Factory Girl


Artykuł pochodzi z pisma "Guardian"

Factory Girl


Peter Bradshaw
Friday March 16, 2007
The Guardian

Here's a movie to make you sympathise with the radical feminist Valerie Solanas, who once, as they say, filled Andy Warhol full of lead. She shot the famous pop artist (non-fatally) in 1968 after he allowed her to become a minor figure at his court, but then refused to produce her play, Up Your Ass, and treated her, as she thought, slightingly. Her story was dramatised by director Mary Harron in the 1996 movie I Shot Andy Warhol, and it is the mirror image of this. Edie Sedgwick was the troubled society girl and would-be artist who was patronised and then dropped by Warhol in an all-too similar way, but who did the opposite of Solanas. She became consumed with self-destruction, living her life like a candle in the wind of Warhol's flatulent self-regard. After an hour and a half of Edie's muddled melancholy and brittle victimhood - with which we are invited to sympathise - I felt like grabbing Solanas's gun and using it on both artist and muse.

Edie is played, perfectly competently, by Sienna Miller and Warhol himself is impersonated by Guy Pearce, who dons the glasses and wig as well as anyone. This movie has already run into trouble on account of its fictional speculation about Edie's relationship with Bob Dylan, here promoted to a full-blown love-affair, and Dylan was reportedly not best pleased by an initial screenplay draft, which suggested that he broke her heart and indirectly contributed to her suicide. Due to legal pressure, the Dylan-ish folk singer (played by Hayden Christensen) is now never mentioned by name despite being allegedly world-famous and the newspaper reports about his wedding are feebly headlined: "Folk Singer Gets Married" Really? Pete Seeger? One of the Seekers?
Pearce's Warhol is chillingly self-involved and his performance adroitly suggests that he had something bordering on autism. When the poverty-stricken, drug-addicted Sedgwick screams at him in public for having let her down, when her father sneers at him for being a "fairy", Warhol never reacts, never defends himself, never does anything than offer some light, camp, flip remark. It isn't clear if he even realises that Sedgwick is in trouble.
What Dylan (or "folk singer") is supposed to be thinking is just as much of a riddle. Edie and he have a passionate sexual encounter, and the contrast between the men in her life, substantial heterosexual artist and fey gay celeb-monger, couldn't be clearer - or more questionable. If Warhol is supposed to be shallow and meretricious, then doesn't the blame for his over-promotion lie at least partly with people like Sedgwick, whose own potential as an artist and a sentient human being we are theoretically supposed to be taking seriously?
At any rate, Dylan and Warhol have something in common: they are the important men and Sedgwick is the unimportant woman; Valerie Solanas seems to be the only person who offered any real critique on that score. Over the final credits, we get some talking-heads clips of pundits like the late George Plimpton gassing on about how lovely Edie was - just in case that wasn't clear from the preceding movie. Edie Sedgwick's story is sad, but never appears important or interesting.

adroitly- sprytnie, zręcznie
allegedly- rzekomo
at any rate- w każdym razie
border on- graniczyć z
brittle- kruchy, drobny
camp- afektowany; zniewieściały
contribute (to)- przyczyniać się (do)
dons- przywdziewać
fatally- śmiertelnie
feebly- anemicznie, słabo
fey- kapryśny, zwariowany
flatulent- napuszony
flip- nonszalancki
gass- truć (nudzić)
grab- chwycić
indirectly- pośrednio
initial- wstępny, początkowy
lead- ołów
meretricious- powierzchowny
minor- drugorzędny, pomniejszy
muddled- pogmatwany
poverty-stricken- dotknięty biedą
pressure- nacisk
pundit- znawca przedmiotu, ekspert
reportedly- rzekomo
sentient- odczuwający
shallow- płytki
slightingly- bez szacunku, pogardliwie
sneer- drwić, szydzić


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