Painting the Town

My review was written in May 1992 after watching the movie at a Lincoln Center screening.

Party crasher/painter Richard Osterweil's monologue provides offbeat entertainment in the autobiographical portrait film "Painting the Town". Specialized audiences will get a kick out of this droll character's curious lifestyle.

With receding hairline and soft, ingratiating voice, 39-year-old Osterweil resembles a non-singing Art Garfunkel, calmly relating his 15 years of sneaking into celebrity funerals, parties and premieres.

He states that the reason he came to New York was to see celebrities. Result is closeup encounters with celebs like Katharine Hepburn and Princess Grace. Osterweil supports himself as a cab driver and in odd jobs like coat checker at a restaurant (he tries on all the celebrity coats), while painting hundreds of canvases, mainly pastiche.

Reciting the numerous big-name funerals he's attended, from Andy Warhol to William Paley, Osterweil claims his is not morbid interest but rather an attempt to beome part of history. Actually he resembles Warhol in the need to be always on the scene, though his paintings are not innovative and hardly set to propel him to Warhol status.

Using "Gone with the Wind" as his model for behavior, Osterwiel's vicarious existence comes through identifying with women, haunted by their glamour and even trying on their garments. He almost takes on the pathos of the gay black models in Jennie Livingston's documentary "Paris Is Burning", a life lived second-hand pressing up to the thrill of standing next to the rich and famous.

Filmmakers Andrew Behar and Sara Sackner keep things simple by merely photographing Osterweil' spiel, though the picture would have been improved by testimony from his friends, adversaries of hard-won socialite friends, such as Mrs. Samuel Peabody, the subject of many of his paintings.

A cop-out end credit notes that Osterweil's remarks are "loosely based on the life and fantasies of Richard Osterweil", and evidence of his embroidering on the facts is ample.

In sum, he emerges as sort of an unpaid journalist, forging or sneaking his way into events and hen writing them up in his diary rather than a gossip or society column. Like many in the media, he grades the soirees according to the quality of the food served (or lack thereof) but his gee-whiz anecdotes fail to impart the dreariness of many of the events cited. Presumably the danger of crossing class barriers and crashing society makes it all worthwhile.

"Painting the Town" is a very entertaining documentary. Richard Osterweil is the focus of this movie. He discusses his life in New York and his art. Mr. Osterweil has made a "career" of sneaking into parties and other social events. He has become something of a celebrity in the process and now receives invitations to some of these events that he previously would have snuck into.

Mr. Osterweil has a dry sense of humor, and the ability of a master story teller while he regales his audience with his tales.