Make Me Famous | |
---|---|
Directed by | Brian Vincent |
Produced by | Heather Spore |
Starring | Eric Bogosian Patti Astor Kenny Scharf Duncan Hannah Frank Holliday Mark Kostabi Scott Covert David McDermott James Romberger Marguerite Van Cook Annina Nosei Richard Hambleton Peter McGough Edward Brezinski |
Edited by | Brian Vincent |
Music by | Jeremiah Bornfield |
Release date | 2021 |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Make Me Famous is a 2021 biographical documentary that explores the life and work of painter Edward Brezinski in his quest for fame. [1] [2]
Directed and edited by Brian Vincent in his feature directorial debut and produced by Heather Spore, it is about the rise and fall of the East Village art scene in New York City in the 1980s through the unlikely lens of little known neo expressionist painter Edward Brezinski. The film premiered at the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival on October 17, 2021. It was released exclusively in theaters in the United States on June 22, 2023, by Red Splat Productions. The film received positive reviews from critics.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 100% of 23 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.9/10. [3]
The Hollywood Reporter wrote "The first half of the project breathlessly divulges as much information about Brzezinski as possible, sketching his character through his makeshift community’s vision. There is a straightforward tone, an uncomplicated visual style, and a focus on the interviewees’ stories and ideas, which occasionally take one too many tangents. Suddenly it all changes, and Make Me Famous adopts a true-crime quality." [4]
The Guardian called the film a "touching documentary revisits the grimy Manhattan of the 70s and 80s in search of long-lost painter Edward Brezinski." [5]
Artforum called the film a "brilliantly digressive structure for a feature-length movie...remarkably loving and deeply empathetic conjuring for which Vincent should be commended, the conceit of this picture, what has indeed sold it so successfully to audiences, is how its protagonist is ultimately a surrogate, a blank upon which we can project the full spectrum of desire and dread that circulates through creative ambition like the lifeblood of culture.” [6]
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