Inside Andy Warhol (cont.)

page four

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Cavalier: You must have some sort of crew for making these movies.

Andy Warhol: Well I do, and then there are two secretaries for correspondence and answering on the phone and changing records on the phonograph.

Cavalier: What movie are you doing now?

Andy Warhol: We are doing a movie called Breathe, and after that we'll do a movie a week, but they'll be straight movies.

Cavalier: What do you mean by 'straight' movies?

Andy Warhol: I can't define it - Let's just say something that 's not vacuous.

Cavalier: Do you have any particular person in mind for these movies?

Andy Warhol: Edie Sedgwick will be in all of them.

Cavalier: In 1964, when she was named 'Girl of the Year,' Baby Jane appeared in many of your movies. Do you think her parts in your films had anything to do with her other successes?

Andy Warhol: Oh, yes. She really hadn't done anything until she joined our group.

Cavalier: How did that come about?

Ondine (interrupting): She just appeared here one afternoon. She was swept in by a group of fairies and then decided to come back every now and then.

Cavalier: Do you have fun making your movies?

Andy Warhol: Oh, yes, I enjoy it.

Cavalier: Even the one showing Ondine sleeping for over six hours?

Andy Warhol: Well, I've never watched all of that one. I just fed film into the camera and made sure it was taking the pan shots and other shots that I wanted. In the end, thought, we only used 100 feet of the film we shot, running it over and over again for eight hours. We don't edit any of the films. What I sometimes do is use two reels of the three reels we may have shot. [Note: Sleep was actually edited fairly extensively by Sarah Dalton according to Warhol's instructions.gc]

Cavalier: Do you want a lot of people to see your films?

Andy Warhol: I don't know. If they're paying to see them. By the way, they can be rented. There's a catalog, and the cost is nominal: one dollar per minute. A 30-minute film can be rented for $30. Sleep rents for $100, at a special rate, and you can get all eight hours of Empire for $120.

Cavalier: A lot of people have said that these are pretty boring films.

Andy Warhol: They might be. I think the more recent ones with sound are much better.

Cavalier: You say you are not going to continue painting in order to concentrate on movie-making. Is there any one particular reason for this?

Andy Warhol: I decided to concentrate entirely on films when I met the most fantastic man in the world, Huntington Hartford. He is very enthused about what we are trying to do. He has offered us the use of his Paradise Island in the Bahamas to make our next film.

Cavalier: Knowing the kind of conservative art that is shown in Mr. Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art it is hard to imagine him taking part in such an avant-grade venture.

Andy Warhol: Well, along with everyone else he is very excited about this project. It's to be our first full-length picture. By that I mean it will have a large cast and a complete crew of technicians and a carefully prepared script.

Cavalier: What will distinguish this from your other films besides the large cast and crew?

Andy Warhol: We plan to make money from it. Not just enough to cover the rent here at the Factory and the cost of processing films but a good deal of money.

Cavalier: Can you tell us something about this film?

Andy Warhol: It will be Jane Eyre. Chuck Wein is writing the shooting script. We know we want a total running time of one hour and forty minutes and that Edie Sedgwick will be the star. Why don't you ask Chuck some questions.

Cavalier: How do you do, Mr. Wein? How did you get involved with Andy Warhol?

Chuck Wein: It was an accident. I was at a party with Edie and Andy asked me if I'd like to write a movie for him. I said yes. So far I've done Poor Little Rich Girl, Party, It Isn't Just Another Afternoon, and some others.

Cavalier: Mr. Warhol, why did you pick Chuck as a script writer?

Andy Warhol: When I met him at the party I couldn't think of anything else to say.

Cavalier: The average person may not know much about art, but if he follows the gossip columns and watches the 'night' shows on television, he knows something about you. For example, recently a photograph appeared in the society sections of the New York papers of you and Edie Sedgwick at a 'Mod Ball' at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center. You have become a real social phenomenon, in a peculiar sense.

Andy Warhol: The part about the parties I attend is probably overplayed. Most of them are well covered by the press. That accounts for my name appearing so often. I've been on some radio and television shows, but I usually bomb out. I've given up saying anything.

Cavalier: Anything?

Andy Warhol: Just about.

[end.]

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