Andy Warhol eats fast food
December 24th, 2008 by Cliff Bostock in Food & LifeI just filed my end-of-year Grazing rant, part of which was devoted to the rise in consumption of fast food because of the recession. In looking around the Internets, I came across this clip of Andy Warhol eating a hamburger in Jørgen Leth’s 1982 film “66 scener fra Amerika,” a Danish film whose title means “66 scenes from America.”
The scene is reminiscent of Warhol’s own early style of sitting cameras before people for hours and hours. As a teenager I used to go to a hidden-away art theater owned by George Ellis, who played the horror-show host Bestoink Dooley on local TV, to see Warhol’s films. I’m talking the super-boring ones like 8-hours of the Empire State Building, just standing there, in “Empire.” And there was the 3-plus hours of “The Chelsea Girls,” actually six hours projected on a split screen.
At one point, Ellis owned a theater at Ansley Mall, where he screened Warhol’s “Lonesome Cowboys,”. I was there the night the theater was raided by the police and the projector shut down.
Eating a fast food burger — Burger King, I think — seems like a perfect performance piece for an artist who was obsessed with repetition, icons of pop culture and tedium. Have a look and imagine yourself in his place.
December 25th, 2008 at 1:48 am
Which “hidden away art theater”?
December 25th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I can’t recall the name, Gabrielle.
I do recall that Ellis operated the Festival Cinema on Spring Street in downtown Atlanta. It’s the first place I saw a foreign-language film. I remember that people smoked during the films and you could get fancy coffee drinks. I also recall that to make ends meet, Ellis screened porn films now and then.
I also know he operated the Film Forum at Ansley Mall. His son Michael Ellis was part of that.
But I can’t recall where I saw the early Warhol films. I’m thinking they were at a location out Peachtree (not Garden Hills, where I think he landed a while too), but I can’t remember the name and a brief Google search didn’t help.
December 26th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Ah, well thanks for trying, Cliff. I ask because I’ve lived in the Atlanta metro area since the mid ’60s, and I remember some very cool theatres, but I wasn’t sure if I knew that one or not. Of course there was the Silver Screen, and the Screening Room, and the Ellis Cinema where Variety Playhouse is now – the first I remember serving real butter on the popcorn, and wine and beer in glasses! I remember the Film Forum in Ansley too. Ah, the era prior to the multiplex – those were the good old days.
I remember people smoking in theatres (smoking everywhere really). Hard to believe, right?
I never saw any of Warhol’s films, but I think I’ve always been intrigued. Oddly, I sort of enjoyed watching him eat his burger. Thanks for posting the video.