I Shot Andy Warhol

Starring:Lili Taylor, Jared Harris, Martha Plimpton, Lothaire Bluteau, Anna Levine, Peter Friedman, Tahnee Welch, Jamie Harrold, Donovan Leitch, Michael Imperioli, Reg Rogers, Bill Sage, Jill Hennessy, Coco McPherson, Myriam Cyr, Danny Morgenstern, Lola Pashalinski, Lynn Cohen, Craig Chester, Stephen Dorff
Director: Mary Harron
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Mary Harron's feature--which picked up a Special Jury Award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival for lead actress and independent film mainstay Lili Taylor--is a highly suspect mishmash of golly-gee counterculture reconstruction and inflammatory agitprop. Harron re-creates the ultimately violent relationship of motor-mouth street freak writer-prostitute-lesbian-gun-wielding assailant Valerie Solanas (Taylor) and pop artist Andy Warhol (Jared Harris) in the late 1960s, which ended in Solanas's assault on Warhol for his charmingly noncommittal responses to her search for a patron. It's a great idea for a film, but I Shot Andy Warhol is truly at odds with itself. Harron's modular construction of the story--part naive reenactment of the instant-celebrity life at Warhol's studio, part celebration of Solanas's subversive ramblings, part investigation into the roots of her hyper-victimization at, apparently, the hands of all men--is ultimately a shell game that allows the writer-director to avoid taking a clear stand on Solanas's bizarro politics. The cast is the only draw here: besides indie-film queen Taylor, Jared Harris makes for a convincingly cagey Warhol. --Tom Keogh

Description

He was the world-renowned King of Pop Artand his life was about to take a dramatic turn in exchange for someone else's fifteen minutes of fame! Starring Lili Taylor (Ransom) and Jared Harris (Father's Day), and winner of the Sundance Film Festival's Special Jury Recognition Award*,this "vibrant, touching and thoroughly entertaining film" (The New York Times) explores the provocative story behind the shooting of '60s superstar Andy Warhol. Valerie Solanas (Taylor), a lesbian writer, loner and prostitute, has come to the Big Apple with one goal in mind: to spread the gospel of her radical feminism. Desperate for an audience, she latches on to the fringes of Warhol's (Harris) glamorous sex-and-drug-laced Factory scene. But as her zeal swerves dangerously out of control, her private madness leads to a bizarre obsession with the artist himselfand a final, explosive act of violence that not only gets her notice...but makes her manifesto infamous. *1996

Customer Reviews:

A Bizarre Film about Bizarre People.......2007-02-18

The 1996 film "I Shot Andy Warhol" is a bizarre film based upon the true story of a bizarre woman named Valerie Solanas (Lili Taylor) who, in the late 1960's in Manhattan, became an acquaintance of the famous pop artist Andy Warhol (Jared Harris). Obsessed with misandry and blaming men for all of the world's problems, Valerie wrote a booklet advocating an anarchistic and violent revolution to be carried out by women in order to create a female-only society. Valerie used the booklet, which she named the "SCUM Manifesto" (where SCUM referred to "Society for Cutting Up Men"), as a way to try and make money, often by attempting to sell copies (that she had typed & copied herself) on the streets of New York City, and at parties given by Andy Warhol at his famous art studio known as "The Factory" to which Andy had invited her. (During the film, Valerie is often shown quoting directly from the "SCUM Manifesto".) Valerie also wrote a play equally hateful of men that she asked Andy Warhol to produce, but his apparent lack of interest and misplacement of her only copy that she had lent him to read angered the already highly irrational Valerie. This encouraged Andy to ignore Valerie and set the stage for the film's final scenes.

Though often times difficult to watch with the scenes involving drug use and the various odd people that were part of Andy Warhol's life in New York City, it is the quality of the acting performances given principally by Lili Taylor, Jared Harris and Stephen Dorff (who played the drag queen known as Candy Darling, the only man that Valerie appeared to trust) that made "I Shot Andy Warhol" worth watching. For her efforts, Lili Taylor won a special recognition award for her performance in "I Shot Andy Warhol" at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival. The film, though low-budget, had very high production values and cinematography. Hence, my overall rating for "I Shot Andy Warhol" is 4 out of 5 stars.

Lack of ambition!.......2007-01-14

I shot Andy Warhol was by itself a fortunate idea but to my view, wasted the fabulous opportunity to show both sides of the coin. And the script would seem to be much more interested around the tragic anima and the psychical disturbances of the woman in question rather than to remark Warhol' s relevance in the Pop Art. Perhaps the aim was to consider his murder as simply a departure point, as historical reference and nothing else.

Compelling look at some pretty bizzare people........2006-09-23

I really enjoyed this film. As a Factory fan, I was hesitant to get this, perhaps due to the off-putting title. But I'm glad I did. The acting was great, especially the actor who played Warhol himself - dead on. Also, Ms. Taylor was 100% believable as the unfortunate, demented, freaky Valarie Solanas.

I notice that a lot of negative reviews for this and other films consist of a rant about the film being the worst they ever saw, a waste of 2 hours, etc., but these folks never explain WHY they didn't like it. This is true for some of the bad reviews here.

Additionally, I'm not sure that that filmmaker Harron not taking a blantant stance against the SCUM Manifesto constitutes and endorsment of it; rather the opposite. It seems to me that Solanas' rants are so out there and crazy that it isn't necessary to say "Hey, this is wrong/bad/whatever." Her insane writtings speak for themselves. Why do people need to be spoon fed the obvious?

While not a masterpiece (hence the 4 stars), this certainly is a good movie and a fascinating subject. It is clearly not for everyone, as some of the reviews here illustrate. If you are into Warhol, 60's radicalism, the art scene, or that varried social movement called feminism, you'll like this movie. If not, this film is not for you.

Not a bad reconstruction of the early 70's.......2006-02-11

But not the best either. Lily Taylor was terrific as the truthful and talented, but lost Valarie. And if you've ever seen footage on Andy and heard him talk, Jarrid nailed him. So vague and spacey, but that was Andy. This movie somehow shows how loud and pointless the 70's really were. But, see it for the bad fashion and people who aren't around anymore.

I SHOT LILI TAYLOR.........2005-10-23

I SHOT LILI TAYLOR AFTER I HAD TO SIT THROUGH THIS MOVIE.. I WAS TEMPTED TO SHOOT MYSELF, BUT I FELT IT MY DUTY TO STAY ALIVE & WARN THE REST OV THE WORLD TO AVOID ANY MOVIE THAT SHE HAS ACTED IN!!(EXCLUDING THE MOVIE "PECKER" WHICH I ONLY TOLERATED HER BECAUSE IT WAS A JOHN WATERS FILM & HER PART WAS BRIEF)

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