Poor Little Rich Girl (1965)
One of Warhol's most inspired and
most annoying insistencies during his early cinematic
days was the idea of "one take" filmmaking. Warhol
would simply turn on the camera and allow whatever
occurred to occur and be captured by the instrument.
Sure, there were written scenarios and some planning
on what should occur during the time the camera ran,
but often he simply allowed it to roll and captured
what transpired.
While this might suggest to the
casual or uninitiated viewer that these were nothing
more than "home movies," (as well as suggesting to
Warhol's friends that he was as cheap as his reputation
suggested) the thoughtful viewer will begin to see
that Warhol was simply expanding upon his notions
about the fascinating aspect of boredom and ennui.
Perhaps no film expands upon this notion quite as
bluntly as "Poor Little Rich Girl." This idea is also
expressed in Warhol's quote: "I Want to be a machine."
Warhol's camera captured what his mind, his eyes captured
in the same real/reel time.
The first reel of the film's two
is also a comment upon Warhol's exploitation of the
inept and the untrained. He often filmed his movies
himself in the early days, or assisted in other ways
while those as uninitiated to the technology as he
filmed. Yet, his first attempts with new equipment
often yielded technically problematic films. Such
is the case with "Poor Little Right Girl's" first
reel. The entire 30 minutes if horribly out of focus.
Not just a slight blur acts as image here; these are
images so out of focus that they become abstracts.
Yet within the frame, and within
the limited audio of the film, we easily discern what
is going on. This is, after all, a Warhol film. The
image is black and white. The star is Edie Sedgwick,
easily recognized even when horribly out of focus.
The film begins with a close-up on a sleeping face.
It holds forever. We see the image like a blurry Warhol
silkscreen, an abstract. Soon, the voice of the announcer,
who so often appears aurally in Warhol's early films,
announces the title of the film. "Andy Warhol's Poor
Little Rich Girl" his booming bass voice intones.
In one of the few truly hilarious moments in a Warhol
film, a tiny, high-pitched voice replies to this title
immediately after it is announced. "Fuck you!" the
voice spurts out as the sleeping face in abstract
on the screen begins to awaken. It is obviously the
voice of Sedgwick. In a rare move, she actually defends
herself here. However, she then, for the next 60 minutes
and presumably under the direction of Warhol, begins
to prove the announcer (and therefore also Warhol)
to be correct. She is a poor little rich girl in this
film.
Celebrity and the infamous were
often objects to be coveted in the world of Warhol.
His fascination with Sedgwick was as much about her
wealth and social status as it was her facade. He
presented Sedgwick in the way that E! Entertainment
television now presents the Hilton twins. She was
a curiosity, a freak, in a way, to the bourgeoisie.
She was an object to be ridiculed and thrown away
as much as she was to be envied to them. But to Warhol
she was as fascinating as the iconic Campbell Soup
Can. She had status! She had wealth, societal standing
and beauty, three things Warhol deeply wanted for
himself.
For the first thirty minutes of
the film, Sedgwick does very little. She gets up,
attempts to make a few phone calls, undresses to bra
and panties, and listens to an entire Everly Brothers
album on her stereo. (I'm guessing they received no
royalties for this). She has almost no dialogue and
the first part of the film is very much about the
boredom, the ennui and the loneliness of the heiress'
and socialite's existence. But with the "happy accident"
of Warhol's technical ineptitude, the film becomes
an abstract expressionist's masterpiece. Sedgwick
must have a beehive, we presume, because the white
blur that seems to be lounging around the room is
capped by a black, seemingly glowing triangle. When
the audio clues let us know she is lighting a cigarette,
a glowing white orb appears near what must be her
hands. When she strips off what must be her white
robe, her body is now represented by two black stripes
and the black triangle. She must be in bra and panties,
we presume.
The abstract blurriness of the film
becomes a representation of a life lived outside of
the focus. Sedgwick isn't a celebrity (a real person)
but near it. She is a "blurry" celebrity. She is unreal,
a representation of a person, a representation of
a woman. Warhol's accident begets a series of images
steeped with meaning. Although albeit interesting
at times, the film is, at thirty minutes, a bit dull.
Warhol helps us to understand the boredom inherent
in Sedgwick's existence, in this "Poor Little Rich
Girl's" existence, by simply boring the shit out of
us.
The second half of the film, the
second reel, is immediately brighter and more vibrant
because it is in focus. Here Sedgwick is alive and
awake and begins by waking up an off screen companion
named "Chuck" (presumably Chuck Wein who worked on
many early Warhol films). For the next thirty minutes
we are treated to the vision of Sedgwick getting ready
(by not getting ready) to go out. She babbles incessantly,
smokes from a pipe (presumably filled with marijuana),
answers the phone and, eventually, models some of
her clothes.
Sedgwick is the perfect Warhol Superstar
because she is able to improvise perfectly within
the Warhol filmmaking system of 1965. Warhol needed
mouthy and verbose people when he moved to sound filmmaking
in that year. Ronald Tavel was offering up "scenarios"
which were filmed but these were loosely organized
and only offered a roadmap at best for the "actors."
Sedgwick has an uncanny knack for blabbering on and
on yet never, ever really saying anything. She is
amazing in this systematic approach to make films
about nothing. She is the perfect Warhol Superstar
to move his filmmaking into the sound film arena.
And anyone who thinks Warhol "faked"
the problems with his camera and knew ahead of time
what he was doing visually with this film only need
to seriously think about this film for one moment.
It would be much better to have the first reel (where
almost nothing happens) be crisp and clear while the
second, which has sound to guide it, would be perfectly
suited for abstract expressionism. Warhol was an opportunist,
but his best choices were made by setting up scenes
and then allowing whatever happened to happen. Sedgwick
proves herself his most valuable asset in his early
film career with this film (as much as in any other
she appeared) because she made things happen seemingly
without actually doing anything at all.
Notes:
The film ends with the off-screen
voice reading credits and cuts off (as the reel ends)
in the middle of the sentence, "Direction by Mr. Andy..."
making Warhol sound somewhat like a hair dresser.
The film was, at one time, supposed
to be the first installment in a whole proposed series
about Sedgwick to have this same title.
Viewed at a retrospective of Warhol
films, provided by the Warhol Museum to the Alamo
Drafthouse, in October
of 2003. The man who introduced this film said
it at one time ran 100 minutes, so one reel must be
missing but in his book about Warhol films, "Stargazer,"
Stephen Koch lists the film's run time as 70 minutes.
Other films on the program that evening included "Blowjob,"
"Mario Banana" and "Inner and Outer Space."
