Written by Mary Harron And Daniel Minahan
Directed by Mary Harron
Valerie: "Give me fifteen cents, and I'll give you a dirty word."
Maurice: "What's the word?"
Valerie: "Men."
Pride Month might be over but I'm still going through a catalogue of LGBT themed movies for the remainder of the year. I'm aware of man hating feminist activist Valerie Solanas (Lili Taylor) and her history with Andy Warhol (Jared Harris).
This film opened with the main itself. Feeling that her work was being held to random by the famous pop up artist, Valerie resorted to shooting Andy and others. This of course led to her arrest where she owned up to shooting Andy.
Then the movie flashed back to the events that led up to her attempted murder of Warhol. We got to see her as a struggling artist where she was friends with fellow lesbian Stevie (Martha Plimpton) and transgender woman, Candy Darling (Stephen Dorff). As well as hating men, Valerie didn't have much time for the trans community either.
Within the movie, Valerie despite being a lesbian often had sex with men to pay her rent or was dominating them. She was also writing her SCUM Manifesto as well as the play, Up Your Ass that she desperately wanted Warhol to produce. Warhol found it too vulgar even for him to take on.
Saying that, Valerie did get a part in Warhol's movie, I, A Man and she had the publisher of Olympia Press, Maurice Girodias (Lothaire Bluteau) but she felt stifled by both of them. She also didn't do herself any favours by not reading the fine print of her contract.
The film went back to the beginning where she shot Andy Warhol where the latter lived in fear of what had happened to her. There's a brief look into her later life and eventually death, leading to an overall miserable existence. On the other hand, her manifesto did find the appreciation she wanted even if she was no longer around to enjoy it.
- Originally this was intended to be a BBC documentary before it was made into a theatrical film. SCUM stood for "Society For Cutting Up Men".
- The filmmakers had permission to reproduce done of Andy Warhol's works but had to destroy them after filming was done.
- Standout music: Donovan's Season Of The Witch, Bob Dylan's I'll Keep It With Mine and John Cale's I Shot Andy Warhol.
- The film covers the Factory years in New York, in particular to 1968 to the event itself. Valerie died in 1988.
It may have had it's origins as a documentary but as a movie, I Shot Andy Warhol did work rather well with a great lead performance from Lili Taylor. I'm not particularly sympathetic to Valerie Solanas but the movie did give a balanced depiction of her activism.
Rating: 8 out of 10
