Andy Warhol's Trash

Morrissey has said that he wanted to show how drug addicts are really nothing more than trash, which I guess would make this film little more than a 60s "Reefer Madness." Fortunately, he is enough of a filmmaker to let himself (and us) be surprised by the insanely goofy, and sometimes just insane, performances of the people in front of his camera.

Dallesandro is very photogenic, and seems to really be trying to shape and stay in a character. Andrea Feldman is simply crazy, with her flat expression, drawling monotone, and probably pathological rhyming speech, but she does manage to rip out some of the film's funniest lines. Jane Forth doesn't have a lot of control (she seems to be struggling not to laugh while dragging the naked, O.D.ing Joe around her apartment), but her story about Danny DiVito and the tank is not to be missed. Holly Woodlawn is every bit as good as you have heard. As screwed up and drug-addled as she may have been (and, fortunately, no longer seems to be), Woodlawn is a natural actor with a broad range and a raging intelligence.

Finally, the film, though out of focus at points and probably shot with terrible equipment, is surprising beautiful. Morrissey's later, and weaker, "Spike of Bensonhurst" shows that this is no accident. He really does have an eye, and he shows in "Trash" that he has a willingness to let the performances speak for themselves, even if he has no ability to shape those performances.

Trash is a classic. It is a film that could only have been made in the early '70's. It captures people, locations and scenarios that existed then. I haven't seen this film in 20 years so viewing the DVD was a revelation. This type of guerilla filmmaking is less about a script and more about capturing a moment. I can't imagine these actors sitting around rehearsing scripted lines.It feels more like they were given a situation and then created the dialogue on the spot. I love this movie for this reason. One thing about this trilogy (Flesh/Heat/Trash) is that you feel like your watching documentaries not movies. The fact that these films really have no beginning or ending lends itself to this definition. I'm always anticipating meeting the characters in these films. They may not be individuals that I would want to know , (ie.neurotics, psychotics, junkies, poseurs, losers and the like.) But they are the environment in which the main characters are forced to reside. John Waters' films of this era were similar but have a more scripted sensation to them. We will never see the likes of this type of filmmaking again. It is an era unto itself. It's obvious that the late 70's/early '80's films of R. Kern or Nick Zedd were influenced by Morrissey and Waters but they are pale imitations. See this film. At times it can be banal and boring and insane but so is life.

I became familiar with the Paul Morrissey-Joe Dallesandro trilogy by watching "Flesh". I loved it, but there were many flaws that could not be overlooked (i.e., forgettable acting, bad editing and sound, boring intervals in plot). I did expect better with "Trash" and it delivered more than I wished for.

Joe Dallesandro gives another fantastic performance as a junkie who will do anything for heroin. But unlike his appearance in "Flesh", Joe barely creates any sexual longing from the audience. The plotline is simple: Joe wants heroin, his girlfriend Holly wants welfare, and you get to see some strange characters and situations as they try to reach their goal(s). Morrissey produced several winning actors in "Flesh", one of which was Geri Miller as a ditzy but lovable stripper. Geri plays another ditzy but lovable stripper and is just as good, if not better, here. For those of you who remember hearing her conversation about choosing between plant juice or silicone for her breast implants, you can't help but wonder which she picked, for in a stripping sequence, Geri's breasts are noticeably larger. It is in this film that I noticed Morrissey's casting is similar to that of John Waters: Morrissey-Geri Miller; Waters-Cookie Mueller Morrissey-Jane Forth; Waters-Mary Vivian Pearce Morrissey-Andrea Feldman; Waters-Edith Massey (in the "where the hell did they come from?" category)

Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis are gone from the cast, but to take both of their places is Holly Woodlawn, who steals the film from absolutely everybody! She was supposed to have been nominated for an Oscar for her performance in this film, but because Holly is a transvestite, there was questioning as to which category? She is fabulous, better than any other Warhol star before or since, and is both hilarious and heartbreaking. Andrea Feldman is a wild, outrageous character actress and while her voice is annoying, her personality is interesting. Jane Forth, a 16-year-old actress, has an equally annoying voice, but her performance as a talkative rich snob is great. Other notable appearances include Johnny Putnam, who was Holly Woodlawn's 16-year-old boyfriend, as a teen looking for dope and Michael Sklar as the welfare officer. Diane Podlewski as Holly's pregnant sister and Bruce Pecheur as Jane's husband aren't as memorable.

"Trash" features better editing style, better sound quality, better improvised dialogue, better stylistic camerawork, great sets, and a MUCH better ensemble cast. I would recommend this film more than any other Morrissey film besides perhaps "Blood for Dracula". Highly recommended!

Trash does everything a good underground movie should: it portrays a squalid milieu unabashedly; it deconstructs cinema technique to the point of obliterating it; it provides the kind of transgressive kicks that can normally only be had in places frequented by men in raincoats. It's a sick movie but it's far from repulsive. Spatially it's a disaster, and performance-wise it's even worse, but the rawness of it, the (nearly) complete lack of pretense, is refreshing given the false nobility of so many films that seek to criticize the same dregs, the same lower-rung wash-outs, that this movie unflinchingly presents. The film offers undistilled squalor, unfiltered dubious behavior, but does so with its tongue planted firmly in its cheek.

The "plot" is a loosely connected series of episodes involving the strangely magnetic Joe Dallesandro's encounters with various women, all of whom want to get in his pants. What Joe wants is not sex but drugs; he's an unapologetic junkie whose life entails drifting from one partner to another, holing up here and there, doing whatever women want as long as he thinks they'll give him money. And what an array of women: first there's the young go-go dancer (Geri Miller) who does a charming nude frolic to a rock and roll tune; then there's Holly (the drag queen Holly Woodlawn), Joe's main source of housing and income, a buck-toothed broad (?) who furnishes her apartment with garbage she picks up off the side of the road (her coffee table is a lobster-trap). And of course we mustn't forget the woman identified only as Rich Girl (Andrea Feldman), a Grosse Pointe, Michigan deb, transplanted to New York, whose house Joe breaks into, much to her delight. The most memorable sequence involves Rich Girl, who becomes giddy at the prospect of the muscular, well-endowed Joe raping her (she invites him to do it on the couch), then helps Joe bathe while her husband (Rich Guy?) waits in the living room. The performance of Andrea Feldman can only be described as gratingly off-key, but Feldman, with her plucked eyebrows and fabulous bone-structure, is fun to watch anyway, doing the most outrageous, unfair caricature of upper-crust vacuity imaginable. The sequence reaches a kind of crazy comic height when Joe starts shooting heroin with Rich Girl and her hubby watching, Rich Girl rattling on and on about how she's never seen anyone shoot drugs before, and has never done drugs herself, and was a virgin when she married her husband, the heaviness of Dallesandro's muscular, veiny body providing a kind of counterpoint to the vapid, nasally flow of words. Much of the movie hinges on the contrast between Dallesandro's druggy torpor, his eyes barely able to focus, and the nervous energy thrown off by the various women. The parade of horrendous, high-pitched female acting streams past while Dallesandro remains immovable, a lean, sexually-indifferent force of nature.

It's amazing to watch Dallesandro, a man devoid of anything you might call talent but blessed with more raw magnetism than most Hollywood stars. You can't say that he has personality, exactly, but he does have an overpowering physical presence, and a strangely likable quality that he conveys almost in spite of himself. He spends almost the entire movie listening to women babble, enduring their clumsy seductions, and what makes it all so funny is how oblivious he is, how unconcerned with anything but figuring out how to score more smack. Joe (the character) is a man of total integrity - he makes no particular effort to ingratiate himself, and doesn't pretend to be anything other than what he is. Director Paul Morrissey has an enormous affection for Joe, who he sees as a silent movie character, a smack-head Little Tramp (the film opens and closes with a tune straight out of a silent movie). Had the film been made in the twenties, Joe would've been the dogged hero suffering the abuses of society while never losing his dignity or his hat; in the '60s, Joe is not dignified so much as impenetrably dense, and whatever drives him forward is not doggedness but a kind of blind instinct for survival. Society's abuses are not delineated much (except in the clankingly phony last scene, where Joe and Holly try to swindle a crooked Welfare rep, and the tone becomes almost self-righteous), but there's always this suggestion of forces at work against Joe and his companions, the looming specter of injustice.

The film is consistent in its anti-film aesthetic, its transgressive attitude, its sub-hard-core sense of shock. It's not an avant-garde film in the same knowing, self-absorbed way as one of Kenneth Anger's fetishistic, devilish orgies. It has an innocence to it, the innocence of two kids playing doctor in the bushes. It's not the kind of movie that wants to beat you over the head with hipness; it's a surprisingly accessible film, at times a lovable one. Of course it helps not to be too uptight when viewing it: a catalogue of the film's more explicit content includes oral-sex (shot from behind the man, the woman's hands all over his pimply butt); some rather blunt, not-particularly-erotic "regular" sex; numerous images of Dallesandro's impressive member; penetration-by-beer-bottle; and, of course, lots of needles going into veins (and one pubescent backside). In another film this might all seem repugnant, even irresponsible, but in Trash this material represents the mere facts of life. And who but the most easily offended could get riled about the facts of life?

When Andy Warhol approached Paul Morrisey about making a film dealing with drugs,Morrisey thought right away of making it as anti drug a film as possible. The proof in the proverbial pudding is 'Trash',which started out being called Drug Trash,but was shortened at the last minute by Morrisey & Warhol,themselves. This is a film that one could look at as being either a dark drama,or even darker comedy dealing with the various persons who use/abuse Heroin. Joe Dellisandro is a young junkie trying to keep one step ahead of his addiction (and usually failing). It also chronicles the various low lives that weave & bob in and out of his existence. It has some of the ugliest scenes of Heroin use that I've seen,outside of some of the footage that could be seen on a weekly basis on the series 'Intervention'. Toss in wall to wall male & female full frontal nudity,rampant sexual romping & various other droppings, and you have yourself a film that could easily scare one away from even considering trying Heroin,or any other self injecting drug. This film does,however have a grainy,kitchen sink,"do it yourself" (or D.I.Y.)look that does give the smarmy going's on a requisite,dingy look that really works (it was originally filmed on 16mm film stock & blown up to 35mm for distribution--i.e.the early John Waters' films,such as 'Pink Flamingos,and all of the other pre-Polyester films) Originally slapped with an 'X' rating by the MPAA,this film serves up the above mentioned drug abuse (with some truly ugly scenes of shooting up Heroin),nudity,actual on screen sexuality (including an on screen rape), a scene involving masturbation with a beer bottle,and lots & lots of profanity