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entertaining u newspaper: your monthly guide to entertainment
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by kellie abrahamson
kabrahamson1@aol.com
Edie Sedgwick was the Paris Hilton of the 60s. A beautiful heiress who was famous for being famous, Sedgwick became the muse of pop art godfather Andy Warhol. The relationship was mutually beneficial, each of them feeding off of the other’s celebrity while indulging in the lifestyle they themselves created. Factory Girl is a film about Sedgwick’s life and her relationship with the man who made her his own personal superstar. Factory Girl is now available on DVD.
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It’s the mid-60s, and socialite Edie Sedgwick (Sienna Miller) has dropped out of art school and moved to New York where she plans on experiencing art instead of simply documenting it. She gets her wish when she catches the eye of Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce), a young artist who had become the golden boy of the underground art world. Warhol immediately takes Edie under his wing and she eagerly goes along, hoping Andy lives up to his promise to make her a star. The two are inseparable, making experimental films, attending the best parties and spending all their spare time at Warhol’s studio, the Factory. For a while there, Sedgwick does become a star. Their movies do well in New York and Paris and the press seems to love her. Things are going swell until Edie’s trust fund runs out and she turns to Andy for some cash, convinced he owes her for all the free acting she did for him. Warhol disagrees. Their financial dispute and Sedgwick’s increasing drug use drives a wedge between them and Edie turns to folk singer “Billy Quinn” (the character is based on Bob Dylan, but because he denies the relationship ever took place, the filmmakers had to use a pseudonym for the character played by Hayden Christensen) for support, a move that makes Warhol extremely jealous and even more distant. The whirlwind romance of Sedgwick and “Quinn” is short-lived, however, because Edie can’t bear losing Andy’s friendship. She tries to make amends, but the damage is done, and so is her 15 minutes of fame.
The Factory Girl DVD has plenty of fascinating bonus features, including an audio commentary track with director George Hickenlooper, a deleted scene, Miller’s audition, a making-of featurette and a look at the film’s premieres in Santa Barbara and New York. The most interesting extra, however, is a 30-minute glimpse at Sedgwick’s life called “The Real Edie.” This featurette is made up of interviews with friends, roommates, photographers and relatives who witnessed Edie’s rise and fall firsthand. Of particular interest here are observations made by Sedgwick’s brother, who seems to wholeheartedly approve of the film’s version of events.
Even with the endorsements of both her brother and her widower (who can be seen in the premieres featurette), Factory Girl feels exaggerated and off. Warhol is painted as the villain, using up Edie and then throwing her away. While I have no doubt Warhol used people, his interest in and respect for Sedgwick is well-documented and this film seems to question that. The Billy Quinn/Bob Dylan character was so offensive to the folk singer that his lawyers threatened to sue. Friend of Sedgwick and former member of the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed called the script “one of the most disgusting, foul things I’ve seen- by any illiterate retard- in a long time” and described the filmmakers as “a bunch of whores.” These harsh criticisms certainly raise an eyebrow as to the factuality of the plot. Additionally, it felt like chunks of the movie were removed. The first time we see Edie, she seems normal and naive. The next time we see her she’s sassy and confident, dancing with wild abandon and fighting off suitors with haughty laughter. Where did the girl we first met go? Unfortunately the film gives no answers. This happens several times throughout the film as Sedgwick’s life spirals out of control. First she’s fine, then she’s worse and then she’s worse still. There’s no clear transition between the events, no real red flags. The pacing makes her seem bipolar and I don’t think that was the filmmaker’s intention.
What the film does have in spades is remarkable performances by the lead actors. Miller, who I’ve never looked at twice, actually made me sit up and take notice with her engaging portrayal. She, like Sedgwick herself, dominated every frame she was in. In Factory Girl she shows off an impressive range, pulling off confidence, sadness, naiveté, rage, drug-induced stupors and fear all within 90 minutes time. Pearce, too, gives the performance of his career as the bizarre pop icon Andy Warhol. He so embodied the role that it wasn’t until the film was almost over that I recognized Pearce under the make-up and wigs. These performances alone are worth the cost of a rental.
Unlike Paris Hilton, Edie Sedgwick was a fascinating woman whose life deserves to be explored, or at the very least remembered. While Factory Girl is not the end-all be-all of Sedgwick films, it does make one curious about the life and death of this iconic beauty. It’s hard to know if any of what the film suggests really happened, but it is certainly an interesting and entertaining version of the era.
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