I, A Man (1967): Women and sex

I, a Man (1967)
dir: Andy Warhol, Paul Morrissey

While Warhol's Factory spelled the inevitable downfall of Cafe Cino, his production of film could be stood up against Andy Milligan's films. At the time of I, A Man, Milligan was making his first round of exploitation cheapies. In 1967 alone, Milligan directed The Promiscuous Sex, The Degenerates, Depraved!, Compass Rose, The Naked Witch, and The Gay Life.

Obviously, Milligan was going the straight up exploitation route, while Warhol and Morrissey were going the course of the art house. Though, later, Morrissey would make exploitative art house. I, A Man is Morrissey and Warhol's commercial take on the Swedish I, A Woman. Somebody suggested to Warhol that they wanted a sexploitation film in the vein of I, A Woman, and so he and Morrissey concocted I, A Man. They created the story of this male hustler who talks with and sleeps with a series of women over the course of the film.

The women are: a young woman who worries about parental acceptance of her sexuality, a woman who is on a couch, a woman with whom he does a seance, a woman who speaks French, a lesbian, and a married woman. Almost of these scenes seem to be totally improvised and just so bored.

Except, the most interesting part about I, A Man is also the most interesting scene of I, A Man. The second to last woman of the movie is Valerie Solanas, the subject of I Shot Andy Warhol, who would eventually shoot Warhol over whatever reasons you want to believe. In all the other scenes, the women may have some mild sexual agency, but they also possess this passivity that they think men desire of them. Morrissey does desire that of his females. But, then there is Solanas, whom Warhol had been fascinated with.

Solanas' role as a lesbian who loves squeezing the guy's ass is straight up arresting. She's taking control of the situation, and for once Tom Baker, the hustler, actually is acting in a passive vulnerable nature. She's squeezing his ass and asking how he keeps it so squishy. Valerie is telling him that she'd fuck him in the hall, but there was no way they were going to her room to fuck because her "roommate" (code for lesbian partner) was actually sleeping. This scene where Solanas takes charge and intimidates Tom Baker really is the stand-out of the movie simply because it is also the most different in terms of energy and female agency.

In the opening scene, the girl is trying to kick Baker out, but doesn't really succeed. In the final scene, Baker is pretty much controlling the conversation try as the married woman might to control it. And, then there is the goddamned seance where the woman undergoes fake hypnosis and starts chanting bullshit at Baker's insistence. Ridiculous and silly. But, Solanas doesn't let Baker get away with any kind of shit.

Which brings us back to Morrissey. He was fond of saying that he made movies in which he let people be who they are. He also said that he would find the people in his movies, and while they became Warhol's Superstars, he claims to have found them. Except for Solanas, who stumbled into the Factory on her own. The ideal women of Morrissey's films were all radically feminine. It's also why he loved having drag queens in his movies. But, his women were the opposite of the feminist dyke that Solanas represented.

The thing with Morrissey's films, especially compared to Andy Milligan's films, is that Morrissey actually takes a distance from his subjects. He doesn't really know his characters much. He doesn't care to know them. He likes them, finds them interesting, but he doesn't think they're all that abhorrent. His camera is neutral. He's content to let everybody be who they were. It achieves a more naturalistic feel to the movie, but it is all about surface. There is hardly anything in I, A Man that provokes any kind of true analysis of society or sexuality. Maybe there is something in the sexual dynamics of the married woman to the hustler, but whatever it is is very light. But, then there is Solanas' scene filled with the radical politics that Solanas interjected, and Morrissey couldn't care about. In the end, I, A Man is hardly worth your time unless you like watching bored women talk with a bored hustler and then fuck him.

Be aware: this film also makes use of a flickering edit that also uses a rewind track and makes use of subliminal 1-2 frame edits of closeups. It is subliminal and semi-interesting, and will be used in movies far down the road.

My Hustler (1966): I am a Meat Popsicle

My Hustler (1966)
dir: Andy Warhol
uncredited: Paul Morrissey

It's been said that My Hustler was Paul Morrissey's first bout of participation with Warhol's Factory, and it marks the departure of the Factory films from static images that are better as ideas to more narrative films. Paul Morrissey would say that he was responsible for My Hustler, and had to teach Andy Warhol how to move the camera. Of course, Paul Morrissey is a raving narcissist, but then so was Andy Warhol.

My Hustler was made in 1965, before Chelsea Girls, but released after that movie. The release of My Hustler shows more of a movement towards character studies and fascination with bodies compared to emotions and subjects. Before Paul Morrissey, Warhol's films were generally static shots of the subjects, like a close-up of the face of a man getting a blow job, or a multi-hour shot of the Empire State Building. Later, we started getting snap shots of personalities.

My Hustler is a character study of four people. At a beach house, an aging queen hires a blond hustler for his own pleasure. While the hustler is sunbathing, the queen's two neighbors - a rich young straight girl and an aging hustler - stop by to try to scheme on who will be getting the hustler in bed.  The first half of My Hustler is a 32 minute reel mainly leering on the body of the hustler sunbathing while the other three people talk about the hustler as a piece of meat. The second half is the aging hustler finding out that the young meat isn't really a hustler, and talking him into the hustling game; and then the aging queen tries to talk him into being his boytoy, and then the young girl tries to get him to live with her.

Originally, I had I, A Man in my Friday slot, but I moved it to a special Saturday post as I found My Hustler to be far more fascinating than I, A Man, for the pure fact that My Hustler completely objectifies a male of questionable sexuality. Paul America, the hustler in question, has maybe 3 lines in the whole first half of the 64 minute movie, but is always the object of desire. The camera is purely the gaze of the people who are desiring him.

Laura Mulvey, in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, which I had brought up in my earlier essay of narrative with Vertigo, wrote about how the camera is inherently the straight male gaze, mainly because the director is usually a straight male (especially at the time she wrote that essay). She was wrong of course, in that the sometimes the camera takes on the personality of the characters, or has a more complex relationship to the audience. But, with that essay, Mulvey started to define how the camera retains the gaze of whomever is behind it. In the case of My Hustler, it turns out to be a gay male. But, I've noted in several other film reviews on this site, the camera has retained the desires of the director, man or woman, straight or gay.

If you'll indulge a bit of a detour, the works of David DeCoteau completely embodies how the camera retains the desires of the director and/or the intended audience. In DeCoteau's earlier works, like Sorority Babes at the Slimeball Bowl-a-Rama or Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000, both the closeted DeCoteau and his intended audience cause the camera to act like leering straight men who objectify the female body. But, in DeCoteau's later works, like The Brotherhood, or the 1313 series, or even A Talking Cat?!?, the camera operates as a gay male viewer, lingering over and objectifying the bodies of the young muscular men in their underwear.  Similarly, lesbian cinema like Go Fish or High Art, made by lesbians and for lesbians, objectifies the female body in a way appreciated by women who lust after women rather than in a manner that is completely pleasing for men.

Of course, most of this intellectualization was all underground when Mulvey was writing Visual Pleasure. Besides, the whole purpose of the essay was to start a conversation about the proliferation of male directors and female objectification. This desire to objectify the female body is still common in movies made by straight men for straight men. Last Vegas, for instance, offers primarily female bodies to ogle. Only occasionally is young nubile male flesh offered as objects for the audience to ogle. That young male flesh is in the pool party in Last Vegas where the old men participate in judging a wet t-shirt contest while the mainly male crowd cheers them on.

As far back as James Whale, the camera has always been complicated by who is behind the camera. My Hustler, especially the first half, acts as a sort of thesis about how the sexuality and gender of the characters doing the visualizing, and also the sexuality and gender of the director, are key to the behavior of the camera and how it views the world. In the first reel of My Hustler, we're subjected to the camera swinging between the holders of the conversation - that of two gay men and a straight woman - and the object of their desire, Paul America. As such, the audience feels they are watching a young male, who may or may not be straight, be talked about as if he was just a young, dumb, hunk of meat.

In turn, the conversation is only that. The aging queen who owns the beach house, and also claims to have invited Paul America through a "Dial-A-Hustler" phone line, mainly bitches about how he invited Paul to the beach house, and he deserves to fuck Paul. The young girl insists that she has the goods that Paul wants. The older hustler goads the aging queen by insinuating that he's fucked Paul in the past, and that he might know Paul through the hustler channels. But, they never really talk about Paul's true desires or his life. He's just an object of their desire. Only the young female interacts with Paul in a way that doesn't call his sexuality to attention.

In turn, Paul only can be the object of desire. By not even giving him any lines, Morrissey and Warhol neuter any agency that Paul has in the film. Paul becomes the object of lust to the audience in the film, the director, the camera, and the audience of the film. He is the piece of meat everybody desires. However, in alignment with Hitchcock's Vertigo, much like Madeline, Paul actually has the agency to be the object of lust. Paul knows that he's being lusted after. In the opening, Paul is being reprimanded that he did not arrive dressed in leather because he is wanted for more S&M practices. Consequently, he is essentially instructed to go suntan on the beach while the aging queen watches. Then while the young girl watches when she comes over. And, finally he knows the aging hustler is watching because the hustler first interacts with Paul and gets called back by the aging queen. We are not objectifying a reluctant object. Paul isn't unhappy with being objectified. Instead, he knows that he is the object and is willing to be the object to please the customer.

The dialogue and acting in the first half is about as casually degrading as it can get regarding Paul. It's about his dick size, his status as a top/bottom, his virginity, his past, etc etc But, the second half gives Paul agency as well by being the active subject of desire.

The second half, as mentioned earlier, is a static shot of, primarily, the two hustlers grooming and talking in the bathroom. The aging hustler is trying to talk the younger hustler into going into prostitution, and also taking a role as the aging hustler's protege. This line of conversation is plausible because Paul is being coy by claiming that he wasn't bought by the aging queen. during the course of the conversation, the aging hustler is telling Paul that Paul has the body to be a hustler, and can actually make a living off his body. It's half a ruse for the aging hustler to get Paul into his bed free of charge, and half a discussion about how johns are good only to fill in their pockets. It's also about the happiness and freedom of living life as a hustler, and being able to make bank off your looks while you have them. Because, really, if you can you should.

The hustlers are mainly shirtless in this reel, though we get glimpses of their asses, and a brief couple shots of the aging hustler's genitalia. But, the camera is all about the leering shots of these two glimpses of the hustlers grooming, and the aging one occasionally pawing Paul. Sometimes he'll just pet, and at one point he rubs Noxzema into Paul's back, saying it is good for the skin, even though it is mainly an excuse for the aging hustler to rub Paul's back.

At the end of this half, the aging queen comes back and desperately tries to get Paul to be his boytoy in the future, promising him cars, trips to Europe, the allowance of having girlfriends, and money. It's such a desperate ploy for this straight body, it almost reads as self-deprecating. And, it is self-depricating and desperate even though boy toys are also status symbols in the gay world. This is a trait as old as time. It is the gay version of having a trophy husband, only without he legalities. Think Behind the Candlabra. Finally, in the last couple of minutes, the young rich girl also makes a last minute pitch to get Paul in her bed long term, but that's practically a non-starter, as it is barely pitched and runs into repetition before her less than 4 minute segment is even finished.

What makes this far more fascinating than I, A Man is that there is gay agency in My Hustler. In My Hustler, there is active objectification of the male body, there is female agency, and there is even competition for the object of desire. While the camera definitely lingers on Tom Baker's body on occasion in I, A Man, it is primarily about objectification of everybody, and how almost everybody on Earth is an object of desire to everybody else. On the other hand, My Hustler implies that there are definite power structures in sex, and that they are all upturned by hustlers. Even the discussions of S&M activities and macho activities are all implying that there are definite power structures at play with money and experience having far more agency than the younger non-experienced hustler.

The appeal of the film is definitely related to how much the idea of 2 long takes of people objectifying another human being in desperate attempts to find connection, sex and love appeals to you. To me, it was fascinating in multiple fashions, obviously. But, it definitely tests your patience.

Chelsea Girls (1966): Happenings are commodified

Double Woronov = Double Fun

Chelsea Girls (1966)
dir: Andy Warhol, Paul Morrissey

It's nearly impossible to review Chelsea Girls from 47 years in the future. After 47 years, there have been movies that have ripped off Chelsea Girls, used techniques that it used, and imitated many of it's semi-faux-verite arthouse style.

On the other hand, it seems like a copy of the type of cinematic underground experimental work that other dadaists and surrealists like Salvador Dali had been doing for years. From almost 50 years later, Chelsea Girls almost seems like it is the commercialization of the happenings. It seems like its goal is to bring the progressive drug culture to the masses.

It is impossible to discuss Chelsea Girls without discussing Andy Warhol or Paul Morrissey. Chelsea Girls is Andy Warhol's cinematic keystone, though Paul Morrissey says Warhol's participation was negligible. Regardless of who is most responsible for Chelsea Girls, Warhol's name is on it both as director and producer. And, Chelsea Girls is almost Warhol's thesis. It feels as artificial as Warhol ever felt. Which can be the point of Warhol.

Chelsea Girls is 12 different videos, each about 35-minutes, run through side-by-side projectors. The sound would be flipped from side to side, and rumor has it that it once had Velvet Underground playing at times as well. All of the videos are stagings starring Warhol's superstars, most notably Pope Ondine and Mary Woronov (*swoon*).

The first video starts on the right, and is Nico (yes, that Nico) in a kitchen. The first video on the left is Pope Ondine with some woman who isn't enthused about him.

The second video on the left is a drag queen named Brigid holding court, where she rants about drugs, injects speed, and generally abuses everybody around her. The second on the left is Boys in a Bed, where two guys, an older guy in a bathrobe and a younger guy in his briefs, lounge on a bed as they're visited by women and men, who play with the younger boytoy.

The third on the right is Hanoi Hannah (Mary Woronov) abusing her friends in a faux-Vietnam POW camp style rant. The third on the left is Hanoi Hannah with the same friends in the same clothes on the right, but also a couple more people.

The fourth on the right is the boys in the bed getting serenaded by a drag queen, then being visited by more people. The fourth on the left is some woman yelling, and beating a bed with a riding crop while a young guy and a young girl look on.

The fifth on the right is an actor who looks like he just took LSD. The fifth on the left is just the cast standing around having random colored lights shone on them for 35 minutes.

The sixth on the right is Pope Ondine giving a speed-fueled rant. The sixth on the left is Nico getting the colored light treatment.

This isn't a random assortment of videos. Nico starts out grooming on the right, and ends up being glorified on the left. The boy toy scene flip flops from left to right. Brigid is analogous to the yelling woman. And, Hannoi Hannah is on both sides at once. The fifth pair is like having a shitty happening right in front of you.

All in all, it just feels soooooo...obvious. While it is interesting to see if you're watching where the voices are, or where there is more action, or where there is boy nudity, or if you're just listening, it doesn't really add up to much at all. Sure, Hannoi Hannah is an obvious silly play about war. The S&M, drugs, and homosexuality is all there because it was all so shocking back in the day. It's like the most commercial version of selling everything that was happening in certain circles at the time.

Which brings us back to Andy Warhol. It's arguable that his pop art and the Factory were largely influential, especially in the commercialization and popularization (leading to the commodificiation) of the rebellious art scene. But, he was almost commodifying commodification in the most basic obvious sense one can imagine. It can be impressive in large, but it all adds up to little.

And, that's what Chelsea Girls feels like. It feels like Andy Warhol calling to the people who may find it interesting but haven't seen what has really been going on, even though Dali was featured in Life and other sorts of magazines. It's the artistic underground movie that is engineered for the artistic underground crowd. And, it feels as artificial, or as Authentic, as Andy Warhol's art ever did.

I could dive into the meanings of everything a bit more, but that feels almost like it would be giving Chelsea Girls too much credit. At least more credit than it is due. Hell, to me, 1968's Head feels more authentic because its artifice is put up front and center because it stars The Monkees. Take that for what you will.

Add in that Paul Morrissey currently denies that any of his films were political. Currently, Morrissey is playing as a staunch Republican religious conservative who is railing against liberals in all standard senses. And, he says that all of his movies are just silly pieces of work that were meant to entertain. Whether he is actually a conservative, or if he is actually pulling an Andy Kaufman-esque stunt of trolling matters not. He's both right and wrong. The movies are silly pieces of art that are meant to reflect the detritus within the sprocket holes, but they aren't created in a vacuum. In doing research for upcoming review of The Point!, I discovered that Nilsson makes the assertion that everything has a point, even when it doesn't. That meaning applies as much to Chelsea Girls as it applies to any other movie you can think of. Still, Chelsea Girls doesn't add up to much.

Ed's Note: Be aware of the Italian Roma disc. There have been comments that it wasn't produced by the Andy Warhol foundation. It features a 24 minute section of pure silence, where there isn't even the sound of open air. They say you should at least play some Velvet Underground during that section. It may help.