Vinyl
d. Andy Warhol, 1965
Vinyl is the Warhol film I'd been waiting for. The Chelsea Girls had its charms (with it's long, rambling segments), but this is the real deal. As perhaps the quintessential Warhol film, Vinyl has his rigorous visual style; the film itself only has three shots (all from stationary positions), it all takes place in the same room, and it was made for a very small "budget" and shot on 16mm bw film stock. This is also one of the most overworked surfaces that I've seen; there are people standing on the edge of the frame just to take up space (particularly Edie Sedgwick, who obviously serves no purpose to the film and is there solely to take up space, and I guess to dance at the end).
The film is a loose adaptation of Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange, with an emphasis on loose, because even though the film covers major aspects of the book (crime, the treatment), it does take liberty in the way it presents them.
Though I guess I can't exactly call Vinyl "good" by normal standards, I have no problem ranking it above "better" movies because of how much I enjoyed the film. This is probably the same reason why I would prefer something like Godard's audacious Band of Outsiders to, say, Dreyer's Gertrud (also from 64), which is the greater movie by cinematic means.
Oh well, I still love Vinyl.
