US Underground Cinema

Colección Ensayos Arte Cátedra. Ed. Cátedra, Madrid, 2008.
ISBN: 978-84-376-2503-4
427 páginas.

· Ficha de la editorial: https://catedra.com/libro/ensayos-arte-catedra/arte-en-fotogramas-carlos-tejeda-9788437625034/

· Contenido PDF: Cubiertas e índice del libro.

This article explores Warhol and Nico's relationship with Europe through their formative years and subsequent collaboration in Warhol's underground and experimental filmmaking. In the 1950s Warhol was a commercial artist in New York, circulating in a gay milieu, and his work often conveyed Europe and a European sensibility in its illustration of 'all things Europe', but especially fashion. Nico was a fashion model and frequently seen in European fashion magazines before landing a few film roles, including a small part in La dolce vita (Fellini, 1960) and a featuring role in the French erotic film StripTease (Poitrenaud, 1962). Nico moved to New York and found her way to Warhol's art studio and social scene known as The Factory. At The Factory Nico joined the art-rock group The Velvet Underground at Warhol's insistence and featured in several films Warhol made between 1966 and 1967, including Chelsea Girls (Warhol, 1966) and a number of portrait films called Screen Tests (Warhol, 1964–1966). This article explores the presence and negotiation of Europe in both Nico's and Warhol's life and work in the 1950s and 1960s. The article pays particular attention to their early careers and the shifts in Nico's persona demonstrated by the difference between the French StripTease and Warhol's experimental Screen Tests.

Este estudio es un comentario critico-metodologico que busca reivindicar el analisis de las obras de arte desde su materialidad misma, sin volcarse sobre las potencias de las vinculaciones que permiten los puentes conceptuales con discusiones abstractas de otros campos. El caso de Flaming Creatures resulta de particular interes por su misma naturaleza como pelicula, por su relevancia historica en diferentes frentes de la cultura y por su aguda y admirable irreverencia. Este estudio está centrado en una exploración argumental del impacto que produce la obra en los procesos mentales de la audiencia y las confrontaciones que le propone.

Although the American New Wave was called, to some, The New Hollywood, much of its political, social cultural and revolution actually took place in New York City, at the time a decaying city but, precisely because of this chaos, a city wide open to artists, especially in the impoverished Lower East Side. From the mid-70s through the mid-80s, NYC became a safe haven for musicians, actors, visual artists and movie directors, all sharing the same open spaces and night-clubs, all drawing inspiration from each other’s practices and inventing a new form of trans-media. In New York was therefore invented a cinematographic equivalent to what the Velvet Underground had stood for against West Cost Psychedelia: a less utopian and more aggressive creativity, with a strong touch of irony. 
Our aim is therefore to analyze how NYC has been seen through the eyes of Travis, Bobby or The Driller Killer and, in turn, how the city influenced a new wave of directors, some directly fallowing in the footsteps of the New Hollywood, i.e walking a thin line between avant-garde and commerce, as is the case with Jim Jarmusch or Abel Ferrara, some voluntarily staying underground, as Richard Kern, Nick Zedd and the whole Cinema of Transgression movement. It this respect, it would be fair to talk about a New York New Wave as well as of a New Hollywood.
I will therefore proceed in three steps: first articulate what NYC was economically, socially and artistically during the mid-70s to early 80s, and then develop two main themes: violence and nostalgia, showing how these were dealt with both in Hollywood and in NYC, developing a form of post new-Hollywood. Until eventually, these very two elements will cause the death of The New Hollywood, by overdose of both drugs and nostalgia.

A CASE FOR FIRST PERSON CINEMA

A case for absolute first person cinema, currently possible by the luxurious relative safety of modern life,
a cinema that involves the spectator on the most immediate level – direct experience with no intermediary, i.e. first-person cinema.  It speaks on a visceral level, and at best energizes the viewer to improvise on his own moments: to constantly alter his experience of the same simple things in his life by moving from one position of parallax to another, and thus to widen his vision. 

Use of the eyes as a pronoun, I , to dance and play, to swoon, and to be permitted to swoon.  An animal alert for danger cannot afford concentration in this direction.

This article explores Warhol and Nico’s relationship with Europe through their formative years and subsequent collaboration in Warhol’s underground and experimental filmmaking. In the 1950s Warhol was a commercial artist in New York, circulating in a gay milieu, and his work often conveyed Europe and a European sensibility in its illustration of ‘all things Europe’, but especially fashion. Nico was a fashion model and frequently seen in European fashion magazines before landing a few film roles, including a small part in La dolce vita (Fellini, 1960) and a featuring role in the French erotic film Strip-Tease (Poitrenaud, 1962). Nico moved to New York and found her way to Warhol’s art studio and social scene known as The Factory. At The Factory Nico joined the art-rock group The Velvet Underground at Warhol’s insistence and featured in several films Warhol made between 1966 and 1967, including Chelsea Girls (Warhol, 1966) and a number of portrait films called Screen Tests (Warhol, 19...

An essay about the friendship, collaboration, and intellectual affinities between the filmmaker Stephen Dwoskin and critic Raymond Durgnat, forged during the early days of the London Film-Makers' Co-op in the late 1960s. (I would now revise this in light of what I've found since in the Dwoskin archive. Also I wouldn't use italics in the final sentence.)

This essay is the introduction to the publication of Ronald Tavel's book "Andy Warhol's Ridiculous Screenplays." Tavel was the screenwriter for some of Warhol's most important films, including Vinyl, The Life of Juanita Castro, Horse, Kitchen and Screen Test #2. He was also a founder of the Theatre of the Ridiculous, the significant queer off-off Broadway theater movement of the late 60s. This essay highlights Tavel's working relationship with Warhol and draws attention to the "ridiculous" status and quality of his screenplays.