Inside Andy Warhol cont.

page three

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Cavalier: When did you start painting?

Andy Warhol: About four or five years ago.

Cavalier: What about the time prior to that?

Andy Warhol: Before that time I was very young.

Cavalier: Yes. I'm sure you were. Are you interested in what the critics say about your work?

Andy Warhol: No, just Henry Geldzahler. He's a good friend - a fan. And I want him to care. Whatever anyone else says has no value to me concerning my work. I don't need approval. I have confidence in what I'm doing.

Cavalier: What is the future of Pop Art?

Andy Warhol: It's finished.

Cavalier: What will you do?

Andy Warhol: I'll become more involved in my movies. I haven't done any painting since May of last year.

Cavalier: Have you made any money from your paintings?

Andy Warhol: Yes. But it just covers the cost of making movies. I don't pay any of the people who act in them or help conceive the ideas, but film and processing cost a lot, and the rent of the Factory and the props.

Cavalier: Could you tell us something about your movies?

Andy Warhol: It would take too long. There are over forty of them.

Cavalier: Film Culture magazine has said that your "Underground" movies are a "meditation on the objective world, in a sense... a cinema of happiness." Some of your films, however, are about rather bizarre aspects of the objective world. For example, Eat is forty-five silent minutes of a man eating a mushroom, Empire is eight solid hours of the world's tallest building. blow Job has been described as one half hour of 'a passionate matter handled with restraint and good taste.' One of your newest sound films, Vinyl, has a couple of scenes of what the Victorian english referred to as 'buggery,' a subject which, by any name, is still regarded rather gravely by polite society. In view of such controversial subjects, have you ever encountered any trouble showing your films?

Andy Warhol: In the past there has ben at least one bad scene I can recall - a police raid. But I think they've about gotten over this by now.

Cavalier: When did you first start making movies?

Andy Warhol: About two years ago. I just suddenly came up with the thought that making movies would be something interesting to do, and I went out and bought a Bolex 16mm camera. I made my first movie in California, on a trip to Los Angeles. I went there with Taylor Meade [sic], an Underground movie star. We stayed in a different place every day. We took some shots in a men's room out at North Beach and we used one of the old Hollywood mansions for for some of the inside shots. The movie we were shooting was Tarzan and Jane Regained Sort of. Taylor Meade [sic] called it his most anti-Hollywood film. [Note: Tarzan and Jane was not Warhol's first film - see filmography. gc.]

Cavalier: Where do you show them?

Andy Warhol: They were showing one at the Cinematheque the other night. And they play at the Astor Playhouse.

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

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

Cavalier: What do you mean?

Andy Warhol: I don't think I should go into details right now.

Cavalier: Who besides Ondine has played in your films?

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

Cavalier: Where do you make your movies?

Andy 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.

Andy Warhol: Well, yes, we were working with some equipment form 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 duelling 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.

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