Poor Little Rich Girl

POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL is Andy Warhol's best Edie Sedgwick film, along with LUPE, her last film for Warhol. It's split into two parts, Edie out of focus, and Edie in focus trying on clothes. There is no plot, it's a character study/documentary of Edie Sedgwick, Warhol's most famous superstar, and it's great to watch. The first half is beautiful, out-of-focus mystery, like nothing I've ever seen before. The second half Edie talks to someone off-screen while getting stoned, trying on clothes, and showing off her fabulous legs. It's hard to describe, it's very much a 60's period piece, but it transcends that somehow by getting the viewer to feel sympathy for Edie, she's so harmless and tragic and ambitious all at once, she radiates the hope of youth, and somehow that's all captured by Warhol's camera. If you've never seen any of Warhol's experimental films of the mid-1960's, this is a great one to start with.

Poor little rich girl is a two reel film that came out of the Factory just as Warhol was staring to include sound and camera movement. The film is mainly about Edie Sedgewick she is the sole focus of the film. (though not in focus in the first reel) Reel one starts of with Edie lounging on the bed, she does not talk much, the second reel is mercifully in focus and here she talks about her fur coat, her spent inheritance, and many other boring stuff. This film is strictly for Edie/Warhol fans only, if you can sit through the first reel then there is something wrong with you. Warhol has a knack of infuriating, and provoking audiences with his devoid of narrative, boring subject matter 'films'. "is it art or are you making fun of me Warhol?" In fact what makes Warhol films fun is the characters and this one lacks any spontaneity that is in other films like Chelsea Girls.

The first half of this movie is a real pain to watch because Warhol thought it would be cute/interesting to film it out of focus. One of his self-styled bold innovations, of course. The only good thing about this sequence is the "best of the Everly Brothers" record playing in the background. I gave up trying to see through the out-of-focus fog after about 7 minutes and just sat back and relaxed, listening to the Everlys. Apparently the action during this half consists of Edie doing her morning toilette. And this also included, towards the end, of shooting up. I wouldn't have noticed, except for the helpful snicker of the lady sitting next to me in the theatre.

The second half is in focus and totally marvelous because it shows Edie at her brightest. The background music, to begin with, is the Shirelles, and its beautiful to see Edie's response to the songs, especially when she sings along with "wasn't that a sweet thing".

Apparently the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale" was written about her, but it just goes to show how jealous some people are. If there was anyone who was less of a femme fatale, it was Edie Sedgwick. Anyone who's ever seen her in the few movie appearances she made can easily see that if she flitted from one beau to another, it wasn't from calculation, but from a crippling inability to connect and commit.

Anyway, this film, like "Inner and Outer Space", shows Edie's face as it runs through a gamut of different emotions, and the occasional looks of terror and hopelessness are even more pronounced and heartbreaking. Its as if she throwing everything she's got into trying to shine a light from her soul into the snotty sounding Brit she's talking to off camera, all to no avail: he remains completely hard and closed to her. Since her mercurial mood changes show her to be extremely vulnerable and teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown, these moments of horror are all the more heartbreaking. Nonetheless, I wish that this, and the other films she appears in were available on DVD so I could watch them over and over. I've very much fallen in love the poor little waif.