American artist and filmmakerAndy Warhol produced more than 600 films between 1963 and 1968, including shortScreen Tests film portraits.^[1] His subsequent work with filmmakerPaul Morrissey guided the Warhol-branded films toward more mainstream success in the 1970s. Since 1984, theWhitney Museum of American Art andMuseum of Modern Art (MoMA) and worked to preserve, restore, exhibit, and distribute Warhol'sunderground films. In 2014, the MoMA began a project to digitize films previously unseen and to show them to the public.^[2][3]

Warhol had always been interested in films, and once he became successful as an artist with hispop art paintings, he started making underground films at his studio dubbedThe Factory. In 1962, Warhol attended the premiere of the static composition byLa Monte Young calledTrio for Strings and subsequently created his famous series of static films. FilmmakerJonas Mekas, who accompanied Warhol to the premiere, claimed Warhol's static films were directly inspired by that performance.^[4]

In 1963, Warhol experimented with single-frame cinematography, a stylistic method already used by a number of independent filmmakers.^[5] However, he quickly came to the conclusion that long takes were the opposite of what was conventional at the time, and he started producing "motionless" films such asSleep (1964), over 5 hours of a man sleeping, andEmpire (1965), an 8-hour view of theEmpire State Building captured by a stationary camera. Speaking on his early films, Warhol stated that "people weren't supposed to see them as movies; they were only intended to be projected on the wall of a room so that you could take a look at them when you felt like it."^[6]

For his early works, filmmakerJonas Mekas presented Warhol with the Independent Film Award of 1964, which was "the underground's answer toOscar."^[7][8] The Village Voice hailed Warhol as one of New York's "most exciting" filmmakers.^[9]Mike McGrady ofNewsday regarded Warhol as "theCecil B. DeMille of the Off-Hollywood movie makers."^[7] Art criticDavid Bourdon wrote that "far from literal transcriptions of reality, Warhol's films are more inventive, artificial and art-directed than some of his admires would like to believe."^[5]

In 1965, Warhol announced his retirement from painting to focus on filmmaking.^[10]During this period, Warhol filmed hisScreen Tests, which were taken between 1964 and 1966, featuring candid shots of various people.^[11] The subjects are both frequenters and new visitors to the Factory; some anonymous and others well-known.^[11] Warhol requested each of them to pose for silent, black-and-white, 100-foot rolls of film to be shot by his stationary 16mmBolex movie camera.^[11]

In 1965, Warhol metPaul Morrissey and they collaborated on several films, includingMy Hustler (1965),The Velvet Underground and Nico: A Symphony of Sound (1966),Chelsea Girls (1966), andI, a Man (1967). Warhol's films featured his "superstars," who were personalities who were part of his Factory scene, such asEdie Sedgwick,Nico,Ingrid Superstar,Ultra Violet,International Velvet, andViva. Warhol provided funding for his underground films in the 1960s, but because the films weren't very profitable the actors received little to no compensation.^[12] Instead, he would treat them to meals atMax's Kansas City where he traded art for credit at the restaurant.^[13] "We felt fortunate to collaborate with Andy," saidBibbe Hansen.^[14] "We lived to serve the work. Just to have access to a theater, a stage or a camera, lights and film that was a gift and allowed us to do our art."^[14]

Warhol's films didn't have a script, and he would encourage the actors to improvise dialogue.^[15] "Mostly I just turn on the camera, I select the people who are going to be in the film and they turn on for the camera. We tried scripts, but the people did just as badly after 40 rehearsals. So now they just do what they want to do," he said in 1968.^[15] He elaborated in his memoirPOPism: The Warhol '60s (1980): "What I liked was chunks of time all together, every real moment. I only wanted to find great people and let them be themselves and talk about what they usually talked about and I'd film them for a certain length of time and that would be the movie."^[10]

In 1967, Warhol and Morrissey began filming outdoors and in color, starting withImitation of Christ (1967), which was filmed in California. They filmedLonesome Cowboys (1968) in Arizona andSan Diego Surf (1968) in California.^[16] As Warhol was recovering from anassassination attempt during the summer of 1968, Morrissey made his directorial debut withFlesh (1968).^[17]

In 1969, Warhol traveled to Los Angeles to discuss a potential film contract withColumbia Pictures.^[6] A deal did not materialize, so Warhol and Morrissey proceeded with the filmsTrash (1970),Women in Revolt (1971), andHeat (1972). Their next filmL'Amour (1972) was made in Paris followed byAndy Warhol's Frankenstein (1973) andAndy Warhol's Dracula (1974), filmed in Rome.^[18][17] Warhol's longtime partnerJed Johnson, who had worked with him and Morrissey on several films, directed his final production,Andy Warhol's Bad (1977).^[19] In the event that the film was a commercial success, they had planned to move to California; however, Warhol lost money and stopped producing films.^[20]

Warhol discontinued the distribution of all of his experimental films in 1970. Years later, film scholarJohn Hanhardt, general editor of TheFilms of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné, 1963-1965, Volume 2 (2021), who was Curator and Head of Film and Video at theWhitney Museum of American Art, proposed a collaborative project in which the Whitney and theMuseum of Modern Art (MoMA) would collaborate to preserve, restore, exhibit, distribute, and catalogue Warhol's filmography. Warhol's assistance was sought, and in 1984, he placed his original film materials on deposit at the MoMA, while the Whitney began fundamental research for thecatalogue raisonné. The Whitney, MoMA, theAndy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and theAndy Warhol Museum collaborated on this project, which was known as the Andy Warhol Film Project.^[21]

• Screen Tests
• You Are the One

• Andy Warhol atIMDb

• Director filmographies
• Films directed by Andy Warhol

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