Embroiled, as we are, in the era of reality T.V, new bio-pic Factory Girl is a timely release charting, possibly, the genesis of our fascination with meaningless activities and the meaningless people who do them. Factory Girl is the truncated story of 'Warhol Superstar' Edie Sedgwick, whose fleeting moment in the reflected glare of Andy Warhol's media glory became the prototype of today's production line celebrity machine; where nobodies are marketed as stars then immediately consigned to the out-tray as soon as the new batch arrives.
Warhol, a prime exponent of the American angle on 60's Pop Art, created screen-prints that looked like strips of film and made films that looked like paintings; 8 hour epics of junkies sleeping off amphetamine comedowns or overnight zero-mentaries of the Empire State Building. But Warhol is, perhaps, best known for his Campbell's Soup tins and his apocalyptic prediction that "in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." Casting his frosty lens on the lunatics and hangers-on who adorned his upper East-Side studio known as The Factory, Warhol set about creating the world's first stable of manufactured stars. It was from this parade of crashed fabulousness that socialite and would be actress Edie Sedgwick's legend emerged.
The clichés of Edie's poor little rich girl background is almost textbook. The Sedgwick's were an American institution from 'old money' with all the sociopathic pyrotechnics which that implies. Her father was a manic depressive psychotic who abused her and her siblings to the point of insanity, and in one case suicide. Edie high tailed it to New York with a siege on the Manhattan art scene where she was introduced to Warhol, quickly and spectacularly becoming his first superstar. For a year she was the 'face of her generation' and the world revolved around her until her 'walk on the wild side' took its inevitable route into a cul-de-sac of rehab, relapse and death at 28.
Filmed in a freewheeling collision of primary-coloured flash and hi-contrast monochrome, Factory Girl sets a tone reminiscent of the recent Brian Jones Bio-pic Stoned; creating an authentic evocation of N.Y '65. Sienna Miller finally emerges from her own Edie-esquire tabloidia© and give us a performance worthy of the 'near genius' turns of Naomi Watts, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman at their best. Only time will tell if she shares their versatility.
On less steady footing however is Edie's love affair with the Dylan-esquire figure of Billy Quinn, played by post-Vader boy Hayden Christensen, who, as the film has it, precipitated her demise having rejected her to marry a bunny girl. This is based on an unsubstantiated relationship which may or may not have resulted in any number of rock classics, such as 'Just Like a Woman', 'Leopard-skin Pill Box hat' and the ground breaking 'Like a Rolling Stone' inadvertently establishing Edie's place in the pantheon of pop mythology. But the primary element of any myth or legend is the circumstances of their death. Factory Girl's fast forwarding with a title card announcing her exit via overdose in 1971 renders the rest of the film a waste of time. Why not have a title card right at the beginning telling you everything that happens thus saving two hours which could be spent watching something else? Hell, why make films at all? - Just put up title cards describing them.
It's somewhat telling that there has never been a film about Warhol directly despite having been portrayed time and time again as a secondary character in anything from Bowie's turn in 'Basquiat', Jared Leto in 'I Shot Andy Warhol' and Crispin Glover's cartoon-a-like in 'The Doors' and here we have Guy Pierce playing the role as a detached phone-a-holic; his 'Loner at the Ball' persona perfectly at home as a wan shadow haunting brighter stars. I think Warhol would have relished the concept of being a cameo in his own life story.
Warhol, a prime exponent of the American angle on 60's Pop Art, created screen-prints that looked like strips of film and made films that looked like paintings; 8 hour epics of junkies sleeping off amphetamine comedowns or overnight zero-mentaries of the Empire State Building. But Warhol is, perhaps, best known for his Campbell's Soup tins and his apocalyptic prediction that "in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." Casting his frosty lens on the lunatics and hangers-on who adorned his upper East-Side studio known as The Factory, Warhol set about creating the world's first stable of manufactured stars. It was from this parade of crashed fabulousness that socialite and would be actress Edie Sedgwick's legend emerged.
The clichés of Edie's poor little rich girl background is almost textbook. The Sedgwick's were an American institution from 'old money' with all the sociopathic pyrotechnics which that implies. Her father was a manic depressive psychotic who abused her and her siblings to the point of insanity, and in one case suicide. Edie high tailed it to New York with a siege on the Manhattan art scene where she was introduced to Warhol, quickly and spectacularly becoming his first superstar. For a year she was the 'face of her generation' and the world revolved around her until her 'walk on the wild side' took its inevitable route into a cul-de-sac of rehab, relapse and death at 28.
Filmed in a freewheeling collision of primary-coloured flash and hi-contrast monochrome, Factory Girl sets a tone reminiscent of the recent Brian Jones Bio-pic Stoned; creating an authentic evocation of N.Y '65. Sienna Miller finally emerges from her own Edie-esquire tabloidia© and give us a performance worthy of the 'near genius' turns of Naomi Watts, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman at their best. Only time will tell if she shares their versatility.
On less steady footing however is Edie's love affair with the Dylan-esquire figure of Billy Quinn, played by post-Vader boy Hayden Christensen, who, as the film has it, precipitated her demise having rejected her to marry a bunny girl. This is based on an unsubstantiated relationship which may or may not have resulted in any number of rock classics, such as 'Just Like a Woman', 'Leopard-skin Pill Box hat' and the ground breaking 'Like a Rolling Stone' inadvertently establishing Edie's place in the pantheon of pop mythology. But the primary element of any myth or legend is the circumstances of their death. Factory Girl's fast forwarding with a title card announcing her exit via overdose in 1971 renders the rest of the film a waste of time. Why not have a title card right at the beginning telling you everything that happens thus saving two hours which could be spent watching something else? Hell, why make films at all? - Just put up title cards describing them.
It's somewhat telling that there has never been a film about Warhol directly despite having been portrayed time and time again as a secondary character in anything from Bowie's turn in 'Basquiat', Jared Leto in 'I Shot Andy Warhol' and Crispin Glover's cartoon-a-like in 'The Doors' and here we have Guy Pierce playing the role as a detached phone-a-holic; his 'Loner at the Ball' persona perfectly at home as a wan shadow haunting brighter stars. I think Warhol would have relished the concept of being a cameo in his own life story.