Ciao! Manhattan

Reportedly created from the salvaging of two unfinished film products, this portrait of model Edie Segwick is half documentary, half loosely inspired fiction. The two forms cut back and forth from each other, but are bound together by their commitment to Andy Warhol inspired cinema dada-ism. The documentary features some straighforward coverage on Segwick, and some fragmented pieces of movie performance art. The fictional part, in which Segwick plays a character inspired by herself, tells the story of a highway drifter who picks up the (half naked) hitchhiking Segwick and takes her home, where she lies topless in the deep end of an empty swimming pool and incoherently babbles about god knows what for the rest of the movie. It's amazing what passed for art back in the sixties, and this film is a prime example that will either leave you moved and inspired or (more likely) laughing your head off.

This film is interesting only to anyone familiar with the saga of Edie Sedgwick. And it seems a bit ghoulish/voyeuristic to admit watching it for that reason. Although it's often claimed to be a biography of Edie, the film really is just a painful look at a person in the final stages of mental illness-drug addiction. She died soon after filming completed, which is no surprise.

The plot of Ciao is pretty garbled by the storyline involving the character Mr. Vedecchio. The director's commentary explains that Vedecchio was only added to the movie because during shooting the rest of the cast disappeared and there was nothing else to do but beef-up this role. In fact, the whole movie is a cut-and-paste of pre-meltdown Edie (black and white footage) and post-meltdown Edie (color), with Vedecchio and Paul America tossed into the mix. The color section also introduces Butch, the drifter from Texas, who does provide some much-needed comedy.

Although Ciao, Manhattan might not be particularly entertaining on its own, the DVD extras in the Anniversary package are wonderful, and to me made the disc worth purchasing. The directors' (and Butch/Wesley's!) commentary provides the story of how this movie "directed itself", and informs much about Edie and her state of mind during the last days of her life. There is quite a bit of extra footage from the Warhol-NYC days, and some terrific stills of Edie. A nice booklet is also included.

Ciao! Manhattan is an avant-garde film that makes the films of Jean-Luc Godard seem conventional. That's not to attack Godard, mind you. I'm just comparing the two to express how far out Ciao! Manhattan is. The slight narrative concerns a young Texan hippie traveling the American countryside just because he likes to see things. One night, he sees something quite unexpected: a beautiful young woman with bare breasts hitchhiking. He picks her up (who wouldn't?) and finds that she has a couple of dog tags around her neck with her name, Susan, and address on them. He takes her home. Susan's mother thanks him and offers him a job taking care of her daughter. Susan was a young model in New York, a discovery of artist Andy Warhol. She lived a life of hard partying, and is now paying for it with a severe case of brain damage. Now Susan lives in a drained pool in her mother's back yard, and she spends endless hours drinking hard liquor and rattling off stories about the old days in New York.

At first, Ciao! Manhattan just seemed to me an excessively playful experimental film with a bunch of bizarre imagery and editing and stuff. I was laughing, it was fun to see the excesses of that sub-culture which I know so little about. But after a while, the film just started working, and really well. Susan is played by Edie Sedgwick, who really was a protege model of Andy Warhol. The film works a fine balance between reality and fiction. How much of Sedgwick are we seeing? Is any of it fictional. She died three months before the film was released, and, edited into the last moments of the film, there is a shot of a newspaper headline that announces the death. Whether Ciao! Manhattan was meant to be or not, it serves as a dirge, not only to Edie Sedgwick, but to the young generation of the time.

I don't know, maybe I loved this film because I grew to adulthood so far after the hippie generation, but I'll tell you one thing: I have seen a ton of the greatest films ever made. It's a rare experience to come upon one that is as unique as this one. Perhaps there were a thousand films like this at the time, but none are available except this. Well, I choose to praise this. 10/10.

This movie had a DVD release about 20 years ago and I highly recommend viewing this movie with the audio commentary because then it becomes a documentary about Edie Sedgwick. Without that commentary, you have a quasi drama(with a little sci fi) movie based around a fictionalized version of Edie Sedgwick. This character is burned out from the same setting but is living in an empty pool with a palace of pies owner for a mother. She recounts her life while showing off early breast implants much of the time. That's when the movie shifts to black and white archival footage. There's a rich and powerful shadowy figure stalking her. We never really know why. She has a love interest named America. Cant remember if that was Captain or Mr. A Jesus looking type character is the rich guy's henchman. The movie tries to be alot of things. Whatever plots they were trying to develop never really get resolved.

What we learn in the audio commentary is what the footage actually means regarding Edie Sedgwick. Roger Vadim has a role as a doctor because his mother was deeply enamored with Edie Sedgwick and wanted to be near her. Some footage from a gathering in '68 is significant because it shows Edie falling apart and this happened around the time she abandoned Andy Warhol for Bob Dylan. A betrayal Warhol never overcame.

Also they explain how much input Edie herself offers in the making of the film which is apparently alot including the filming of a real electroshock therapy session which she insisted be done.

We learn about other people always around Andy's Factory like Brigid Polk and other models. We also get more explanation of the story they were trying to tell.

I'd give this an 8 with audio commentary by the directors David Weissman and John Palmer and costar Wesley Hayes and a 6 without it. On its own, its just showing footage with a vague story tying it all together. I can see how so many viewers find the movie appalling given the fact that Edie died weeks after much of the later footage was shot but as they said in the commentary, making this movie kept her going. This was something she wanted to make and when it was just about finished, she was gone.

I've seen this video a couple of times, and I've seen parts of it many times and it always gets my attention. There's something oddly hip about it, even today. Maybe it's living in an empty swimming pool or just wasting the days sleeping that appeals to me, or maybe it's seeing a topless girl with a nice body seem entirely unglamorous, or is it just the kooky narration?... but there's a fresh insanity about this that makes it worth watching. I don't know, but anyway, I dig it .