Empire

There's a wonderful 10 minute stop motion film to be found in this 8 hour albatross of pretense covering the graveyard shift in midtown. Gathering enough material for a solid work of pixilation the makers Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas opt instead to let it all hang out.

The result of this "shock of the new" is defined in it's trying and laborious hours and given legitimacy by Warhol's signature on it despite it not being his idea (John Palmer). A voyeur con job travesty it succeeds glowingly in reaffirming Warhol's take on fame as one of his most memorable works. Most will never watch it but they'll remember the name of the guy who made the 8 hour film.

Without a gorilla scaling (stuck in traffic, taking the stairs?), the stoic beauty of the most famous skyscraper in the world wears thin fast leaving you to sit with Andy and Jonas ( his jittery camera style taking a breather) across the way in the Time-Life building in a catatonic stare for over seven hours. A film for insomniacs and hipster denizens of lower Manhattan artiste salons.

Empire has got to be considered one of the most suspenseful movies ever made. 485 minutes, with every one of them keeping you on the edge of your seat, seemingly impossible for an eight-hour movie to accomplish. The scene changes are so subtle and quick, they barely seem to happen, making you feel as if the story hasn't changed, all setting up each individual shock. The acting is fantastic, each character so stoic and emotionless, as if they aren't in the scenes in the first place. Warhol does a fantastic job at threading each scene together, to make it appear as if it is just one ongoing one. Absolutely ridiculous that the AFI refused to include it in its 100 thrills list. See it, and prepare to have your imagination and sense of reality warped.

Okay, I'll admit it...I've never seen this (so called)masterpiece in it's entirety (for those who are not familiar with it,it's an eight hour,plus portrait of the Empire State Building). I did see a fragment of it in the documentary about Warhol, called Andy Warhol:Superstar some years back (plus if I'm not mistaken, there's a brief clip of it in that superb,two part documentary that was aired on PBS sometimes last year). I figured, I guess I've seen all that I probably want (or,for that matter,need) to see. I heard rumors that Warhol used to dare people that came over to the Factory to watch it from start to finish. Although I consider myself to be a bit more patient with experimental/avant garde cinema, even this one would be a real challenge (and I sat through all eight hours of Mathew Barney's Cremaster Cycle in one screening a few years back, and loved it). I guess a certain level of pretension is to be expected with this kind of modern/post modern art. I guess the only way of seeing this soiled classic now is to visit the Warhol museum & find out if there is a screening planned of his early silent films.

This film is just bad. I would rather watch an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen than this crap ever again. A lot of people say that this film is unique and special because nobody has ever made a film like it before... I wonder why?! When I think of revolutionary, artistic films that are unique in that nobody has done anything like them before, some titles come to mind such as Metropolis, Nosferatu, Star Wars, the Monty Python films, even the Harry Potter series has more merit than this. "Art" during this period was just awful. It was just stupid and awful. And it only became popular because of one thing: money. As an artist myself, I don't support this pretentious crap and it actually makes me angry that the art industry was taken over by stupid crap like this. Absolutely useless film. Not even going to comment on the fact that the most interesting thing that happens is the moment when you see Warhol's reflection. This is not art, this is bollocks.

Watching this movie is a fight. If you know about the details, you just sit, look at that building at night, watch the small light in the background (appears every 20 minutes) and wait for Andy Warhol who passes in front of the camera for about five times. I've seen him three times. At the end, the lights on the building are switched off and you just watch two small lights on the dark screen (it takes two hours). A really bizarre experience.