Imitation of Christ | |
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Directed by | Andy Warhol |
Starring | Patrick Tilden Close Ondine Nico Brigid Polk |
Distributed by | Filmmakers Distribution Center |
Release date |
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Running time | 480 min./105 min. |
Language | English |
Imitation of Christ is a film shot and directed by Andy Warhol in 1967.
The title for this film comes from the De imitatione Christi , a spiritual guide written in the fifteenth century by Dutch mystic/author Thomas à Kempis (1390–1471). The film itself is a realistic dramatic comedy about a handsome young man called Son, silent and moody, who spends much time in his bedroom with the family maid, who feeds him corn flakes, strokes his hair, and reads to him from the Imitatione Christi. Elsewhere in the family home, the young man's mother and father lie in bed and argue over Son, trying to analyze what's wrong with him, while, at the same time, admitting their physical attraction toward him, and lamenting over their own sad lives. Son also has angry arguments there in his home with his abrasive girlfriend, over minor matters. Intercut into the film are outdoor scenes of Son ambling through the streets of San Francisco with a hobo.
Andy Warhol shot sixteen 32-minute reels of film for all the interior shots (with all of the cast except for Taylor Mead) during January 1967 in a Hollywood Hills home called the Castle (which Warhol rented for his L.A. visits). [1] The exterior segments with Pat Tilden Close and Taylor Mead were filmed in San Francisco parks and streets during May 1967. [2]
A long version of the film (480 minutes) premiered in November 1967, and then was withdrawn from circulation — the long film was thought lost for many years, and then was found in the early 2000s. [3] In December 1967, the entire eight-hour film appeared as a segment within another Warhol film, the 25-hour-long **** (aka Four Stars). In late 1969, Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey condensed the eight-hour Imitation of Christ to 105 minutes, and re-released it under the same name.
Excerpts of Imitation of Christ were also included within the film Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story, a 75-minute documentary about the life of actress Brigid Berlin (Brigid Polk), directed by Vincent Fremont and Shelly Dunn Fremont, produced by Vincent Fremont Enterprises, and released September 7, 2000.
There was much praise at the initial release, calling Warhol "the equivalent of Victor Hugo", [4] but there was much criticism of the fact the film was not released after the premiere event except in a shortened form. [5]
Andy Warhol was an American artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental films Empire (1964) and Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67).
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I, a Man is a 1967 American erotic drama film written, directed and filmed by Andy Warhol. It debuted at the Hudson Theatre in New York City on August 25, 1967. The film depicts the main character, played by Tom Baker, in a series of sexual encounters with eight women. Warhol created the movie as a response to the popular erotic Scandinavian film I, a Woman, which had opened in the United States in October 1966.
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Taylor Mead was an American writer, actor and performer. Mead appeared in several of Andy Warhol's underground films filmed at Warhol's Factory, including Tarzan and Jane Regained... Sort of (1963) and Taylor Mead's Ass (1964).
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Patrick Tilden "Pat" Close was a former American child actor who later appeared in the 1967 Andy Warhol film, Imitation of Christ.
Tub Girls is a 1967 American avant garde film directed by Andy Warhol and starring Viva and Brigid Polk.
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The Garrick Cinema—periodically referred to as the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre, Andy Warhol's Garrick Cinema, Garrick Theatre, Nickelodeon—was a 199-seat movie house located in Greenwich Village at 152 Bleecker Street, Lower Manhattan, New York City. Andy Warhol debuted many of his notable films in this building in the late 1960s. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention played here nightly for 6 months in 1967.
The 55th Street Playhouse—periodically referred to as the 55th Street Cinema and Europa Theatre—was a 253-seat movie house at 154 West 55th Street, Midtown Manhattan, New York City, that opened on May 20, 1927. Many classic art and foreign-language films, including those by Jean Cocteau, Sergei Eisenstein, Federico Fellini, Abel Gance, Fritz Lang, and Orson Welles, were featured at the theater. Later, Andy Warhol presented many of his notable films in this building in the late 1960s. Other notable films were also shown at the theater, including Boys in the Sand (1971) and Him (1974).