhol released it as a feature but shelved it
when the rights to it were being discussed. Heide
claims Andy "spliced" portions of it into this film.
It is quite probable that at many
screenings, the 12 reels of the film were played in
a random order or an order conceived of by someone
else, perhaps even the projectionist, making him a
"star" of the film as well as the de facto editor.
The screening I attended was preceded by a long winded
speaker and one of the things he told us (amongst
many inaccuracies) was that the screening of the film
was being dictated by a schedule created by Warhol.
In his book about Warhol films,
"Stargazer," Stephen Koch relates that he has never
seen the same screening order twice in many times
of viewing the film. He tells of his first time seeing
the film in NYC, presumably under the direction of
Warhol, where the screening begins with the hustler
tripping (in vibrant red) on the right side while
a few minutes later, the first Pope Ondine segment
begins on the left side and sound also switches to
that side.
Woronov's mother sued Warhol when
the film became a success because he had not paid
any of the actors and he ended up paying everyone
in the film a thousand dollars.
The original budget for the film
was listed as about $3,000, the amount Warhol spent
on film stock.
Filmed from July to September, 1966.
The film premiered at the Filmmaker's Cinematheque
on September 15th to sold out houses.
Warhol took the film to Cannes but
did not get to show it there.
The film was banned in some places
and police raided the cinema and fined the owner when
it screened in Boston (allowing Warhol to advertise
the film using the exploitation filmmaker's dream
proclamation: "Banned in Boston!")
Many claim that Warhol began to
screen his films side by side simply to reduce the
screening time. This seems highly unlikely. More probable
is that someone suggest he cut down the screening
time by running the films side by side as either a
joke or a legitimate idea and Warhol ran with it.
He is said to often have use other peoples ideas.
How much of this film was created with the specific
intent to run it side by side is arguable.
Some sources refer to the film as
"The Chelsea Girls." (In other places it was referred
to as "Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls").
The title is odd in that it seems
to suggest a "blue" movie (for a 1966 title), something
that might play at a Pussycat theater. The joke is
that the majority of nudity here features males.
Segments of this film appear in
"Nico Icon" and "Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin
Story."
An aside: Some sources list the
running time of "Sleep" as six hours but the more
logical agree that it ran eight as this is the generally
accept amount of time that one is supposed to sleep
at night.
