Festival News 2009 - Magazine of the Tampere Film Festival

”The Audience Might Be Disgusted”

Niku Hooli
Sari Mäyränpää, translation
Matias Helinko, foto


William Sloan got to know Andy Warhol when he was starting out his career. Andy Warhol, who died over 20 years ago, still enjoys growing popularity.

– There are some angry people walking out of the theatre. But Andy would only have liked it, says William Sloan and laughs.

Sloan is, of course, talking about Andy Warhol.

Sloan, the curator of the movie library of the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, in New York, has arrived in a sleeting city not only to be a judge at the International Competition of the Tampere Film Festival, but also to show Warhol’s selected short films from the MoMA archives.

The icon of popular art died in 1987 but still calls forth strong emotions in people, and the importance of his works seems to be growing.

Multi-talented Warhol tried out almost every possible art form during his career. On Thursday and Saturday, there are screenings of his short films that have, at least to some extent, been overshadowed by the artist’s paintings and photographs.

– They are avant-garde films, and those kind of films never become very popular, Sloan explains.

Warhol became interested in filmmaking in the 1960s. Those minimalist films often featured Warhol’s friends who, for the most part, were superstars of their own time.

The artist could not have cared less about the technical and narrational rules of cinematography. For example, in Sleep, a poet, John Giorno, is shown sleeping in different poses for 42 minutes.

– Andy broke all the rules. He did not place the camera in a certain way or film different shots or do cuts, but instead put the camera in its place, and that was that. Nowadays, that is considered art.

Sloan knows that not everyone likes Warhol’s works of art.

– The audience might be disgusted. But that is the audience’s problem! Sloan says grinning.

Warhol loved to confuse and provoke people. But did his works carry some other meaning? Not even an expert such as Sloan can answer that.

– If there is a message there, I do not have a clue as to what it is, Sloan admits.

Elsewhere on web

The Museum of Modern Art
http://www.moma.org/

Updated 06 March 2009 14:48