Gerard Malanga Movies
- 1964
Ron Rice's only color film, Chumlum depicts Jack Smith and some of his cast during the making of Normal Love, which includes Beverly Grant, Mario Montez, Francis Francine, and Tiny Tim. Rice offers glimpses of them in between set-ups at Normal Love's locations, as well as shots of the players lying in hammocks and rocking lazily after they were back in Rice's New York City loft. Throughout Chumlum, he utilizes superimpositions to turn his subjects into fields of texture, rhythm, and color. The title is derived from the score by composer/musician Angus MacLise, which he played on cembalo. ~ Nicole Gagne, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jack Smith, Beverly Grant, (more)
- 1965
By 1965, Jack Smith was exhibiting versions of Normal Love, mixing his soundtracks live and often re-editing the film as it was being shown. After Smith's death, Jerry Tartaglia prepared this restored 105-minute version, which premiered in 1997. Although shot on backdated color-film stock and paced more languidly than Flaming Creatures, Normal Love again features women and cross-dressed men in an idyll of sexual anarchy. Smith filmed almost entirely outdoors, emphasizing pinks and greens in the scenery, costumes, and props, and combining textural passages with allusions to film icons such as the Mummy and the Werewolf, Maria Montez, and Busby Berkeley. The inspired finale is set atop a massive pink cake (where the dancing Cake Cuties include Andy Warhol). The Yellow Sequence, an additional 20 minutes of footage -- in which gold tones predominate and the players include Tiny Tim -- was also restored by Tartaglia as an addendum to Normal Love, and the two films are inevitably shown together under the single title. ~ Nicole Gagne, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mario Montez, Diana Baccus, (more)
- 1967
One of the first "underground" films of the 1960's to achieve a degree of mainstream acceptance (it was an actual hit in New York City, was well-received in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and was banned in Chicago and Boston), Andy Warhol's The Chelsea Girls offered a long, unblinking look into the lives of Warhol's retinue of "superstars" as they showed off for the camera in their various rooms in the notorious Chelsea Hotel, long a favored New York hangout for writers, artists and bohemians. Along with such notables of the moment as Eric Emerson, Brigid Polk, Ondine, and Mario Montez, one of the "girls" was Mary Woronov, years before she gained a cult following for her work in Rock 'n' Roll High School and Eating Raoul. The three-and-a-half hour film consisted of two series of images shown simultaneously, though only one soundtrack was audible; in 1995, Warhol associate Paul Morrissey prepared a video edition for broadcast on British television, though the film has yet to be broadcast in the United States and there is no authorized video release as yet in North America. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ondine, Mary Might, (more)
- 1968
This Big Apple underground art film is based on the classic Greek play Prometheus Bound and presents assorted characters, symbolizing Greek gods and their daily actions that signify the relationship between homosexuality and urban living. Andy Warhol and his Factory members populate the piece. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1969
No President, Jack Smith's last 16 mm feature, combines found footage with his own production -- a crazed account of former Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie being abducted by pirates and auctioned off in a Baghdad slave market. A heavily made-up Irving Rosenthal plays Willkie in distress and Tally Brown gives a notable supporting performance as a feisty slave girl. Willkie himself appears in newsreel clips, posing with cows while visiting the Future Farmers of America (a wicked in joke from Jack Smith on behalf of all the gay men who were also members of their own FFA!). ~ Nicole Gagne, Rovi
- Starring:
- Irving Rosenthal, Doris Desmond, (more)
- 1990
- NR
Fascinating documentary of artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol, combining rare footage with interviews with his friends and colleagues, including Dennis Hopper, David Hockney, Taylor Mead, and Sylvia Miles. ~ Nicole Gagne, Rovi
- 2001
This is a documentary chronicling the life of Charles Henri Ford (now in his nineties and still as alert as ever), a pivotal figure in the European and American avant-garde scene from the late '20s through the present. Born to a Southern family that owned a hotel and included sister Ruth Ford, an actress who is best known for the U.S. debut of Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit, Charles moved to New York City in 1930, where his unmistakable male beauty sparked interest in the city's burgeoning gay scene. In the 1940s, he founded the literary journal Blues and the later View, which provided space for future notables such as Jean Genet and Vladimir Nabokov. The filmmakers made this motion picture over the course of ten years, lining up -- in the process -- a number of legendary avant-garde figures to discuss Ford, several of whom died by the time directors James Dowell and John Kolomvakis finished the picture. These include: William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Johnson, Paul Cadmus, Paul Morrissey, Ned Rorem, Paul Bowles and Gerard Malanga. Ford relates several anecdotes about them as well. The filmmakers spent over a decade creating this picture, tapping various historians, critics, and curators for additional details. ~ Jason Clark, Rovi
- Starring:
- James Dowell, Charles Henry Ford, (more)
In 1963, Danny Williams dropped out of Harvard (over the strong objections of his family) and set out to make a career for himself in filmmaking. After editing several documentaries for Albert Maysles and David Maysles (including the award-winning Salesman), Williams met Andy Warhol, and soon became a member of the inner circle at Warhol's "Factory." Williams soon became both an advisor and a lover to the artist, and for a while lived with Warhol. When Warhol gave Williams a 16 mm movie camera, he began making films that displayed his sure and striking visual sense and sharp rhythms. Williams also was a key advisor to Warhol as they created "The Exploding Plastic Inevitable," the multimedia show which launched the career of the groundbreaking rock band the Velvet Underground. But Williams fell victim to the clashing egos that were a large part of Warhol's circle, and when he began receiving press attention that suggested the EPI was as much Williams' creation as Warhol's, Warhol broke off their relationship and a shattered Williams returned home to his family. After a few days, Williams went out for a drive and vanished, never to be seen again. Danny Williams' niece, Esther B. Robinson, offers an intimate look at the remarkable life and unexplained death of an important but little-known creative force in A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory, which features interviews with a number of Factory associates (including John Cale, Billy Name, Gerard Malanga, Paul Morrissey, and Brigid Berlin), as well as highlights from several of Williams' long-lost experimental films. A Walk Into the Sea received its North American premiere at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Brigid Berlin, Paul Morrissey, (more)
The true story of one woman's brief and ultimately tragic flirtation with fame in the 1960s provides the basis for this biographical drama. In 1943, Edie Sedgwick (Sienna Miller) was born to a wealthy and socially prominent family, and she grew up with beauty and money, but also a history of mental illness; she was hospitalized with an eating disorder in her late teens, and by the time she was 21, two of her seven siblings had died before their time. In 1964, Edie moved to New York City, and quickly made a splash on the Manhattan social scene; she became friendly with the famous pop artist Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce), who was fascinated by her gamine loveliness and her quirky personality. Warhol wasted no time in casting her in one of his underground movies, and she quickly became a crucial part of his retinue of "superstars." Fashion icon Diana Vreeland (Illeana Douglas) was convinced Edie had the looks and charm to also become a successful model, and soon she was gracing the pages of Life, Vogue, and Glamour. But Edie's instability was hardly helped by her new fast-lane lifestyle, and when she met Billy Quinn (Hayden Christensen), a folk rock singer-songwriter often cited as "the voice of a generation," he persuaded her that Warhol and his associates were simply using her fame and beauty for their own gain, and she found herself torn between two powerful mentors, one of whom had become her lover as well. Factory Girl also co-stars Jimmy Fallon, Mena Suvari, and Tara Summers as regulars at the Warhol "Factory." The character of Musician was inspired in part by Bob Dylan, who was romantically involved with Edie Sedgwick for a brief time. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sienna Miller, Hayden Christensen, (more)
Marie Menken was an artist and experimental filmmaker who was a contemporary and confidante to many noted auteurs of the '60s, including Kenneth Anger (he helped her shoot her film Arabesque for Kenneth Anger, while she appeared in Scorpio Rising), Stan Brakhage (he was an outspoken supporter of her work) and Andy Warhol (she appears in The Chelsea Girls and supposedly coached him on working with movie equipment). While Menken never received the same acclaim among cineastes as the above-mentioned filmmakers, today she's considered an important and pioneering artist, and filmmaker Martina Kudlacek pays homage to the woman and her work in this documentary. Notes on Marie Menken includes clips from several of Menken's films, as well as interviews with Kenneth Anger, Billy Name, Mary Woronov, Jonas Mekas, and others who knew her; filmmaker Kudlacek also examines how Menken's work has impacted her own creative vision. Notes on Marie Menken received its North American premier at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
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