SCREEN
TESTS
1964-1966
Andy Warhol's Screen Tests were filmed from early 1964 - November 1966 (GM25). Factory visitors who had potential "star" quality would be seated in front of a tripod mounted camera, asked to be as still as possible, and told not to blink while the camera was running.
Subjects included factory Gerard Malanga, filmmaker Barbara Rubin (1964), filmmaker Jonas Mekas (1964), filmmaker and poet Piero Heliczer (1964), poet Allen Ginsberg (c.64/65), John Ashbery (1965), Italian model model and one time girlfriend to Gerard, Benedetta Barzini (1966), Francesco Scavullo (1965), Phoebe Russell (1965), model/actress/granddaughter of designer Elsa Schiaparelli Marisa Berenson (1965), Nico (1966), Lou Reed (1966), John Wieners, Bob Dylan, Ingrid Superstar, Edie Sedgwick (1965), Ivy Nicholson, Danny Fields, Billy Name, Salvador Dali (1966), Donovan (1966), Charles Henri Ford (who was responsible for introducing Andy to Gerard) (1966), Rene Ricard (1966), poet Willard Maas (1966), Baby Jane Holzer, Phoebe Russell (1965), International Velvet (Susan Bottomly)(1966), Marie Menken - filmmaker/wife of Willard Maas/star of Chelsea Girls)(1966), Italian millionaire publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (Benedetta Barzini's stepbrother) Nov. 66, poet Ted Berrigan (1966), Allen Midgette (1966) Anne Buchanan (early '64), and Andy's first superstar Naomi Levine.
Some of the earliest Screen Tests were those included in Warhol's film The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys. One of the thirteen, Winthrop Kellogg Edey (Kelly Edey), noted in his diary entry for January 17, 1964, that "This afternoon Andy Warhol made a movie here, a series of portraits of a number of beautiful boys, including Harold Talbot and Denis Deegan and also me."The "13" in the title of this series was most likely borrowed from a New York City Police brochure of "The Thirteen Most Wanted" which was also the inspiration for Warhol's mural Thirteen Most Wanted Men at the 1964 World's Fair in Queens. (AD13)
These film portraits were some of the earliest examples of Warhol's Screen Test series. It is interesting to note that they were filmed in Edey's apartment prior to Warhol's move to the silver Factory where most, but not all, of the other Screen Tests were made. Phoebe Russell's Screen Test, for instance, was shot by Gerarad Malanga in the summer of 1966 in Ed Hood's apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (AD169) Although Malanga has maintained that the Screen Test series started as a result of him asking Warhol to shoot a headshot of Gerard to use to publicize Malanga's poetry readings (GM24-5), a more likely inspiration for the Screen Tests was the photobooth photography that Warhol started doing in the late spring of 1963. (AD13)
Sometimes Warhol's photobooth photographs would be the basis of a silkscreened portrait. From approximately 1970, when Warhol bought a Polaroid Big Shot camera (AWP157), he would use Polaroid photographs to get an image for his commissioned portraits, but during the sixties he often used a photobooth. When Holly Soloman posed for her photobooth pictures in 1966, which were used to create her silkscreen portrait, she recalled that the time spent in the booth was "pretty boring" so she "started to really act in them." (AWP94). The end result was that the photobooth pictures, taken with a still camera, were often more animated than the Screen Tests where subjects were told to remain as still as possible. In both instances, Warhol removed himself from the process - a type of "automatic" photography/filmmaking reminiscent of the Dada concept of "automatic" writing or painting.
More than 500 Screen Tests were made. In addition to The 13 Most Beautiful Boys, some of the footage was incorporated into other compilation reels such as The 13 Most Beautiful Women (1964) and 50 Fantastics and 50 Personalities (1964). Malanga also used some reels in his multimedia poetry readings called Screen Test Poems in 1965. (GM26) In 1966 Andy and Gerard also prepared a book together of Screen Test stills from 54 subjects (17 women and 37 men) and Gerard's poetry called Screen Tests/A Diary (NY: Kulchur Press, 1967).
Edie Sedgwick was still recoverying from her car accident at the time of her Screen Test.
THE WARHOL/TAVEL SCREEN TESTS
Philip Fagan, Gerard Malanga and Andy Warhol (1964/5)
(photo: Duane Michals)to filmography
In 1978, author Patrick Smith interviewed Ronald Tavel (the scriptwriter for many of Andy's early films) and Tavel mentioned three screen tests which he refered to as No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3. (PS572) The Tavel screen test films lasted approximately 70 minutes each, much longer than the short one reel screen tests that Andy and Gerard Malanga did. (SG146)
Patrick Smith referred to Screen Test #1 as the very first one, shot on 23 January 1965, although Malanga and Warhol started shooting the shorter screen tests in 1964. Ronald Tavel was involved in the shooting of what is referred to as Screen Test #1. The subject was Philip Fagan, Andy Warhol's boyfriend at the time.
Ronald Tavel:
"He [Warhol] had an assistant then, called Philip Fagan, who was an incredibly good-looking Irish boy - "Black Irish" - who hung around him all the time, and they used to bake cake together and all this sort of thing... He was so beautiful: Philip." (PS480)
According to Tavel, Andy told him to "sit and ask him (Fagan) questions which will make him perform in some way before the camera. You will not be on camera, but we'll hear you talk. The questions should be in such a way that they will elicit, you know, things from his face, because that's what I'm more interested in rather than in what he says in response." (PS160)
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to: JUNE 12, 1965: SCREEN TEST #2 OPENS
Screen Test #2 was shot on February 7, 1965. The subject was Mario Montez who also appeared in Warhol's Harlot, Mario Banana, Camp, Hedy (aka The Most Beautiful Woman in the World and/or The Shoplifter and/or The Fourteen Year Old Girl), More Milk Yvette (aka Lana Turner) and The Chelsea Girls ("The John" segment). Mario had been an underground film actor, appearing in Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures (1962) and Normal Love (1963). In addition to making underground films, Jack Smith also played the part of Dracula in Warhol's Batman Dracula. Mario Montez was the first transvestite used by Andy, although Mario did not live his normal life in drag.
Screen Test #2 was one of Warhol's more entertaining early films. During the film, Tavel tells Montez that he is auditioning him (as a her) for a role in their new film - The Hunchback of Notre Dame and asks him to repeat words/phrases - like repeating the word "diarhea" in a very emotive fashion - or describes scenarios and asks Montez to give him a look that expresses various "themes" in the film. Montez is hilarious, scrunching up his face in an effort to reveal emotions, often not understanding quite what Tavel is after. At one point, Tavel tells him to take her cock out, which he presumably does, although it is not revealed on camera, which remains on his face.
to: JUNE 12, 1965: SCREEN TEST #2 OPENS
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Screen Test #3 is sometimes referred to as Suicide. Author Patrick Smith described it as "the Technicolor close-up of a young man's wrists that have been slashed many times, and the youth's monologue concerning each of his 19 attempts at suicide." (PS160) During the filming, the subject of the film freaked out and threw a basin of water at Tavel:
Ronald Tavel:
"There was a basin of water on the floor, and the basin was catching the water which I would pour on him each time he went through a suicide, and at one time he picked it up... and threw the whole basin on me. So, we stopped the camera, and Warhol said, 'Do you want to just stop?' And I said, 'No,' like a regular trooper." (PS486).
According to Tavel, the actor sued, threatening that "if this is ever released, you'll all go to court." (Ibid) Consequently, the film was never shown in public, although there were private screenings. It was filmed on March 6, 1965.
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Gary Comenas
Warholstars
