Kiss

Kiss is a series of 3 1/2 minute silent films of various people kissing. These short films are strung together to make a longer film. There is man & women kissing, women & women, man & man etc... Kiss is one of Warhol's first films, but can really call the completed work a film, or is it a series of short films. You see when trying to analyze Warhol's work, there is a mountain of films he created and the names associated to them are names given to differentiate reels of film, not neccesarely a title given to a complete and finished project. So is Kiss a film or is it a series of mini films? What is known is that Warhol compiled these short films and named it Kiss. Kiss is very much an extension of his silk screen artworks, you looking at Warhol's early film such as Empire, and Sleep, these films have repetitive images of someone sleeping and a static shot of the Empire state building, so one can say his silk screened artworks are very similar. The similarities are that they are the same images your watching, but with slight variations from one to the next. In this case Kiss is a fine example of Warhol's fascination with repetition. But only that, Kiss is NOT a underground masterpiece, but interesting because of the man who made it.

Kiss (1963)

BOMB (out of 4)

Andy Warhol directed this film, which runs fifty-minutes and features various couples kissing for 3 1/2 minutes each. Man and woman, woman and woman and man and man. Once again, who in the hell would want to watch this?

Blow Job (1963)

BOMB (out of 4)

Andy Warhol's directorial debut is a forty-minute movie showing the facial expressions of a guy getting a blow job. Um, yeah. To say this thing was boring would be the understatement of a lifetime. I'm sure this film only made sense to Warhol and God only knows what state of mind he was in. I know this film has it share of fans but I'd certainly love to hear from them.

Empire (1964)

BOMB (out of 4)

Andy Warhol is back again and this time he's got a camera set up shooting the top of the Empire State Building. I watched a 60-minute excerpt of this film, which originally ran a shocking eight hours. Can you imagine watching an eight hour film of nothing but the top of a building? This 60-minute version had me on the verge of suicide so....

Mario Banana 1 (1964)

1/2 (out of 4)

Mario Banana 2 (1964)

1/2 (out of 4)

Andy Warhol directed these two films, which show a man in drag (or an incredibly ugly woman) sucking and eating a banana. Part 2 of the film features the same footage in B&W. The only reason I didn't give these two a BOMB rating is because they thankfully only run three minutes each.

Okay, to set the record straight once & for all,Andy Warhol intended this film,as well as the rest of his early cinematic efforts not to be viewed as standard cinema (at least in the traditional sense). Films such as Kiss,Empire,Sleep & others like it were an extension of still photography (just undertaken on a much larger scale). All of Warhol's films from 1963,until 1968 were shot in 16mm (as it was much cheaper than filming in 35mm,and could be screened at venues specializing in that medium). If you must insist on Warhol's early films to be viewed as cinema,I would say that they would be a splendid cure for insomnia or narcolepsy (a few years ago,there was a Warhol retrospective at the Wadsworth Athenuem in Hartford,Ct.,and some select Warhol films were screened in the Athenuem's in house cinema...and yes....I did see half an hour of 'Sleep',his first film featuring avant/garde poet, John Giorno living up to the films title...sleeping for five and a half hours). The truth be known, I prefer his later films, such as Chelsea Girls (1966),Poor Little Rich Girl (1965),and the rarely seen Inner And Outer Space (also from 1965). By the way,for anyone who hasn't seen 'Kiss',it's little more than a series of portraits of various Warhol hanger on's, kissing for three minutes at a time (the short films were later collected on one or two reels,clocking in at just under an hour,filmed silent,but a music score was actually composed to accompany the films by John Cale---a soundtrack CD does exist).