I Shot Andy Warhol

Lily Taylor was astonishingly good as Valerie in I Shot Andy Warhol. She's a versatile and entertaining actress who certainly does not get enough credit. Stephen Dorf as a transvestite... who knew? But he was also incredibly good. The entire cast does a fantastic job. It's a thoroughly enjoyable fictionalized chronicle of the emergence of the SCUM Manifesto and the events leading up to the shooting of Andy Warhol, by Taylor's character a paranoid schizophrenic, man-hating, lesbian. What could be more entertaining than that?

Lili Taylor plays Valerie Solanas, an educated loose cannon, guerrilla female activist and self-described 'bull dyke', who was taken into custody in June 1968 after shooting and wounding Andy Warhol at his New York City office/hangout The Factory. Good-looking movie investigates a hazy chapter in history, yet leaves some unanswered questions in its wake (I wasn't aware that apparently an assistant was also shot, though the film makes no attempt to explain what happened to him). However, this small-budgeted film captures a decadently apathetic, coolly indifferent time and place quite vividly, as good as any post-'60s movie has yet managed. Taylor is appropriately forceful and ungainly in her role, which is more complex than one might think, and yet hers is the least interesting or intriguing character on display. Stephen Dorff does a pretty terrific job as transvestite Candy Darling, Tahnee Welch is unrecognizable as Warhol's most famous starlet Viva, and Jared Harris is flawless as Warhol (he nails it). Terrific art direction and composition, but the film lags a bit in the narrative department, with Solanas meeting an anti-bourgeois activist which doesn't come to much and has a facetious, puzzling relationship with publisher Maurice Girodias which seems half-baked. **1/2 from ****

Although this film is overlong and often dull, it's still an intriguing look into a feminist gone way over the edge, who directs her wrath upon one of the most polarized artists of the century (you either love Warhol or you despise him, it seems). Anyone who truly detested Warhol may enjoy just seeing him get shot... I mean, if you're sadistic. People who are neutral towards his "greatness" (like me) or unfamiliar with his work may lose interest in this film; only Lili Taylor's hard-edged performance keeps the somewhat muddled story above water. And since I've never met anyone who worships the ground Warhol walked on, I can't say as to what those people might think of this film...in its favor, the script is objective towards both Valerie Solanas and Andy. At any rate, "I Shot Andy Warhol" is worth checking out if you stumble upon it on IFC one night.

Lili Taylor gives a savagely kinetic performance in this representation of a disturbed individual who may just also have been a genius despite, or because of, her treatment at the hands of various men throughout her life.

Judging biopics in terms of historical accuracy is for the most part a futile exercise. There is no 'truth', only interpretation, but if you want to get closer to the facts you really should be in the library, not the movie theatre. The story of Valerie Solanas is especially vexing in this case, because were this a work of complete fiction, the script would never have been made. The 'so what?' factor is superseded by the fact that this actually happened, and the legacy of Solanas still divides contemporary feminists.

As cinema, the film succeeds through the charisma exuded in Taylor's performance. Her descent into madness is sudden, vicious and uncompromising. The depiction of the shooting, the moment the film has been leading up to, shows a human being divorced absolutely from her conscience. The groovy scene around Warhol's the Factory is both decadent and, viewed from the 21st century, slightly twee. The pastiche of Sixties nostalgia is less foregrounded than Solanas's brutal victimhood. The film begins with a reading of her psychiatric evaluation, where a litany of unpunished crimes inflicted upon this woman by various men is laid out. The female director sets her stall out straight away - what you are hearing now leads through a direct line of cause and effect to the monstrous act you will see committed by Solanas later.

If the film has a major flaw, it is the title. Audiences could be mistaken for thinking it is about a documentarian of Warhol's life and work. Solanas and her SCUM manifesto, for better or worse, have made their mark, and perhaps 'Solanas' would have been a more fitting (if less marketable) title. Did it take the shooting for that to be the case? A polemical moment in recent history relayed straightforwardly, this is competent, entertaining, edifying cinema.

If you shoot someone whom others consider "important" I suppose some filmmaker will want to make a movie about you. I can think of no other reason why anyone would want to make a film about Valerie Solanas (Lili Taylor), the spunky, chain-smoking, foul-mouthed, self-centered, lesbian feminist who, in the summer of 1968, shot Andy Warhol (Jared Harris). Warhol was a New York City painter/artist ... or something ... and guru of all things avant-garde, who attracted the chic and the trendy to his New York City "Factory", the center of counterculture pop art.

In the film Solanas, who harbors an enormous grudge against men, comes across initially as assertive and resourceful. She makes a living hustling the streets: "Pardon me sir, you got 15 cents? Pardon me sir ..." On the rooftop of a high-rise she types her S.C.U.M. "manifesto", outlining her complaints against the male species.

But whereas Solanas is passionate about her cause, Warhol is a study in emotional detachment and indifference. He, and those in his orbit, sees Solanas more as a hanger-on. At one point, Solanas shows Warhol her typed manifesto. Warhol flips through it and responds in a deadpan manner: "Did you type this yourself? I'm so impressed. You should come type for us." Marvelous.

The film's best element is the acting. Lili Taylor is terrific. She really gets into the Solanas persona. Jared Harris also gives a splendid performance. The film's tone teeters between seriousness and tongue-in-cheek humor. Costumes, prod design, music, and lighting are all credible.

For modern day feminists, "I Shot Andy Warhol" probably is required viewing. For others, the film offers a cinematic study into the mindset of a quirky, sincere, but ultimately self-deceptive and delusional young woman who got her fifteen minutes of fame by carrying her political cause a little too far.