Chelsea Girls

There's two film experiences this year that standout as arresting for me in the way that they changed my perception of cinema. One was Bela Tarr's masterwork, The Man From London. Tarr uses settings as powerful players, almost like characters. It challenged the way I approached watching film, the visual experience. The other evening I went to a special showing of Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls. This is not a film one could call 'polished' in any sense of the word. But it opened up so many ideas in my head. I felt as if I had had a three-hour masterclass in the techniques of film, particularly the ways film is manipulated to alter what goes on in the minds of the viewer.

I'll try to tell you why I found it so mesmerising. Then you can decide for yourself whether to watch it.

The screening was sold out. I should explain that the cinema had borrowed the rare print from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. They installed two 16mm projectors side by side. The film comes as 12 separate reels – it's a sort of soap opera of the lives of some of Warhol's people that lived at the Chelsea Hotel in the 60's. Although the running order has now become more or less accepted, the original instructions were that the projectionist should choose the sequence and the sound levels for each. Additionally, two projectors are used simultaneously, projecting different reels on opposite sides of the screen.

The effect is a bit like being at a party where you can choose which conversation to tune in to. But sometimes you are just left with one person for a few minutes. You can almost ignore one section for a bit. But then, when something interesting happens, you already have the background gossip on it that you've followed with one ear. Your tangential interest has been aroused. When people hear the film described, the think, "How can you follow two things at once?" But this is what we do all the time. Every minute of our lives. We just alter the emphasis.

There's not much in the way of narrative. But we develop our own kind of narrative as we link up individuals from different reels. Often they are shown in a different light – sometimes literally. Everyone, as in many of Warhol's films, plays themselves – or rather a dramatised persona of themselves. An attractive vamp from one black-and-white reel turns out to be a quick-witted transgendered woman when we hear her with the sound turned up in another. Both reels are in black and white but with different co-actors. When we see her in a third reel, in colour, some of the mystery that black-and-white lent has drained away. She seems more human and less mysterious. We make our internal narrative, choosing which reel is a 'flashback.' Which is the 'true' person. I think of how the classic 'vamp' is portrayed in movies, the fetishisation of femininity. And how unconscious we are of cinematic technique.

Frequently camera also makes self-conscious zooms. Almost as if the cameraman had noticed, "Oh look, isn't THAT interesting!" Was it interesting before, or is it interesting because we have seen it through the eyes of someone who sees what is fascinating about it? They are insignificant details. Yet, when we focus on them, they seem to encapsulate the mood of the scene, or reveal something new about what is happening. At other times, the camera just seems to fidget. We become aware of it as a 'character' (a bit like Bela Tarr's cityscapes).

This probably comes easier if you can see why (Warhol's) screenprints and sculptures are interesting, have endured, and been so influential. Anyone can call a painting of a soup-can trite. Fewer can explain why Warhol's 'soup cans' sold for so much money - or are still taken very seriously by art establishments. If you can find the essence of something that everyone likes but takes for granted. We look at things without seeing them. So if you can make people stop. And really look. Really see. Suddenly you've shown them something about themselves. It wasn't really anything about soup or depicting Marilyn Monroe's head in garish colours. "They see all of me but they don't see anything," intones a drug-crazed young man into a flexible mirror. His self-absorption reminds me of how I am compositing each character from their different 'reels'.

Of course, we also know this movie was banned. Is that shocking enough to keep you in your seat for three hours? Without graphic violence, graphic sex or the usual commercial chicanery? Probably not. If you're new to Warhol's art you might want to get hold of a primer first (I recommend 'The Philosophy of Andy Warhol' available in Penguin: it doesn't 'explain' Warhol but it can help you get inside his head.) If you see this film looking for all the things he's refusing to give you then you probably won't get much out of it.

Of course, if this were a real soap opera, scenes of mild bondage, catfights, sexual confessions and so on would be 'dramatised' to make them larger than life. Chelsea Girls doesn't have to go to such lengths. It already is 'real life'. Weird people, druggie drop-outs and the sort of folk that probably 'infested' Times Square before the big clean up. But their interesting essences are distilled by a great artist – yet just not in the way you might expect.

I got the feeling at times that you could have given Andy Warhol a camera that came free with the cornflakes and he would have made great art with it.

(This is a greatly shortened version of something I wrote for Eyeforfilm)

Maddening but exquisite--one of the most beautiful of all American movies. The genius of Warhol as filmmaker was his stubborn insistence--conscious or otherwise--on bringing the principles of portraiture in painting to movies. Warhol understood that the power of the portrait is as psychological as it is technical, and his strategies for eliciting "acting" were as excruciating as they are potent. In his filmed "still lifes" of Edie Sedgwick and Henry Geldzahler he seemed to extract a spiritual radiance through duration and discomfort as if from a syringe, and in "Chelsea Girls" the concentrated sadism of his directing style produces similarly unpredictable, human, extravagant results. Shown with two projectors (one randomly producing sound, the other silent), the film shows three and a half hours of faces--superstars and hangers-on hung out to dry in front of an impassive and directionless camera that, after the maestro's fashion, silently encourages the "performers" to entertain. Some twist in the wind, others outdo all expectations; something palpably human, essential, unprojected is born of all of them. The film is hard going when seen in a theatre, but by the time Warhol gets to the transcendent, almost wordless rhapsody of the final garishly colored reels, the trek pays off like a sunburst.

What do most people know Andy Warhol by? It's probably one of three things. His paintings of soup cans, his incredibly long films about literally nothing (like the 7 hour "Empire" starring...the Empire State Building), or his raw legacy as a pop-icon and as a star of counterculture in the '60s. Few people really know that his was a rather prolific film director. Well, not prolific in the standard sense (he never seemed particularly passionate about his cinematic accomplishments), but as far as output of films, he's ahead of many. Now Chelsea Girls is the second Warhol film I've seen (behind Vinyl) and I don't plan on seeing anymore, because Chelsea Girls seemed to be a statement of almost everything Warhol wanted to say.

Chelsea Girls is one of the most important films in a series of avant- garde movies in the 1960's. Besides Brakhage, Warhol is often considered to be the most influential and fresh experimental filmmaker of that time. But why? What makes some three-and-a-half-hour film about nothing so interesting, new, and yet still entertaining and interesting? It's the filming style and creativity of which it is portrayed.

The film is presented with two separate film reels at once, but with only one of the reel's audio. So it's basically like watching one and a half movies at once. Originally, it was the projectionist's choice of which soundtrack was used, but at this point it has become more standardized with the update of digital film.

There are a dozen, 33-minute reels, played two at once, making the film a total of three-and-a-half hours. All of the characters in the movie are those of Warhol's buddies; from dominatrices, to heroin dealers, to corrupt religious officials, to the underground rock star Nico herself.

Oftentimes I'm very intrigued by films showing impoverishment. I can't exactly pinpoint why; it's just something that interests me. Chelsea Girls shows the opposite by displaying some of the most despicable characters ever filmed in cinema, giving an effective "slice-of-life" of these money-obsessed Fellini-esque individuals.

While the second hour is a bit lacking as it ventures more into pointless surrealism when the rest of the film is focused more on the pure dramatic aspects of the characters, the first and third hours of Chelsea Girls are tragic, funny, entertaining, but also give insight and demonstrate brilliant chemistry from the entire ensemble. Additionally, if you ever get bored watching it, just let your eyes drift to the other screen for a while.

Many will talk about the themes of Chelsea Girls. A theory I've taken a liking to it's filmed like a party, where you can hear some people talking, and want to hear everyone and see what's going on, but you know it's impractical (as would be watching Chelsea Girls one reel at a time). I truly believe that the last set of reels, however, is the most important in the whole, non-structured movie. In it, we hear the audio from a corrupt "pope" as he beats a woman, rants, and talks about how "Bride of Frankenstein" is the greatest movie ever, while in the other reel, we simply watch Nico crying while assorted rave lights flash onto her.

This creates a mood of sadness, of weeping for this life, but also a sense of self-awareness. Is Warhol revealing his realizes the chivalry of his, and the cast's, antics? I believe so.

Chelsea Girls is certainly one of the most unique films ever made, and a landmark achievement and must-see for anyone interested in Warhol or experimental cinema.

You know when you let your mind drift--especially when under the influence of drugs or alcohol--and you think up some idea that sounds like it would be great? A typical non-genius would consider an idea like that later and think, "well, this sounded like a good idea then but it's just stupid now?" Thankfully, Warhol said to himself, "no, I'm a genius and therefore that was a good idea."

And what was this brilliant idea?

Film a bunch of drug users and couples in various rooms of a hotel then project two films at a time side-by-side, shifting the audio to switch focus.

Doesn't that sound amazingly fresh and cool?

Don't answer yet! You also get:

• randomly twitchy camera work

• quasi-purposeful film speed changes

• having the camera's point-of-interest fail to follow the viewer's desires

• racking the zoom

• sluggish response to bad focus after changing camera positions

• over- and under-exposure

Now how much would you pay?

With your average film you'd get three or four reels, but with this, you get _12 reels!_ Plus, you get sketchy instructions on when to do transitions and change projectors, putting _you in the driver seat!_

Operators are standing by.

For four odd hours Warhol, using the double-screen technique, declares war against every sensory logic we have grown used to in the movies. Sometimes, the movie just doesn't move. Sometime it does, but at an odd speed. Even if you get used to following two overlapping narratives, some in color while others in B&W, the length of the film might finally get to you. But if you endure - your perception of the art of motion pictures is in for a ride! Depicting the lives of underground characters known from Lou Reed and Velvet Underground songs, this movie is not only cinematic beauty at its extreme, but also a fascinating documentation of an era in which modernist art reached its climax. A must!