Retro Film Review: I Shot Andy Warhol (1996)

Life imitates art, even when the art happens to be art-themed film. In 1959 Roger Corman made A Bucket of Blood, trash classic about loser who frequents bohemian artist circles only to find alternative to his own artistic failure through homicidal acts. Less than a decade after that, one of the world's greatest artists had experiences with sinister resemblance to Corman's plot. Those events are the subject of I Shot Andy Warhol, 1996 drama written and directed by Mary Harron.

The plot of the film is set in 1967, during the time of great social and cultural turmoil of America, where all kinds of ultra-radical ideas found receptive audience among snobs and those genuinely disaffected with status quo. Valerie Solanas (played by Lilly Taylor) qualifies among the latter category - unpleasant experiences in early life made her not only lesbian, but radical and unapologetic man-hater. College education only channelled those sentiments into a personal philosophy, framed by her "SCUM Manifesto" – text that advocates elimination of males as the solution of all world problems. Solanas, however, has difficulty relaying that message to the public and has to support herself by panhandling and prostitution. Her transvestite friend Candy Darling (played by Stephen Dorff) gets her in touch with Andy Warhol (played by Jared Harris), immensely popular and fashionable avant-garde artist who gathers all kinds of strange characters around his "Factory" studio. Warhol gives Solanas a role in one of his experimental movies and even takes the copy of her ultra-feminist play. That proves to be huge mistake when the copy, which turned out to be the only one, gets lost, making Solanas extremely angry at Warhol.

Originally devised as documentary and almost ten years in the making, I Shot Andy Warhol gives impression that its author was truly familiar with the subject matter. Mary Harron leads the plot of her film with great confidence and her experience with documentaries allows her to familiarise modern audience with late 1960s New York without stuffing the film with too many details. In all that, she receives great aid by Lilly Taylor, actress who became sort of an icon for independent American cinema. Taylor plays the difficult and complicated character of Solanas by showing her both as a dangerous lunatic and as a woman who was driven to insanity by oppressive and hypocritical society. The lack of awe towards Solanas (who would later become sort of ultra-feminist icon) and Andy Warhol (who created whole industry of turning the most banal and trivial things into fashionable art) is probably the most valuable element of the film. Because of that I Shot Andy Warhol is both tragic and funny; it approaches the characters with great sympathy, yet it doesn't shy away from their flaws - some of which had tragic consequences. Unfortunately, what Mary Harron fails to do with this film is putting the whole Solanas-Warhol business into the broader context of late 1960s. Perhaps the film could have been much worse without clear focus, but those who now view former "counter- culture" as part of today's established culture would have been at a loss. However, even with such shortcomings I Shot Andy Warhol is very interesting and entertaining film.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on October 16th 2003)

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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/26890-i-shot-andy-warhol
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