Empire (film)

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Movie
Original title Empire
Country of production United States
Publishing year 1964
length 485 minutes
Rod
Director Andy Warhol
production Andy Warhol
camera Jonas Mekas

Empire is a Underground - experimental film and documentary of Andy Warhol . It was shot in 16 mm format on the night of June 25th to 26th, 1964. The premiere took place by the Film-Makers' Cinematheque on March 6, 1965 in City Hall Cinema ( Manhattan ).

content

The eight-hour black and white - silent film shows from unmoved perspective, the upper floors and the top of the Empire State Building in New York City at slumping evening darkness until late into the night at 2:42 PM. The film was filmed from Henry Romney's office on the 44th floor of the Time Life Building . The cameraman was Jonas Mekas , co-director John Palmer. Although filmed with an Auricon sound film camera, Empire was shown without the recorded dialogue between Warhol, Romney, Palmer, Mekas and Gerard Malanga .

background

At 8 hours and 5 minutes, the running time of the film is longer than the real time of the recording (June 25, 1964, 8:06 pm, to June 26, 1964, 2:42 am). This is due to the fact that the film was shot at 24 frames per second and the projection is carried out at 16 frames per second.

Because of its length and because of its seemingly uneventfulness, the film has caused a stir internationally. It is considered one of the most famous and notorious Warhol cinematic works. It was classified as "invisible". Admittedly, this happened under false assumptions from the start. This is a conceptual art work , not a feature film . Rather, Empire is a painting (minimally moved by planes flying by, lights in the houses switched on and off) that stimulates the viewer to meditate on beauty and transience. He is art history in the tradition of vanitas - and Memento mori - iconography .

According to Warhol, the intention of this film is to "watch the passage of time". Due to this artistic intention, shortened versions of the film have not been authorized.

Warhol's assistant at the time, Gerard Malanga , is quoted on the making of the film as saying that Warhol hardly touched the camera during the recording and that this device was supposed to do the artistic work for him.

In 2004 , Empire was inducted into the National Film Registry in recognition of its cultural, historical and aesthetic value .

literature

  • Enno Patalas (Ed.): Andy Warhol and his films - a documentary . Heyne, Munich 1971, ISBN 0-200-41991-9 .
  • Stephen Koch: Stargazer. The Life, World and Films of Andy Warhol . London 1974; Updated reissue by Marion Boyars, New York 2002, ISBN 0-7145-2920-6 .
  • Bernard Blistène (Ed.): Andy Warhol, Cinema: à l'occasion de l'Exposition Andy Warhol Rétrospective (21 juin - 10 septembre 1990) organized à Paris par le Musée National d'Art Moderne au Center Georges Pompidou . Ed. du Center Georges Pompidou, Paris 1990, ISBN 2-908393-30-1 .
  • Debra Miller: Billy Name: Stills from the Warhol films . Prestel, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-7913-1367-3 .
  • Astrid Johanna Ofner (Ed.): Andy Warhol - Filmmaker. A retrospective of the Viennale and the Austrian Film Museum October 1 to 31, 2005 . Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85266-282-6 .

Web links

swell

  1. ^ Museum of Modern Art
  2. warholstars.org