ART DISTRICT
by Les Phillips

Guest of Cindy Sherman
(Tom Donahue and Paul Hasegawa-Overacker, 2008). 

Paul Hasegawa-Overacker once styled himself as Paul H-O, and he used to host a vacuous, gossipy cable access program about New York galleries.  At some point he became the consort of the reclusive artist Cindy Sherman.  Sherman is reclusive only by New York art world standards; she goes to dozens of openings and events each year, but doesn't want to be interviewed. Eventually Paul H-O became Sherman's ex-consort, said goodbye to all that (it is not clear who might have noticed) and went off somewhere to hide and be a surfer. Before long, he decided to make a film in which he exhibits himself as a key gossip-figure in the insidious, decadent New York gossip-gallery world, and exacts a bit of revenge on Ms Sherman. Are you with me so far?

Paul H-O serves up a generous helping from his cable show's archive. He also interviews many artists and critics, including Ingrid Sischy, who is always interviewed in this sort of film; and Julian Schnabel, mustn't leave him out; and Roberta Smith, who hid her face; and also Eric Bogosian. "Overall, the art world is bullshit," Bogosian says. "It's just the most bullshit scene I've ever experienced." Then Bogosian, who clearly functions as the film's moral center, disappears, and we get a chaos of talk about Sherman's art, talk about Sherman, talk about the art world, isn't it silly that this painting sells for $1.4 million, and could I have some of that, please; this interview and that talking head and people talking about how frivolous and insane the gallery scene is even as they wallow lasciviously before the camera. Paul H-O thinks he's creating a sort of ironic chronicle, but he clearly hasn't a clue; the film he wants to make could only be made by someone willing to make a documentary about Paul H-O. Warhol was not prescient; the future is now, and everyone you see in this film expects to be very famous forever, forever, forever! Guest of Cindy Sherman is damned near unwatchable.

Agnes Martin: With My Back to the World
(Mary Lance, 2002).

Agnes Martin moved to New York in 1957, at the insistence of a gallery owner; ten years later, she left Manhattan, and spent the next 47 years living and working simply in her New Mexico studio. This 60-minute film was made when Martin was in her late eighties, still active and alert. And the film is like her painting: quiet, with a rich simplicity. The filmmaker shows some of Martin's work, and there are scenes where you literally see how she paints -- the camera focuses on her hands as Martin discusses brushwork.

The best of it: Martin's life lessons on how to be an artist. "You have to practice having a quiet, empty mind," she remarks. "I had to give up the intellectual entirely. I had a hard time, but I managed it." Also: "You can't be an artist if you can't be alone." Blessings on Mary Lance for this unique, wise film.

A Walk Into the Sea (Esther Robinson, 2007).

Esther Robinson set out to make a film about an uncle she never knew: Danny Williams, an apprentice filmmaker who worked at Andy Warhol’s Factory in its early years and died young, probably a suicide. Robinson’s passion for her subject is apparent; it's close to her heart. The film’s best moments are interviews with other family members, including Danny’s mother, who speaks with clear perspective and feeling about her son’s sexual confusion and trouble with drugs. The usual suspects from the Factory are here, too; but Paul Morrissey, Billy Name and Gerard Malanga don’t have much to add to the dossier. Danny was quiet and soulful, he contributed to the early films, he did drugs, and Andy might have slept with him. But there were so many Dannys at the Factory, over the years, and the Warhol crowd itself has been done and done and done and done. Why do we need this film?

The idea of Danny Williams is poignant and suggestive, but a documentary requires more than an enigma. It needs to document something, and Danny Williams left very little behind. Could Robinson have started with her uncle and created a fiction -- a speculation, or meditation? I think that would have been a better idea.

Pie in the Sky: the Brigid Berlin Story
(Vincent and Shelly Dunn Fremont, 2000).

The Factory again, but this film doesn’t even deserve credit for good intentions. Brigid Berlin was one of the poor little rich kids who gravitated to Warhol. She worked the phones, she did speed, she went on stage and trashed her parents extravagantly (her father ran the Hearst Corporation), and her very large and unappealing nude body appeared in The Chelsea Girls. She’s in every book written about Warhol, she’s in Mary Woronov’s memoir and Holly Woodlawn’s memoir and Ultra Violet's memoir, and I think she's in that film about Nico. She is truly famous for being famous, and for being a compulsive and an exhibitionist, but she’s utterly peripheral. If she were dead, even the Warhol industry couldn’t have supported a film about her. But Brigid Berlin is very much alive and well. And she is very eager to be on camera.

So the Fremonts made this film. About half of it is old clips and talking heads. The talking heads are predictable: Paul Morrissey, Taylor Mead, Bob Colacello, yadda yadda – and they are all much more interesting than the person they are talking about. Even Bob Colacello is more interesting than Brigid Berlin. The other half of the picture is just the contemporary Brigid Berlin, an older lady who still thinks she’s a Warhol superstar. She talks about her compulsions. She shows us her very orderly apartment and tells us about her orderly apartment and how very orderly it is. She talks about her obsession with key lime pie. She talks. Or she goes out for a walk and tries to look fabulous, and the camera obediently follows.

I loved I Shot Andy Warhol, and Superstar is another favorite. But not all crazy ladies are interesting, and many performance artists are not interesting at all. Are we doomed to a documentary about the life and times of Andrea “Whips” Feldman, or an inquiry into the deep thoughts of Paul America or Penny Arcade? A moratorium, please? Enough.


©2009 Les Phillips
CineScene