I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews (13 page)

CAVALIER: Where do you show them?

WARHOL: They were showing one at the Cinémathèque the other night. And they play at the Astor Playhouse.

CAVALIER: Is there any relation between your paintings and your movies?

WARHOL: No, but there will be. Henry Geldzahler said I could combine my movies and my paintings.

CAVALIER: What do you mean?

WARHOL: I don’t think I should go into details right now.

CAVALIER: Who besides Ondine has played in your films?

WARHOL: Baby Jane used to. Edie Sedgwick is our new superstar.

CAVALIER: Where do you make your movies?

WARHOL: Nearly all of the indoor shots can be done here in the Factory, as the props are very stark, almost severe. The outdoor shots are done wherever we feel like doing them. In the beginning when we first started with film we went about it in the traditional way technically. They were cut and edited as any other films are. We’ve given that up now. We feel we’re beyond that.

CAVALIER: Not long ago you were experimenting with video tape. In fact you said you might do all your future work with tape.

WARHOL: Well, yes, we were working with some equipment from the Norelco people. It was all here at the Factory and as you can see, it’s gone now. They made a promotional thing of it including an underground party on the railroad tracks underneath the Waldorf Astoria, down where the tracks run towards Grand Central Station. It was climaxed by the filming of a dueling scene. Video tape has its advantages, such as immediate playback and you can get by with very little light. It allows for instant retakes and with this you can maintain the particular mood that has been created for a scene.

CAVALIER: You must have some sort of crew for making these movies.

WARHOL: Well, I do, and then there are two secretaries for correspondence and answering the phone and changing records on the phonograph.

CAVALIER: What movie are you doing now?

WARHOL: We are doing a movie called
Breathe
, and after that we’ll do a movie a week, but they’ll be straight movies.

CAVALIER: What do you mean by “straight” movies?

WARHOL: I can’t define it–let’s just say something that’s not vacuous.

CAVALIER: Do you have any particular person in mind for these movies?

WARHOL: Edie Sedgwick will be in all of them.

CAVALIER: In 1964, when she was named “Girl of the Year,” Baby Jane appeared in many of your movies. Do you think her parts in your films had anything to do with her other successes?

WARHOL: Oh, yes. She really hadn’t done anything until she joined our group.

CAVALIER: How did that come about?

ONDINE: (
interrupting
) She just appeared here one afternoon. She was swept in by a group of fairies and then decided to come back every now and then.

CAVALIER: Do you have fun making your movies?

WARHOL: Oh, yes, I enjoy it.

CAVALIER: Even the one showing Ondine sleeping for over six hours?

WARHOL: Well, I’ve never watched all of that one. I just fed film into the camera and made sure it was taking the pan shots and other shots that I wanted. In the end, though, we only used 100 feet of the film we shot, running it over and over again for eight hours. We don’t edit any of the films. What I sometimes do is use two reels of the three reels we may have shot.

CAVALIER: Do you want a lot of people to see your films?

WARHOL: I don’t know. If they’re paying to see them. By the way, they can be rented. There’s a catalog, and the cost is nominal: one dollar per minute. A 30-minute film can be rented for $30.
Sleep
rents for $100, at a special rate, and you can get all eight hours of
Empire
for $120.

CAVALIER: A lot of people have said that these are pretty boring films.

WARHOL: They might be. I think the more recent ones with sound are much better.

CAVALIER: You say you are not going to continue painting in order to concentrate on movie-making. Is there any one particular reason for this?

WARHOL: I decided to concentrate entirely on films when I met the most fantastic man in the world, Huntington Hartford
¹
. He is very enthused about what we are trying to do. He has offered us the use of his Paradise Island in the Bahamas to make our next film.

CAVALIER: Knowing the kind of conservative art that is shown in Mr. Hartford’s Gallery of Modern Art, it is hard to imagine him taking part in such an avant-garde venture.

WARHOL: Well, along with everyone else he is very excited about this project. It’s to be our first full-length picture. By that I mean it will have a large cast and a complete crew of technicians and a carefully prepared script.

CAVALIER: What will distinguish this from your other films besides the large cast and crew?

WARHOL: We plan to make money from it. Not just enough to cover the rent here at the Factory and the cost of processing film but a good deal of money.

CAVALIER: Can you tell us something about this film?

WARHOL: It will be
Jane Eyre
. Chuck Wein is writing the shooting script. We know we want a total running time of one hour and forty minutes and that Edie Sedgwick will be the star. Why don’t you ask Chuck some questions?

CAVALIER: How do you do, Mr. Wein? How did you get involved with Andy Warhol?

CHUCK WEIN: It was an accident. I was at a party with Edie and Andy asked me if I’d like to write a movie for him. I said yes. So far I’ve done
Poor Little Rich Girl, Party, It Isn’t Just Another Afternoon
, and some others.

CAVALIER: Mr. Warhol, why did you pick Chuck as a script writer?

WARHOL: When I met him at the party I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

CAVALIER: The average person may not know much about art, but if he follows the gossip columns and watches the “night” shows on television, he knows something about you. For example, recently a photograph appeared in the society sections of the New York papers of you and Edie Sedgwick at a “Mod Ball” at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center. You have become a real social phenomenon, in a peculiar sense.

WARHOL: The part about the parties I attend is probably overplayed. Most of them are well covered by the press. That accounts for my name appearing so often. I’ve been on some radio and television shows, but I usually bomb out. I’ve given up saying anything.

CAVALIER: Anything?

WARHOL: Just about.

1
Huntington Hartford. American arts patron and an heir to the A. & P. supermarket fortune. In 1964, he commissioned architect Edward Durell Stone s modernist building at 2 Columbus Circle, which housed Hartford’s Gallery of Modern Art.

Andy: This is the basic form that the interview in the
Record
will take. Please try to mail your ad to me (801 Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520) soon. The deadline for it is the end of next week. The date we’re trying for is May 15 (for films and the Velvets), in case you have to put this information in the ad. Oh, by the way, maybe a friend, I, and some girls will be at your discotheque next Friday or Saturday.

–Bob Reilly

ANDY: Hi. You just missed all the girls.

OLD OWL: What girls?

ANDY: From my fan clubs. They were all down here a few minutes ago.

OLD OWL: That sounds nice.
Time
magazine once described your art as “vulgar.” You know, the soup cans, Brillo boxes, rows of Marilyn Monroes. Any comments?

ANDY: Yes.

OLD OWL: Yes, your art is vulgar?

ANDY: Yeah.

OLD OWL: Oh. Do you think what you do is really art?

ANDY: (
No comment
)

OLD OWL: Some critics say that Pop makes the symbol of the thing more real than the thing itself. Is this true?

ANDY: (
No comment
)

OLD OWL: What type of people buy your paintings?

ANDY: Uh, you’re not supposed to talk about that. Let’s just talk about boots and Chinese food.

OLD OWL: All right. Why do you wear boots?

ANDY: To make me taller. But tin cans are better.

OLD OWL: On your shoes you mean?

ANDY: Oh no.
Inside
your shoes, like the boy in
Life
. Your boots are so nice, but they have round toes and small heels. I have Cuban heels.

OLD OWL: Why else do you wear boots? Besides to be taller?

ANDY: To make me taller?

OLD OWL: Yes.

ANDY: Well, I’m a sadist.

OLD OWL: What do boots have to do with being sadistic?

ANDY: Ah, well, you can step on people.

OLD OWL: Oh, really?

ANDY: Have you ever been stepped on? It’s fascinating.

OLD OWL: I’ll have to try it sometime.

ANDY: Oh, your boots are so big. They’re very steppable.

OLD OWL: That’s why I wear them.

ANDY: But you just wear them on Saturday when you come down to New York. You couldn’t wear them at school.

OLD OWL: You don’t know Yale, Andy. Tell me, for the press, where is Yale University?

ANDY: I’m so dumb. I don’t know where anything is. You said you were from New Haven so it must be New Haven.

OLD OWL: What did you think about Ginsberg’s praise of pot?

ANDY: I think people should do what they want to do. Oh, I didn’t know you
chain
-smoked. Wow.

OLD OWL: Do you want a cigarette?

ANDY: No. I don’t know how to smoke. I never sleep, either.

OLD OWL: Tell me, why in the car last week was everyone cutting down Bob Dylan? I mean, he’s got a very good voice for the songs he sings.

ANDY: Oh, it’s not that. It’s just that he is so mean.

OLD OWL: Don’t you think Dylan’s got a right to be mean if he wants to, though?

ANDY: But to everyone?

OLD OWL: I suppose. Can you drive?

ANDY: Yes, but I hit a taxi once, and I’ve been too nervous ever since. No one was in the cab, but I smashed the whole side of it in. My mind wanders too much to drive. I’ve always wondered how people could drive cars. I can never remember what to do.

OLD OWL: What is your favorite type of beer?

ANDY: Beer? Well, beer always tastes like piss.

OLD OWL: Does it? How do you know?

ANDY: Uh . . . haven’t you ever tasted piss?

OLD OWL: No.

ANDY: Really? Well, now you know. Paul said all Chinese food tastes like shit.

OLD OWL: You said you were always afraid of doing things when you were young. . . .

ANDY: We’ve been seen by one of my friends. Hold it. This is David Bourdon who, ah,. . . .

DAVID BOURDON: I’m writing your autobiography.

ANDY: Oh.

OLD OWL: Why do you dye your hair silver? I’m really curious.

ANDY: Uh, when I was young I always wanted to look older, and now I’m looking older I want to look younger. So, uh . . . Edie’s hair was dyed silver, and therefore I copied my hair because I wanted to look like Edie because I always wanted to look like a girl.

OLD OWL: Oh, really? Why?

ANDY: Uh, girls are prettier. . . . Oh, Edie starts everything–leather, the boots, everything. I think girls and boys in leather are gorgeous, probably even prettier than. . . .

OLD OWL: What do you think about girls’ dresses?

ANDY: Uh, well, I don’t really believe in clothes. I really feel the body is so beautiful. I photographed a naked girl the other day for the book, and she was very beautiful. Oh, she wasn’t really beautiful but her body was just so much prettier without clothes on. And I think people would rather look at themselves more and take care of themselves more. I think the people in California are good because, well, they’re more naked.

OLD OWL: But some people are ugly, don’t you think?

ANDY: Uh, yeah, but beauty is sort of beauty to different people. And my kind of beauty might be different from your kind of beauty.

OLD OWL: Will you pass me the ale?

DANNY: Pass you the yale? Yes, we’ll pass you the yale.

ANDY: Oh, David, you weren’t home when I called.

DAVID: I was out marching, marching for peace.

ANDY: Oh really? I was supposed to be there. How come you weren’t marching in the parade?

OLD OWL: Didn’t you read our Vietnam issue? You’re not a pacifist, are you?

ANDY: What’s that?

OLD OWL: It’s somebody who doesn’t like Vietnam.

ANDY: Oh, no!!!!!

OLD OWL: Well, why were you marching?

ANDY: But, I. . . .

OLD OWL: Why did you
want
to march?

ANDY: Uh, oh, uh . . . somebody said that we had to, or something. I don’t know. Do you think the Chinese will take over when, uh, if, uh. . . . What will happen to the Chinese in Chinatown when the Chinese take over?

OLD OWL: They’d move to Cuba. What do
you
think would happen to them?

ANDY: China will own Cuba, and so, I mean . . . would they be Chinese Americans, or, or, uh, uh. . . . Somehow it doesn’t matter if they’re Russians or Germans because somehow you can’t tell. If they were American Chinese, you know, they’d look Chinese, or they’d have to be–what? Chinese or Chinese Americans? I don’t know. Would you like some Chinese soup?

OLD OWL: Yes, I’d love some Chinese soup. Thank you. Where did you get that shirt?

ANDY: Got it on Saint Mark’s Place in one of those fancy stores near the Saint Mark’s Baths. Haven’t you ever gone to the baths?

OLD OWL: No.

ANDY: Really, oh, you say it so fast like, uh, it’s something awful.

OLD OWL: Yes, well, isn’t it?

ANDY: I don’t know. I’ve never been. Did you know that Edie took Suzanne to the Four Seasons? I’m going to do a record, for Columbia, I think.

OLD OWL: Singing?

ANDY: Oh no. Just sort of talking along.

OLD OWL: Is there much money now in what you’re doing?

ANDY: Well, I don’t know. I’m not doing paintings any more. But I think I’ll glue together some of the parts of old studies I did and sell them as whole paintings to get the money. I do a lot of stuff–not art–just to get some money. Like this portable discotheque thing soon. That’s so we can do the good stuff, painting, movies. Oh, David, the Village police were so funny, really. There was one guy in a beard, just sitting around, looking for people to recognize him.

DAVID: I read some place that they had them grow long hair and go around with several days’ growth of beard.

OLD OWL: Fascinating.

PAUL: Let’s look at fortune cookies. Oh, there’s one for our Yalie. “Beware of men in
blue
suits.”

ANDY: Wow. He’s doing that interview for that dreadful magazine. They’re going to write awful things about us.

DANNY: Are you still missing a card?

ANDY: What card? I don’t know.

DANNY: You woke up in Marmene. You recall what you said after you woke up? It was very weird. I thought you were serious or something. I guess you had been dreaming about it, someone telling your fortune. Do you remember?

ANDY: No.

DANNY: I guess you were dreaming about someone telling your fortune. You said in this very anxious voice, “There’s still a card missing.” And something else to do with fortune-telling, and then you like woke up.

ANDY: No. When was this?

DANNY: In Marmene, when you were sleeping in a motel.

ANDY: I wasn’t sleeping in a motel.

DANNY: Yes, you were.

OLD OWL: Well, I think I’d better go now. Thank you, Andy, for an informative interview.