Details
Movie Description
Mary Harron (AMERICAN PSYCHO) transports New York to a pre-feminist, late 1960s, Andy Warhol art scene in this stylistically inflammatory flick that harkens back to such films as BORN IN FLAMES. Lili Taylor plays the angry Valerie Solanas with a vengeance that just won't quit. Solanas is mad. She's a manic spitfire, has hell to raise, and is armed with the SCUM MANIFESTO. Encouraged by Warhol's queerly noncommittal attitude, Solanas is convinced he will produce her play UP YOUR ASS. Between writing and turning tricks at the Chelsea Hotel, she meets Maurice Girodias, famous publisher of writers like William S. Burroughs, Jean Genet and Pauline Reage. Intrigued by her subversive quality, he signs a contract with her for the completion of two novels. When Solanas realizes she's signed the rights over to Girodias, she begins to unravel and sets out on a paranoid mission to stop him and Warhol from controlling her life.
Harron's film is a manifesto. Stylistically adventurous, this indie romp is a smart and sassy feminist critique of Andy Warhol's Factory scene. Unlike other films that glamorize it (THE DOORS, BASQUIAT), I SHOT ANDY WARHOL exposes the subtle misogyny that is just barely veiled under all the glamor.
Synopsis
This film dramatizes the life of radical feminist Valerie Solanas who shot and wounded pop artist Andy Warhol in 1968. The deranged Solanas felt spurned after Warhol banished her from his bohemian, avant-garde melting pot known as The Factory. While explaining the background to Solanas' crime, the picture astutely captures the essence of the era and the colorful characters who populated the cultural scene at the time.
Film Notes
Shown in competition at the Sundance Film Festival in January, 1996. Lili Taylor won the only award for acting given there.
Shown at the "New Directors/New Films" series at The Museum of Modern Art, New York on April 6 & 7, 1996.
Released theatrically in New York City May 1, 1996.
Color by Technicolor.
Additional song performers: Jewel, Wilco, Luna, Bettie Serveert, Ben Lee.
Feature film debuts for writer/director Mary Harron and co-writer Daniel Minahan.
Mary Harron described the film as "95% real" in its depiction of events. She and Minahan had originally planned to make a television docudrama on this subject, but decided to do a feature film instead.
Two months after he was shot, Andy Warhol said, "When you hurt another person, you never know how much it pains. I'm afraid to take a shower. It's sort of awful, looking in the mirror and seeing all the scars. It's scary. I close my eyes. I wasn't afraid before. But I am afraid now."
Writer/director Paul Morrissey explained how the shooting influenced their decision to make `Andy Warhol's Frankenstein' in 1974: "Andy once told me that he felt as if he would pop open someday. When I filmed `Frankenstein,' I thought it might be a kind of exorcism for Andy and all the people who are crippled and haunted by some nut-case. And then I added laughter, because that's the only way we survive."
Valerie Solanas wrote "The SCUM Manifesto;" SCUM is used as an acronym for the Society for Cutting Up Men. She also wrote the play "Up Your Ass" which she asked Andy Warhol to produce. Warhol cast her as a bit-player in his film "I, a Man."
Copyright 1996 Public Television Playhouse, Inc.
Industry Reviews
"...An exemplary and dynamic work that goes about as far as a narrative film can in both analyzing a complex personality and portraying a cultural scene..."
Variety - Todd McCarthy (01/29/1996)
"...Ambitious and absorbing....A solid, impressive first feature..."
Los Angeles Times - Kevin Thomas (05/17/1996)
"...[Taylor] has proven herself the most intelligent and versatile of performers..."
Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert (05/17/1996)
"...[A] terrifically cast movie....A cool and clinical reportorial remembrance..."
USA Today - Mike Clark (05/03/1996)
3 stars out of 5 -- "Harron lets Taylor's unrelenting brazenness drive the film without an ounce of victimhood."
Ultimate DVD - Simon Edwards (09/01/2006)
Quotations
"I have a lot of real involved reasons." -- Valerie Solanas (LILI TAYLOR), explaining why she shot Andy Warhol (JARED HARRIS).
"He had too much control over my life." -- Valerie Solanas (LILI TAYLOR), giving one of the reasons why she shot Warhol (JARED HARRIS).
"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex." -- a segment from "The SCUM Manifesto" of Valerie Solanas (LILI TAYLOR).
"The male will swim a river of snot, wade nostril deep through a mile of vomit [for sex]...." -- another excerpt from "The SCUM Manifesto."
"Fifteen cents, any dirty word you want." -- Valerie Solanas (LILI TAYLOR), to people who pass by on the street.
"Men." -- Valerie, to somebody who takes her up on the offer.
"What is that horrendous monstrosity?" -- a member of Andy Warhol's Factory, after seeing Valerie Solanas (LILI TAYLOR) show up in a reel of screen tests.
"Isn't she tragic?" -- another Factory member, upon seeing Solanas.
"It's way too disgusting, even for us." -- Brigid Polk (COCO McPHERSON), after realizing what's in one of Valerie's obscene plays.
"Oh gee, did you type this yourself? I'm so impressed. You should come type for us." -- Andy Warhol (JARED HARRIS), to Valerie Solanas (LILI TAYLOR).
"All these revolutionary girls come across very hard to me." -- Candy Darling (STEPHEN DORFF), while watching bra-burning demonstrators on television.
"If anyone can make you a star, Andy can." -- Candy Darling (STEPHEN DORFF), to Valerie Solanas (LILI TAYLOR).
"You're a guy? My God, I thought you were a lesbian." -- Valerie Solanas (LILI TAYLOR), to Candy Darling (STEPHEN DORFF), when they first meet each other in Washington Square Park.
"Hey Valerie, you got a boyfriend?" -- a reporter, to Valerie Solanas (LILI TAYLOR), after she is arrested.
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