Beauty #2

Euphoric--along with OUTER AND INNER SPACE, the most beautiful of Warhol's movies. Like SPACE, BEAUTY focusses on that most otherworldly of movie presences, Edie Sedgwick, at the apogee of superstardom. For an hour, Edie in leopardskin underwear sits on a bed with a conked-out, junkie-looking wastrel who occasionally wakes up to make out with her. In the meantime, an intermittently audible Edie monologizes, when she isn't being baited and prodded by her jealous Svengali, meister-manipulator Chuck Wein, who sits just off camera.

Warhol's movies are famous for their "passivity," but in our self-help era we have a better word for it: passive aggression. The camera gazes limpidly on Edie's celestial perfection as she and Chuck go at it hammer and tongs; the movie is like an illustration of Flaubert's dictum about the perfect artist--present everywhere, visible nowhere. A combination druggy still life, lyric rhapsody and Edward Albee folie a deux, BEAUTY #2 can hit you--if you're in the right frame of mind--. In its meek-and-mild, limpid gaze, BEAUTY #2 turns the Factory's bathtub-speed glamor into a Zen-contemplative meadow out of a play by Zeami.

Beauty No.2 reminds me of being in love. If I remembered the last time that I was in love and then decided to talk about it, depending on my mood, I could pretty much describe it in two ways; amazing and f**cked up. Warhol and Wein (among others) both saw something in Sedgewick that provoked feelings like love, amazement, and violence. Beauty No.2 is a collaboration between these people that show all three antagonists in brilliant form.

Sedgwick holds her own to Weins often pompous monologues/observations and co-star's obvious attempts for attention. Sedgwick can appear to be both, naive and intellectual. Gino is just a stand-by that looks beautiful in underwear, and Wein is a stupid smart-ass. Warhol is there to show and "produce" this work between the lovers. Gerard Malanga comes in to whisper something halfway during the film but, is not shown on camera.

Like most of Warhol's films it is both beautiful and boring. Sedgwick is in a swim suit, smoking furiously through the film and paying, excuse me Chuck, "giving" most of her attention to Wein. Wein is off camera and instigating/co-directing the actress. Piserchio, well...sits there and looks pretty. It's also both intriguing and embarrassing to watch his calculated attempt to try to sleep with Sedgwick, resulting in a hilarious and sexy second half of the film.

Warhol's name is said in the "credits" at the beginning of the reel and from that moment forward, you feel like you are placed in the artists' shoes; a bored voyeur. Clearly, an experience worth seeing at least once for it's artistic, contemporary, and historical value on love and beauty. A lasting impression was made on me for it's sheer effort and passive nature.

Most of what Warhol does for me is of the "oh, I get it" variety of art, where a statement is supposed to trigger an insight and the insight is the art. Its an indirection of agency, and wears out its effect quickly.

But sometimes it connects deeply, and this does.

You might see an insipid couple playing role games and wonder why anyone would waste time making or watching this. But let's put this in my category of directors filming lovers. It isn't quite the case are other instances, because what Warhol loves here is the seductive expertise of this woman. She is an artist. She is in bed with an absolute doofus, good looking guy who believes he is the seducer. Neither one seems to understand just why this would be filmed. They are conscious of the camera; this is not a situation where the camera was so familiar it was invisible.

Okay, here's what grabs you. This woman knows how to allure. She knows when to extend just a bit outside her own envelope and when to signal return to a simple being. She knows that the tiniest inflection, the simplest modification of directness is the most attractive thing. The idea is that this non-self manipulation needs to be integrated with self. She is both in the romantic situation and outside, subtly manipulating it.

If you ever loved. If you ever looked at your partner and wondered why. If you ever loved, then this may grab you and trigger something about why, and deepen by opening.

This is why Warhol matters. Its not a small thing, seeing this.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

One of Andy Warhol's many experimental films. Like the rest, not much goes on but 4 points for Edie Sedgwick!

This is a film of Edie Sedgwick sitting on a bed, talking, getting drunk and making out with Gino Piserchio. Edie looks beautiful and makes a lot of cocktail chatter, but this Warhol film isn't nearly as good as his two best Edie films: LUPE; and POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL. If you've never seen Andy Warhol's mid-1960's experimental films, this might not be the best one to start with, as the conversation between Edie and the off-screen Chuck Wein never really goes anywhere, and it's just boring. For hardcore Edie fans only.