Factory Girl: Review

Prior to seeing George Hickenlooper’s Edie Sedgwick Biopic, Factory Girl, I had a great deal of hope that it might succeed in shining a light on what is one of the more interesting, albeit overplayed, culture scenes of the 20th century. For anyone remotely interested in modern art, Andy Warhol’s Factory was and is the definition of a cultural hotbed in which everything came together at the right time and masterpiece after masterpiece was forged in the forms of Warhol’s pop art, the snarling garage rock of The Velvet Underground. One could become a celebrity merely for being seen with Warhol and hanging out with his devoted group of supporters. It was a scene that everyone wanted a part of and for the most part, Warhol was welcoming, assuming you would allow him to film you for your screen test, of which he compiled more than 300. This is perhaps why Factory Girl is disappointing, a hollow shell of a film where a fascinating one could have existed. Rather than fully explore Sedgwick’s meteoric rise and fall, Hickenlooper’s film is an entertaining distraction, filled with a few wonderful performances but ultimately lacking a solid cohesion and emotional core that would have allowed it to be the classic it was originally envisioned as.

The true tragedy of the film is not it’s heavy handed attempts to paint Sedgwick as a figure unable to cope with her vices but rather the squandering of Sienna Miller and Guy Pearce, who put forth stellar performances, both of which are wasted with overzealous editing and color saturation. Miller, as Sedgwick, is a revelation and a bona fide star in the making. Her on screen presence is electric and she easily handles the weight of her role. If Factory Girl is to be remembered for only one thing, it may be as the film where Miller emerges into a true star, not a supporting character but an actress who can easily carry a film. Pearce, as Warhol, is incredible as well, contributing yet another fantastic performance to a resume that becoming as impressive as any in cinema today. From what video I have seen of Warhol, Pearce is spot on, a dead ringer in tone and gesture to one of the greatest American artists ever. His ability to skip from film to film, regardless of genre or role, is uncanny. He is a consummate actor that will be remembered as one of the best of his generation and this performance will certainly be discussed.
That being said, the disappointment in the film results in its lack of any feeling of cohesiveness. It wanders and jumps ahead in time, leaving the viewer disoriented at times as to when something is happening and how long has it been since the last scene. The editing is choppy and seems rushed, a case that is easy to make given the manic speed in which this film was finished in order to get it out for awards season. By some accounts, the cast and crew were still shooting as late as December 2006, a few weeks before the film premiered in Los Angeles on the 29th of the month, just days before the Academy cut off. Had the crew been given time to breathe and to edit and re-shoot the film, the final picture might have been drastically different. This might be one to pay attention to on DVD, in hopes for a director’s cut, in which subsequent footage can be inserted to give the film a better footing. As it is now, its frantic narrative reduces the power and tragedy of Sedgwick’s story and abandons some of the key moments of the scene.

Take, for example, the scenes in which The Velvet Underground is shown playing with Nico at The Factory, films being projected onto their all black outfits. Now, to any self-respecting fan of The Velvets who were never able to see the original lineup live, this image should raise goose bumps. Rather, the scenes are diminished by the lack of music by the actual group, replaced by a cheap knock off sound that the music editor must have thought could possibly be confused for The Velvets by those not in the know. To those who are, it is a discouraging moment, cheapening a moment that could have really delivered. In fact, the entire film feels like it didn’t have the approval or blessings of any of the major players. Bob Dylan flat out refused to allow the use of his name, leaving Hayden Christensen’s character to be named Quinn despite being a dead ringer for Dylan. None of the films shown are Warhol originals. Had the film been able to license those clips and include them here, it would have provided moments of postmodernist clashes of footage, something Warhol might have respected, if not enjoyed.
The film is visually appealing, a mix of vibrant colors and grainy black and white. Its use of montage is frequent, a technique that might have been utilized to try and get the film done as fast as possible. In fact, there seems to be a significant montage every few minutes, and by films end their impact has been blunted by the overuse. It is unfortunate that so many of those scenes needed to be distilled down into rapid-fire editing and disorienting camera movement. Had they been given the time to breathe, the tragic story of Sedgwick’s unfortunate fall would have been more effective. As it is, the film’s end is filled with clashes in tone, as I never truly felt bad for Miller’s Sedgwick but it is obvious that the film is doing whatever it can in the last 10 minutes to make this as tragic as possible.

I don’t want to make it seem like this was an awful film, just disappointing. With the subject matter at hand, there would have been no shortage of interesting material to focus on. When it succeeds, Factory Girl is sublime entertainment but those moments don’t come with enough regularity. If you have (or had) any interest in this scene, the film is worth seeing if not to make up your own mind about Hickenlooper’s treatment of Sedgwick’s story. If you know nothing about Warhol and The Factory, this could be an interesting introduction that goes down fairly easy and moves quickly (the film clocks in at under a hour and a half). It will surely incite interest in the larger subjects of Warhol and his art, a world that is difficult yet innovative and interesting and deserves to be studied. Warhol is unquestionably a visionary of popular culture, a man who altered not only the people’s lives around him (as he did with Sedgwick) but also the larger society as a whole. Sedgwick’s life is an interesting entry into those studies and Factory Girl, despite its flaws, is an interesting entry point to that life, its rise and its untimely fall.


***/*****