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OUT AT THE MOVIES
PORTLAND’S
I S hot A ndy W arhol
Lili Taylor, Stephen Dorff, Martha Plimpton
Directed by Mary Harron
rtist and promoter Andy Warhol was shot
by a woman in 1968. Lots of people know
that. You may even know that her name
was Valerie Solanas, but did you know she was a
lesbian? She was also a prostitute, a college
graduate and gifted writer, a visionary feminist,
an incest survivor, and quite possibly a paranoid
schizophrenic. But none of these labels can ad
equately convey a complex picture of Solanas,
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who was as bitterly wry as she was disturbed.
Luckily, first-time feature director Harron and
producers Christine Vachon (Kids, Stonewall ),
Tom Kalin (Swoon, Go Fish ) and American
Playhouse’s Lindsay Law have brought together
an outstanding ensemble cast to finally unravel
the Valerie Solanas story.
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285-0462
1 - 800 - 232-5944
2009 N.Killingsworth
1939 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland
Grand Opening June 21
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(Opens June 28 at KOIN Center Cinemas, for
times and ticket prices call 255-5555 and press
4608.)
W elcome to the D ollhouse
Heather Matarazzo, Brendan Sexton Jr.
Directed by Todd Solondz
his is my absolute favorite film so far this
year. Best described as an American junior
high version of Muriel’s Wedding (which I
also adored), this movie about the not so benign
cruelty of “friends” and family manages to be
both painfully funny and deeply unsettling. Al
though purposefully suburban and straight, the
film plays the edge of camp and avoids cheap
sentimentality. But Welcome to the Dollhouse,
which won the prestigious grand jury prize at this
year’s Sundance Film Festival, is a story about the
revenge of the nerds.
As Dawn Weiner, the middle child in middle
school from a suburb in the middle of New
Jersey, 13-year-old Nickelodeon veteran
Matarazzo landed one of the best roles ever
written for an adolescent girl. Full of intelli
gence, awkward Dawn struggles to maintain her
dignity as she suffers acts of contempt and hu
miliation, which range from having a beautiful
baby sister who hops around the yard in a balle
rina costume to having the class thug and his
mean-streak girlfriend kidnap her, threaten to
rape her, and force her to go to the bathroom
while they watch. Not easy stuff to negotiate.
Dawn’s equally awkward and unattractive older
brother, Mark (played by Matthew Faber, who is
also in Stonewall), buries himself in his studies
and makes a stab at popularity by forming a band
with the school hunk (Steve). Dawn’s infatua
tion with the unattainable Steve only serves to
further frustrate her, and leads her onto danger
ous ground.
Director Todd Solondz describes his inspira
tion for the film this way: “At 11,1 was at the peak
of my creative powers. I was writing stories and
playlets, putting together poetry projects. I was
absorbed by my ‘work.’ At 12, I was no longer
reading or writing, just counting days and check
ing them off. I was interested in survival. What is
it about seventh grade? This film is a comedy
because that is the only way I know how to deal
with excruciating torment.”
Dollhouse is a film that all outsiders will relate
to—whether you were too smart, fat, queer, poor
or dressed funny. Junior high is a miserable time
all around, and even if as an adult you’ve had a
moment to laugh about it and laugh at all the kids
who tortured you who have gone absolutely no
where in life, you’ll never forget how it felt to be
that vulnerable. Welcome to the Dollhouse cap
tures it and provides a superb catharsis. (Opens
T
big doses of tenderness
and compassion.
Musil
income and her career.
The film also implies that Warhol was fasci
nated by Solanas because she was queer, another
parallel between them. And it is perhaps as a
lesbian-feminist icon that Solanas most deserves
to be remembered. In her book, The SCUM [So
ciety for Cutting Up Men] Manifesto, later pub
lished by Olympia Press, she writes: ‘The true
artist is every self-confident, healthy female, and
in a female society, the only Art, the only Culture,
will be conceited, kooky, funky females grooving
on each other, cracking each other up, while
cracking open the universe.”
On top of telling a beautifully shot, uncen
sored and fascinating story—and re-creating a
much-hyped period— I Shot Andy Warhol con
tains an outstanding performance by Lili Taylor
as Solanas, and reminds us that not all of queer
history, art and icons has to be pretty or palatable.
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___ _______________
I
Lili Taylor as Valerie Solanas
This Sundance award-winning film paints a
none too flattering, but not entirely unglamorous
portrait of Warhol’s factory and hangers-on (bril
liantly recreated with the help of actual survivors
of the scene), as well as late-’60s bohemian life in
and around New York City’s Washington Square
Park. It starts by looking at the life of Solanas, the
abused daughter of a working-class Atlantic City
family who majored in psychology at the Univer
sity of Maryland and wrote for the college news
paper. After arriving in NYC, Solanas was deter
mined to live as an artist, which of course meant
not wasting her mind holding down a regular job.
As a result she turned tricks and developed a
hustler mentality: looking at men solely as a
meal-ticket to be taken advantage of, the whole
time suspicious that they were actually taking
advantage of her.
Solanas was introduced to Warhol through
her turbulent association with transvestite diva
Candy Darling (amusingly played by hetero hunk
Dorff), who later became a Warhol superstar.
Solanas felt Andy could make her famous by
producing her crude class-war play Up Your Ass.
While Warhol wasn’t really interested in pro
ducing Solanas’ play, he cast her in his film I, A
Man, and gave her a little money. As her mental
state declined, Solanas continued to aggressively
pester Warhol, along with a man she’d met in the
park who was so interested in publishing her
writing that he initially gave her a $500 advance.
The film suggests that the day Solanas shot Andy
Warhol was the day she realized that she’d let
herself become dependent on two men for her
June 21 at KOIN Center Cinemas.)
Reviews by Cathay Che, who is a regular
contributor to POZ magazine and Time Out in
New York.