The best Edie Sedgwick’s movies
We present our ranking of the best Edie Sedgwick’s movies. Do you love cinema? Or are you looking for a movie of your favorite actor to watch tonight? Surely you have some to see or that you did not know yet about Edie Sedgwick.
Andy Warhol
6.6/10
The first major profile of the American Pop Art cult leader after his death in 1987 covers the whole of his life and work through interviews, clips from his films, and conversations with his family and superstar friends. Andy Warhol, the son of poor Czech immigrants, grew up in the industrial slums of Pittsburgh while dreaming of Hollywood stars. He went on to become a star himself.
The Queen
7.3/10
In 1967, New York City is host to the Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant. This documentary takes a look behind the scenes, transporting the viewer into rehearsals and dressing rooms as the drag queen subculture prepares for this big national beauty contest. Jack/Sabrina is the mistress of ceremonies, and their protégé, Miss Harlow, is in the competition. But, as the pageant approaches, the glamorous contestants veer from camaraderie to tension.
Chelsea Girls
5.7/10
Lacking a formal narrative, Warhol's mammoth film follows various residents of the Chelsea Hotel in 1966 New York City. The film was intended to be screened via dual projector set-up.
Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol
6.9/10
Documentary portrait of Andy Warhol.
Vinyl
4.2/10
Andy Warhol’s screen adaptation of Burgess's "A Clockwork Orange”.
End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones
7.9/10
A years-in-the-making documentary on the legendary punk band the Ramones. Through a mixture of archival footage, archival and new interviews with all members of the band's various lineups, and new interviews with a number of their contemporaries, the film traces the peaks and valleys the band experienced over the course of its 20-plus year career before disbanding in 1995.
Danny Says
6.7/10
DANNY SAYS is a documentary unveiling the amazing journey of Danny Fields. Fields has played a pivotal role in music and culture with seminal acts including: the Doors, the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, MC5, Nico, the Ramones and beyond.
Ciao! Manhattan
5.6/10
The very sad tale of socialite & Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick (1943-1971) who effectively plays herself in a film that follows her life in a large part from the time she left Warhol's 'factory' and what the life of excess drugs did to her sanity. Edie was such a beautiful fragile girl - who finally got her head together and got married (her wedding day video is edited into the end of the movie) but it was too late, her husband woke up on a morning in November 1971, only weeks after filming wrapped, and found her dead beside him. She had died in her sleep from overdosing on her medication she was 28.
Andy Warhol Screen Tests
The films were made between 1964 and 1966 at Warhol's Factory studio in New York City. Subjects were captured in stark relief by a strong key light, and filmed by Warhol with his stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black and white, 100-foot rolls of film at 24 frames per second. The resulting two-and-a-half-minute film reels were then screened in 'slow motion' at 16 frames per second.
Beauty #2
5.8/10
The movie has a fixed point of view showing a bed with two characters on it, Sedgwick and Piserchio. Chuck Wein is heard speaking but is just out of view. Sedgwick is wearing a lace bra and panties, and Piserchio, wearing only jockey shorts, engage in flirting and light kissing. Wein asks Sedgwick questions seemingly designed to harass and annoy her. Piserchio is more or less a bystander not interacting with Wein. The dialogue seems created adlib and no conclusions are reached in the film. The only conceivable climax is when Sedgwick finally becomes so mad, she throws a glass ashtray at Wein, breaking it.
Diaries, Notes, and Sketches
7.4/10
An epic portrait of the New York avant-garde art scene of the 60s.
Kitchen
6.8/10
Instructed by Warhol to write a vehicle for Edie Sedgwick in a “completely white” setting, scenarist Ronald Tavel created one of Warhol’s most iconic films. Here a group of performers of all stripes – the sink and litter basket receive equal billing to the human actors – are forced into Warhol and Tavel’s cruelly comical theatre of the absurd. Inside this cramped domestic space, boredom, confusion and a sense of existential dread hang heavy in the air. Warhol and Tavel transform the modern 1960s kitchen – replete with the latest gadgets and conveniences – into a chaotic laboratory for self-creation and interpersonal conflict.
Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships and Intersections
6.9/10
This intimate portrait of Andy Warhol pulls together a unique library of material shot by New York film legend Jonas Mekas. Spanning from 1963 to 1990, the film features a cast of counterculture icons including Allen Ginsberg, George Maciunas, John Lennon, and Yoko Ono, as well as John and Caroline Kennedy, and Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy Onassis's sister and Warhol muse)—to whom Mekas dedicates the film. The film features footage from the Velvet Underground's first public performance. A portrait of the remarkable life of arguable the twentieth century's most famous artist and leading iconographer.
Poem Posters
... with real-life portraits of Jayne Mansfield, Frak O'Hara, Ruth Ford, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, William Burroughs, Andy Warhol, Rudy Gernreich, Jonas Mekas and others.
Lupe
8.4/10
Andy Warhol’s film Lupe (1966) restages the mythic account of one celebrity’s suicide as a strategic ploy to envision another’s. Lupe is known to be Warhol’s take on Kenneth Anger’s own fabricated account of Lupe Vélez’s (also known as Hollywood’s ‘Mexican Spitfire’) suicide; Edie Sedgwick is cast as Vélez living out her last morning, evening and final dramatic exit. (berlinfilmjournal.com)
Prison
7.3/10
Inspired by Bibbe Hansen's experiences in a juvenile detention center.
Horse
5.1/10
Warhol plunked a horse named Mighty Byrd in the middle of the Factory for this dark, homoerotic take on the classic oater that later anticipates his later western epic Lonesome Cowboys.
13 Most Beautiful… Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests
7.1/10
Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol shot nearly 500 Screen Tests, beautiful and revealing portraits of hundreds of different individuals, from Warhol superstars and celebrities to friends or anyone he thought had "star potential". All visitors to his studio, the Factory. Subjects were captured in stark relief by a strong keylight, and filmed by Warhol with his stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black and white, 100-foot rolls of film. The resulting two-and-a-half-minute film reels were then screened in slow motion, resulting in a fascinating collection of four-minute masterpieces that startle and entrance, mesmerizing in the purest sense of the word. Songwriters Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, formerly of the band Luna and currently recording as Dean & Britta, incorporated original compositions as well as cover songs to create new soundtracks for the 13 films.
Poor Little Rich Girl
6/10
A young, jobless woman stays in bed, reads, talks on the phone, smokes cigarettes, makes fresh coffee, and tries on some clothes from a large wardrobe.
Edie: Girl on Fire
6.3/10
Model, film star, muse, socialite, icon. Edie Sedgwick was the very first "it" girl of the Andy Warhol Factory scene. The arc of her life traced the rise and fall of the 1960s recklessness. After being the toasted by the whole of New York City, Edie died alone of a drug overdose in California at the age of 28. She was both the harbinger of celebrity culture and someone who stood entirely outside of it, an artist who painted life, bravely and spontaneously, with her own hand.
