Screen Test #1

Warhol's commitment to the principles of classical portraiture--particularly the piercing psychological insight--is nowhere shown better than in these beautiful and brutalizing still lifes, in which various low-wattage celebs are put on the hot seat. Far more than in the paces put through by Robert Bresson's "models," these characters emit spiritual radiation that would knock the needle off the Richter scale. The most beautiful: of course--Edie Sedgwick's silent neurasthenia. The wackiest: Henry Geldzahler--evoking stories of Scott Rudin and his fetish for string cheese.