The Life & Times of Andy Warhol - Superstar (1991)

This documentary by Academy Award winner Chuck Workman does a fine job of capturing the life and legend of Andy Warhol. News coverage of his untimely death, as seen on television stations in his hometown of Pittsburgh, sets the stage for interviews with the artist's brother and cousins, who show off vintage family photos and talk wistfully of Andy's early life as Andrew Warhola. People who worked with him throughout his career as commercial artist, pop art superstar, underground filmmaker, and celebrity about town appear and provide interviews that are honest, insightful, and frequently hilarious. In a wry aside, Campbell's Soup executives comment on Warhol's famous paintings of the soup cans, which puzzled everyone but came to be regarded as art. The film is brilliantly put together so that the atmosphere of Warhol's life is deftly captured. Though he relentlessly threw himself into the public spotlight (he's even seen appearing in an episode of The Love Boat), Warhol was always something of a mystery. Was he a great artist or a great con man? People who saw him on a daily basis talk about how they were both fascinated and baffled by him. This is an intelligent and witty look at Warhol's unlikely life. The DVD features a "director's commentary" soundtrack that can be turned on to hear Workman speak about some of the material in the film. --Robert J. McNamara Amazon.com

engaging & entertaining

I have 3 other dvd documentaries on Andy Warhol ( "Life & Death of Andy Warhol", The PBS 2 disc set & "Andy Warhol: The Complete Picture" ) and this is the one which has stood up to repeated viewings. It features more interview clips with Andy than any of the others, and the opening title sequence actually demonstrates how Warhol and his assistants went about creating the large screened portraits for which Warhol is so well known. There are interview clips with many of the Warhol superstars as well as an informative and thoughtful audio commentary track by the director. The black & white interview footage of a very consciously spaced out Warhol being questioned by an interviewer as he sits with fingers lightly touching his lips and a great befuddled look on his face is the best! December 28, 2007

Has it's moments, but ...

I think this is the weakest of the 3 comprehensive Warhol documentaries, (the best being the PBS doc - Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film, followed by: Andy Warhol - The Complete Picture). It just seems lightweight compared to those and the background music in this I found really distracting. There is some specific footage of the Velvet Underground playing @ the Factory, footage of Edie Sedgwick, and others that I hadn't seen before and is noteworthy, but it is very brief. August 31, 2007

Not perfect, but damn good!

I just bought this DVD five days ago and I've watched it 12 times. I just can't stop looking at Warhol. I wish this DVD were longer and had more shots of "THE MAN", but overall, it represented him as I remember him from my youth in the sixties. I also liked the interviews with the people that made the Facatory what it was. I was left feeling that I wanted more; more pictures, more narative, more interviews, just more of everything.
I would buy it again, but I really do feel the need to acuire more of the same type of thing when and where I can! September 23, 2006

A Very Brief Look At Andy

I found the DVD enlightening even though it did not provide an indepth look at this very complex man. Missing were some very important details of his early life. Things which were important to shaping his career. Also there was not enough emphasis on the Factory people. I did appreciate the fact that Gerard Malanga was a producer and did a great deal of narration. August 20, 2006

Packed and Illuminating

Follows Warhol's career chronologically, with an opportunity to meet family members, art dealers, Factory regulars (including Gerard, Holly, and Candy) and celebrities.

Warhol as superstar was the product of a lot of smarts and effort. He went basically from
a) commercial success (e.g. drawing shoes for advertizers)
b) popular success as a Pop painter, which might not have amounted to much if limited to that.
c) widened popular success via silkscreening
d) broadened his recognition via the underground movies
e) provided recognition of each of his superstars, who fame brought further recognition to Warhol
f) tied himself further to celebrities via "Interview" magazine and his custom silkscreens of them
g) after being shot (his own celebrity having already been established by then) mainly partied with other celebrities (but also produced his diary as a way of calling attention to his time spent with celebrities)

and, following his success, we now live in a time when fame is meaningless yet compelling, when neither the famous nor the public seem to gain anything by it and yet cling to it all the more addictively. Once famous enough, how one became famous is inconsequential: this condition thanks to Andy.

After you have read, listened to and seen everything else about Warhol, this documentary will make the pieces fall into place ... but that they are pieces will be all the more apparent. May 14, 2006

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