The Andy Warhol Diaries on Screen
Andy Warhol is arguably the most famous artist of his generation, and his work still resonates today, 35 years after his untimely death. But what do we know about the man behind the cultural icon?
Acclaimed filmmaker Andrew Rossi is the writer and director of the Netflix docuseries, The Andy Warhol Diaries. In this 6-part series, Andrew brings Warhol’s diaries brilliantly to life. In the process he helps us learn how Andy Warhol – the talented, sensitive, gay and religious man – was far more complex and human than his public persona ever led on.
“There can be competing thoughts within someone’s worldviews and what they confess in their diaries.” - Andrew Rossi
Time Stamps:
00:00 - A clip from The Andy Warhol Diaries.
02:36 - What the docuseries is about.
06:40 - What Andrew thought about Andy Warhol before starting the project.
08:45 - How Warhol’s diaries are interpreted differently from when they were first released.
10:54 - The impact editor Pat Hackett had on how Warhol's diaries were published.
12:58 - The public persona Warhol created.
15:14 - Common misconceptions people have about Warhol’s life.
19:36 - The spiritual aspects of his later work.
25:25 - The complex nature of Warhol’s life and the subjective nature of his diary.
27:40 - How it felt to make a film about such an iconic figure.
33:35 - What it was like going through the archive of material they had access to.
35:14 - The challenges of interviewing Warhol's old friends and peers.
37:21 - The unique insight this docuseries gives into Warhol's life.
42:14 - The capitalistic side of art that came out in the 1980s.
Resources:
The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022)
The Andy Warhol Diaries (Book)
The Green Fog (2017)
Couch (1964)
Blow Job (1963)
The MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures
Connect with Andrew Rossi:
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Transcript for Factual America Episode 93: The Andy Warhol Diaries on Screen
Andrew Rossi 00:00
Hi, I'm Andrew Rossi, and I'm the director and executive producer of The Andy Warhol Diaries.
Speaker 1 00:06
Warhol could see beauty all around him, but not very much in himself. And, you know, for a gay guy, if you're not going to be the stud, you might as well be the freak. You know, drag queens have taught us this for a long time. You're not going to beat me up because I'm going to dress up. I'm going to create something. I'm going to create this image that's so powerful, that you can't get to me.
Speaker 2 00:34
That comes out when you start to think about the uniform with Warhol and the persona.
Speaker 3 00:40
And really transforming his physical appearance and his physical image in order to enter into this very exclusive world.
Speaker 4 00:48
So, what are you making yourself up today?
Speaker 5 00:51
What am I making myself up to be? Oh, just better looking.
Matthew 01:06
This is Factual America. We're brought to you by Alamo Pictures, an Austin and London based production company, making documentaries about America for international audiences. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary and then talk with the filmmakers and their subjects. This week, it is my pleasure to welcome acclaimed filmmaker Andrew Rossi, writer and director of the Netflix docu-series, The Andy Warhol Diaries. Andy Warhol almost requires no introduction. Arguably the most famous artist of his generation, Warhol's work still resonates today, 35 years after his untimely death, but what do we know about the man behind the cultural icon? His diaries, which Andrew Rossi has brought brilliantly to life, give us a clue. Stay tuned as we learn how Warhol the man, talented, sensitive, gay, and religious was far more complex and human than his public persona ever let on. Andrew, welcome to Factual America. How are things with you?
Andrew Rossi 02:07
They are great. Thank you so much for having me.
Matthew 02:09
Yeah, it's our pleasure. Well, it's a docu-series, The Andy Warhol Diaries, released on March 9 on Netflix. So, congratulations on that. And won't you - I mean, we've said in the intro, basically saying Andy Warhol doesn't need to be introduced, but maybe you can give us an introduction in terms of what The Andy Warhol Diaries docu-series is all about. Maybe a synopsis.
Andrew Rossi 02:36
Definitely. Well, so, Andy Warhol is very much a part of our visual landscape and a cultural icon that we all know so well, but more as a mythic figure than an actual living, breathing human being. And so, The Andy Warhol Diaries is a series that attempts to go behind the public performance that Andy provided, and to understand his role as a gay man who had relationships, and his artwork. Most importantly, the artwork that he created in the last 10 years of his life, which has not been studied as closely as some of the more famous pop works of the 1960s, all through the lens of this diary that he kept in the last 10 years, from 1976 to 1987. And so, the series presents his own words from the diaries that I and our whole team tried to take out of the text to explain what his motivations were, what his relationships were, and how those influence the artwork he made and how we might interpret his, sort of, cultural legacy and the shadow he casts in a way that is very contemporary and resonates with the current moment.
Matthew 04:01
Okay. Well, and speaking of that, why - I mean, again, it's 35 years since his death, he's subject of multiple books, films, wealth of scholarship, why tell this story now? What's led to this project happening now here in 2022?
Andrew Rossi 04:18
Sure, you know, it's interesting, because I started developing the project back in 2011. On the heels of another film that I had done that sort of tried to go behind the scenes of a big institution. In that case, it was the New York Times for a film called Page One that I made. And I've always been drawn to stories that reveal the humanity or something about a mythic figure, institution that we don't know in the hopes that it would provide some kind of either ethical or other revelatory insight. And I think, understanding Andy's queerness and his humanity plays an important role in dismantling the sort of asexual robot cliche around him in the past, but it also is an opportunity for us, the viewers, and also the people participating in the series, the interviewees, to go back and look at how so many of the values that prevailed 40 years ago have changed. One of the biggest of those is same sex marriage being legalized in the United States. And generally, the idea that queer relationships are valid and can have long term viability. Those have really changed the ways that I think queer people see their lives. And that resonates even more today, when we have laws that are being advocated for in places like Florida - the Don't Say Gay law - and other protections that are being fought for trans people in Texas and all around the world, really. So, I think humanizing Andy Warhol as a queer icon, rather than a sort of simplistic provocateur, has a lot of other ramifications that I think are positive.
Matthew 06:25
So, what were your impressions of Warhol going in? I mean, you say you first thought about this over 10 years ago, but did you think of him as a, back then, as a gay icon before you started going into this project? And did you realize he was much more complex than we'd always been led to believe?
Andrew Rossi 06:41
So, I did. I grew up in New York City, and I saw Andy's work when I was a young person, my dad would take me to art galleries and museums. And, you know, his work was fun. It had a very vibrant color palette, and the serial images like Elvis repeated, or the portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor, they sort of jumped out to me as a kid. And in high school, the diaries were published, and I remember going home from school, after getting off the Crosstown bus and seeing the book in a bookstore window. And immediately going in and purchasing it. I think, because I was growing up in a very homophobic environment, and I was, you know, figuring out my sexuality as a bisexual man, and Andy Warhol was a kind of a safe space. He was a role model. He wasn't, you know, as we discussed in the series, out in a sort of formal or official way at that point. But I think there was something about his footprint in the culture that gave permission to people to be themselves, to be sort of outsiders, whether it be in their sexual identity, or in other ways. And he had the show Andy Warhol's Television on public access cable that I watched. And so, he was somebody that really drew me in, even then.
Matthew 08:18
And so well, that's a very interesting point. So, you read those diaries when you're in high school, basically. Because I think it comes out in the docu-series as well that people, when they re-read them many years later, they kind of see them in a different light. So, is that - because they must have spoken to you in one way then. Does it speak to you a different way now, those diaries?
Andrew Rossi 08:45
Yes, it does, because when they were published, the scandal at the time was all about how Andy was talking about Liz Taylor or other celebrities and drug use and going to Studio 54, and the sort of glamorous peccadilloes of the famous. And there was almost a sort of listing of parties and the celebrities who were in attendance that was obsessive, and like a kind of forcefield, or set of distractions from what Andy was actually saying about himself. And so, when I first picked it up, back then in high school, it seemed almost like an art object that contained these lists, and needed to be deciphered further, and it wasn't until 2011 when I was reading it again, I was in Europe, showing Page One to different places, and it was sometimes a little bit of a lonely process and I would go back to the hotel room or go to a coffee shop somewhere and read the diaries, and I was shocked when Andy started talking about his boyfriend Jed Johnson, and then later his pursuit of Jon Gould, and his discussion about these auction prices for other artists like Roy Lichtenstein or Jasper Johns. And so, then, I started to realize, wow, if you read between the lines of some of these parties, there are these really - these great nuggets of information about Andy himself and this sort of spiritual quest for meaning that he's on.
Matthew 10:22
Yeah. I mean, and not to get sidetracked with this, but, so Pat Hackett, who edited the original diaries, I mean, and you interview her in the docu-series extensively, I mean, she had to edit them down - she was an editor, and there's like, what, 20,000 pages or something of notes - so, I mean, you do discuss it with her, but how do you - I mean, what's your feel? Did she leave anything out that maybe should have been left in? Or - it's a hard one to call, isn't it.
Andrew Rossi 10:53
Yes, it's really fascinating to think about how Pat had a particular impact on what is published, not only in terms of how she selected the stories, but also in terms of how Andy would have performed his life, for her, also. And she says, in the last episode, that, you know, if Andy had been speaking to Christopher Makos, who was actually the person that Andy had as the companion, and was more a part of Andy's queer life and social life, then the diary could have been totally different, and maybe would have emphasized even more some of his romantic pursuits. You know, but Pat, I think, had a real sense of what at the time was considered pop or mainstream and accessible. And so, she says that she wanted there always to be a balance between the personal and also the public, and enough celebrities to kind of keep people interested. You know, I think that's another change 40 years later. Perhaps there's more bandwidth among audiences to go down the road of a story that's more personal and more intimate versus only having the boldface names.
Andrew Rossi 10:55
Right, or the gossip, which we are already aware of now, anyway, because it's just readily available, isn't it?
Andrew Rossi 12:19
Absolutely. And, you know, yesterday's gossip today, maybe doesn't mean anything. I mean, you know, that's one thing, you know, when I was going through all the proper names, you might not know who they are now. So, I think it's the inner struggle and journey that really transcends.
Matthew 12:36
Interesting. That's a very good point. I mean, for our younger listeners, because I remember, Interview magazine, and these sorts of things, I'm of that age, but - I mean, his whole life was performance art. I mean, his whole life was a performance, wasn't it? At least his public life.
Andrew Rossi 12:57
Yes. You know, Andy, when he came to New York, he struggled to be successful in the art world. And he made a sort of fateful decision that I think has had an impact on the rest of our culture to drop the 'A' off of his last name, Warhola. He was the son of immigrants, and he always struggled with the way that his skin looked, and his, you know, baldness from a young age, and he decided to wear a white wig. And he created this character, Andy Warhol, that became his sort of armor. And it was a persona that he tried to embody, when he did interviews with the press, who would ask him to explain his artwork, and its meaning and it was a way for him to deflect questions, and to sort of hide behind a costume and again, a persona.
Matthew 13:56
Yeah. And so, I mean, it must be - it's an amazing challenge for a filmmaker to try to get through that because it's, as you said, it's this - it's, I don't know, it's this almost impenetrable wall that we have that is his persona, and what those of us of a certain age, remember, or those who just see the videos online or whatever. I mean, maybe coming into this, you'd read the diaries, you had a second read, you're interviewing people, but what have we gotten wrong about the story? I guess there's a few different areas that - so, one is this idea of him being this asexual robot, right, which he said plenty of times that that's what he was, in essence, but, you know, as the diaries show, or at least more than hint at, and as you show with all your well documented, he was avowedly homosexual man. That was his life. That's who he was. Was that all his sort of construction? This whole idea of being asexual. Was it part of trying to fit in? What do you think was driving that?
Andrew Rossi 15:14
As you say, there are so many different myths and efforts by Andy to construct an image that making the series required several levels of sort of peeling back the layers. And the diaries really help in that effort, because Andy's own words and the voice that is provided by a combination of AI and the actor Bill Irwin, give you Andy's own sort of confession of feeling totally awkward saying that he is a freak. And talking about the ways in which, for example, when ABC News comes with the 20/20 crew to see how he is putting together portraits, how much he's afraid for also the financial health of his company, Andy Warhol Enterprises. And so, I think, I hope the viewer starts to understand that Andy is constantly juggling many different stakes. And one of those is his sense that, as a gay man, that he won't be accepted by a society that, you know, when he first was growing up in Pittsburgh, deemed homosexuality illegal, and a mental illness. He is also struggling with his religious background, which views homosexuality as immoral. But it is actually within his Byzantine Catholicism, I think that we start to find the first big revelation. People were unaware that Andy was a very religious person and went to church at St. Vincent Ferrer in Manhattan. Throughout the work week, he would go, you know, even as an older man, but then also, his mother, Julia took him to Mass on Sundays, three Masses, back-to-back, it's reported. And it's in that context that he discovered a form of painting that is part of the Byzantine Catholic Church, the iconostasis, which shows saints in a very flat surface. So, he gains a sort of formal approach that we can see traces of in his portraits, but he also gains an approach to spirituality that comes through a lot in the diaries. And I think that's the other thing that in peeling back the layers comes through: love, for him, and the search for connection to his romantic partners, is explicitly part of the way that he frames his effort to fill the void, to - he says he has desperate feelings, and he feels empty. And then he says, and that's why I would like to fall in love with, for example, Jon Gould. And that's where we bring in the other characters like Jed and Jon, and then ultimately, Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Matthew 18:37
Yeah. And I think - I mean, as you mentioned, too, certainly in Byzantine, and also Orthodox, Christianity, the icons are also - it's a way into God, actually, through, you know, they are a gateway to God, in a way. So, he obviously replicates that throughout, you know, his art. It's very interesting. And yet, and I guess this also points out to this point - I guess this, you know, we could - we don't have long enough to go through all the myths, you would probably tell me, but this idea that, you know, people just think - some people just think of him for the 60s, right, the pop art, the Campbell's Soup cans and all that stuff. But he had these other periods in his life, which - some probably now, I don't know, did he have a retrospective recently, I think, in New York. I mean, it was just probably, you know, people are looking at that last decade of his life.
Andrew Rossi 19:36
Yes, you know, there was the Whitney exhibition, Andy Warhol - The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, From A to B and Back Again in 2018 that Donna De Salvo organized and then after that there was a Tate exhibition. Both of these put much more emphasis on Andy's later work from the 70s into the 80s than ever before, and I think that's really critical. And as you suggest the religious components of Andy's worldview really come to bear in this work. And it provides an incredible insight into his whole career because the search for meaning and some kind of spiritual insight and a reckoning with God and mortality are actually behind a lot of the work that many of us have seen. On the first layer is, like, a comment on consumer culture, and consumerism. So, we look at the Campbell soup can or we look at the images of celebrities, and they play in a pop vernacular as a found object, iconized in a really dramatic presentation, as just like one of the artifacts of contemporary life. But I think when you understand that Andy is also looking at the world as a Catholic, and with a sense of the judgment of God and ultimately, Jesus Christ, as we see in the Last Supper paintings, which are the last ones he does, we can interpret some of his other paintings like the electric chair, or some of his later advertising slogans that say, Heaven and Hell are just one breath away, as comments on the existential crisis of, you know, what does it mean to be on this earth, and to be close to death at all times. This takes on even more significance during the HIV-AIDS crisis, when Andy, like so many other gay men is thinking about the AIDS crisis, as Jeffrey Deitch says, every hour. This is a condition of life, basically from 1982 till he dies, that is inescapable and it comes through in searing language in the diaries. And I think the other fascinating thing is that with Jean-Michel Basquiat, he starts to pick up the brush again. And he starts doing work with more symbolic narrative. And so, again, in The Last Supper, there are depictions of Jesus and other sort of totemic symbols that participate in some sort of effort for Andy to think about God as both judge and as agent of mercy, somebody who can deliver him. So, these are, you know, focusing on the late work, really, first of all, puts emphasis on some of these canvases that are stunning and incredible, like the camouflage and the Rorschach. But it also gives you a whole other window into, you know, these images of the 20th century that have many layers.
Matthew 23:14
Hold that thought, as I know you will. We'll give our listeners a quick break. And we'll be right back with Andrew Rossi, writer, executive producer, director of The Andy Warhol Diaries released on March 9 on Netflix.
Factual America midroll 23:30
If you enjoy Factual America, check out the MovieMaker podcast. That's all one word: MovieMaker, where our friends at moviemaker.com interview everyone from filmmakers just breaking in to A-Listers like David Fincher and Edgar Wright, about their movie making secrets and behind the scenes tricks of the trade. They go deep and let the guests speak uninterrupted, to get you the most film insight. Now back to Factual America.
Matthew 23:59
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with acclaimed filmmaker Andrew Rossi, the writer and director and exec. producer of The Andy Warhol Diaries, released this month, March 2022, on Netflix. Do give it a look, and give it a watch. It's six episodes, but it flies by, I will say. It was a very - I think, if I may say, people will be referencing this work, I'm sure, long from now when they're talking about Andy Warhol. We were talking about Warhol and the myths and the persona, and if there's one last thing I would say on that, I mean, what we've discussed about just now, the last period of his life and the art he was doing and what he was going through and the AIDS crisis and everything, this is certainly not someone who's superficial. You know, this is - you know, which is - I mean, you know, you can Google it, look it up, there's David Bowie quotes and stuff like that about Lou Reed saying, you know, have a wind up doll and you pull it up, and I think Andy would not say anything or do anything, you know, it's because, kind of, was this persona. But it's - that's what struck me, I think, through all this is just - this is a very as most great, well, most of us are, but most great people are, a very complex individual, isn't he?
Andrew Rossi 25:23
That's absolutely right. I think, as you say, as most of us are, right. No one is really as simplistic as, you know, the cardboard, you know, sort of cliche that comes up. And so, I think, in humanizing someone like Andy Warhol there are other takeaways that may be applied to all of our lives. And hopefully that's one way in which the viewer can connect with this depiction of Andy. There's a certain sadness and loneliness. There's also great fun times and optimism that he's having. But I think maybe we can all relate to the pain of just being human in this world.
Matthew 26:07
And I think maybe that also gets to this complexity. One other thing that sort of struck me was that, so we've got Pat Hackett's diary and as we've already discussed, depending on who Andy would have been talking to, you would have gotten something different. But what also strikes me is you interview a lot of people, a lot of incredible people, close friends of Andy Warhol's, and then others who knew him. Everyone's got a slightly different - everyone's got a different story about the same event. You know, it's an interesting one; that must have been hard to try to get that all pieced together. But it is, I guess, it's just, that's human nature as well.
Andrew Rossi 26:46
That's absolutely right, there is a subjectivity to Andy's recollection of events. And, you know, it's always important to remember that this is not the gospel truth. This is Andy's interpretation. And in that respect, hopefully, it is rich with his emotional investment and sort of his jealousies and his loves. And, you know, this is not an objective history. It's one person's way into it.
Matthew 27:19
Yeah. And, you know, let's pivot a little bit in terms of the film, I mean, so how do you go about making a film about a cultural icon, especially one who is a filmmaker himself? That must be a hard act to live to. How do you live up to those expectations? Or do you worry about that?
Andrew Rossi 27:39
No, I mean, I definitely - I didn't worry about it so much as think it was an amazing opportunity to lean into a storytelling style and a formalistic style that would honor Andy's own visual spectacle and his work. And so, you know, Andy Warhol is a pioneer of appropriation art, of taking, you know, images and objects in the popular culture, and re-presenting them in a way that, as Jeffrey Deitch explains, comes from Duchamp at the beginning of the century, but takes that to another level, with mass media being widely available, where the object or the celebrity, Marilyn Monroe, has a meaning already, and then if framed on a canvas in a different way, takes all that meaning and then takes on new meaning. And so, I wanted to do that with Andy's own artwork, and also with the movies that he saw in the 70s and the 80s, and the ways that he describes them in the diaries, whether it's The Outsiders, which is a movie with Rob Lowe. That is, you know, as much about male love as it is about the greasers, quote unquote, who are literally the outsiders.
Matthew 29:09
Yeah.
Andrew Rossi 29:11
A movie like Mommie Dearest, which features Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford, whom Andy identifies with. And then, you know, his own films, as you said, he's a filmmaker, and so, when he made Blow Job or Couch or other films in the 60s, those are clues to his actual interests, and his homoerotic approach to imagery, and I worked with our editor, Stephen Ross, to create a sort of cinematic language, a visual language, that could be either complementing or in tension with, what Andy was actually saying. So, that at any given moment, you're hearing Andy's voice talking about his intentions in doing something and you can tell that he's being coy, or he's, you know, deflecting something. But then what we see might be an image from Andy's previous work. And yeah, so hopefully that was a gauntlet thrown down that was good.
Matthew 30:28
Yeah. So, instead of being a challenge, actually, it's an incredible opportunity and a lot of fun, I imagine. It gives you more freedom than you would have with maybe some other docs.
Andrew Rossi 30:38
Yes. This is the first time that I've written really extensive scripts for all the episodes. And so, I tried to map out how can we tell, you know, a given scene in both, you know, with one auditory track and another visual one, and then we just had fun, you know, in creating it. It reminded me of a couple of other movies like Green Fog, by Guy Maddin, and the work of Richard Prince. There's just so much to play with there.
Matthew 31:11
And you just mentioned his voice and audio. I mean, you have an actor. You used AI? How did that come about? And how did that work out?
Andrew Rossi 31:21
Yes, well, I was really lucky to collaborate with Resemble AI, which is a company that does cloning of voices. And we worked with them to create an algorithm that took a data set of Andy speaking with his Pittsburgh accent and his sort of halting cadence. And from that algorithm, we're able to draft different scenes. And then I think I realized that we weren't getting close enough. And so, I recorded with Bill Irwin, who's an amazing actor, who's done a lot of stage work with the plays of Samuel Beckett and others, and really is attuned to the sort of poetry of ordinary language. And so, having Bill voice Andy was amazing. And so, he recorded all of the lines that I selected for the series, and then we combined those with the algorithm in an interpolated model.
Matthew 32:30
It's interesting, because I would have - I mean, it wasn't until I looked at the credits that I noticed, because at first, I thought you actually had Pat Hackett's old recordings of all the - it's that well done. I mean, it's - it does - you know, it, you think, you definitely think you're listening to Andy Warhol.
Andrew Rossi 32:47
Well, that's great. I mean, I think, you know, Andy naturally had a bit of flatness to his voice. And he also said that he wanted to be a machine, you know, he had so much of a sensitive heart, as Luc Sante says, his heart was, like, wrapped in gauze, he was that sensitive. He didn't want to have feelings and wanted to be like a robot and indeed had himself made into a robot and a hologram. So, it felt like the AI voice would honor this artistic practice and would be another self-portrait.
Matthew 33:20
And then you've got - I mean, you're spoilt for choice when it came to archive. I mean, you must - must have taken you ages to go through all that to decide - and to assemble all that along with all the subjects that you interview.
Andrew Rossi 33:34
It absolutely - it was such a joy. I worked with co-producer Adam McGill and co-EP Stacey Reiss, who helped to organize the blanket license with the Warhol Foundation. We had access to all of Andy's paintings and photographs. There are over 120,000 negatives, I believe, from Andy's contact sheets, photo snapshots that he took in the last 10 years, and those are all available online now at the Stanford Collection, the Stanford Library Collection. So, we basically created connections between these scenes that Andy describes in the diaries and the documentation, whether through publicly available archives, like CBS News, or, you know, or other sources, and then the photographs that Andy had taken, and then what interviewees explained, and created a tapestry.
Matthew 34:42
And then an amazing, incredible cast of subjects, ranging from everyone at Andy Warhol Enterprises, the 80s art scene, certainly. And then celebrities that we're still fortunate to have with us - some aren't, we're not that fortunate, they're not that old. Was that a challenge at all? Or does everyone just is like, Oh, I'm, you know, I'm making a film about Andy Warhol's diaries, and everyone just pretty much said yes.
Andrew Rossi 35:14
Well, there were some concerns, naturally. But on the other hand, you know, when we were in production, it was basically, in the middle to the end of the pandemic. And so, several people had passed away recently: Bridget Berlin, John Richardson a few years before, you know, there was this sense that this might be one of the last times where everyone could participate - Andy's peers, those who lived through the moment, to contribute. And so, you know, those who said, Yes, I think were really open to digging deep. I think for me, the biggest interviews, that were critical, were Jay Gould and Jay Johnson, the twin brothers of Andy's key romantic partners, Jed and Jon. You know, when I went to film with Jay Gould, I just was very moved that he would sort of open up this story, which in many ways had sort of been erased, and talk about his brother who was in the closet and had lived essentially a double life. In very stark, and sincere terms, and so, those were really important. And then, as you suggest, also other figures who, you know, don't always get called on to talk about this period, Lee Quinones, I mean, Fab 5 Freddy is an expert on this, but I was, you know, very happy that he agreed to participate. You know, digging into the background, Greg Tate, also who sadly passed away, of that 80s period was important.
Matthew 37:04
And then I think even one of them, Christopher Makos who even said, he feels like he's talking to a shrink. He really felt pushed in some ways. But I mean, in a good way. I mean, you have to explore the issues.
Andrew Rossi 37:19
I think so, I think, you know, the question that I've, or the thing that I've heard a lot of people say, like, Oh, I see that there's another Andy Warhol series, and why should I, you know, like, people maybe feel like they've seen it already. And so, I knew that going into it, and I thought this is not worth doing unless there's really a new insight into who Andy was. And also, participants are challenged, that I can really ask them to go back 35, 40 years and reckon with how things have changed, and what was it that they saw in the factory, and I hope I got close to doing that and did so in a way that is, you know, revealing and also respectful to them. And I think Christopher feels, as you mentioned, Christopher Makos, you know, went on a journey to understand the role that he played in Andy's life through the altered images series, which was, you know, depicting Andy in female clothes, and was part of his way to explore his own identity.
Matthew 38:31
Yeah, no, I think, I mean, unfortunately, we're about to come to the end of our time together, but I mean, the thing is, there's so much to explore with Andy Warhol's life and everything surrounding that. There's a reason you need six episodes, at least, and that's just dealing with this, basically, these last 10 years, primarily, so, spoiler alert, but, you know, Jay Gould's mother had quite a find, we had quite a find in her attic, didn't we? But you'll watch - get to Episode Six, you'll see what - you'll see what we're talking about. But I do highly recommend everyone watch this because it is very insightful. I think it just - it really rounds out the man that for someone like me probably had a very two dimensional view of, so I do appreciate that. I mean, what's next for you? I'm assuming you're not resting on your laurels. What do you have next in line in terms of your projects?
Andrew Rossi 39:39
Well, I think I'm still assessing what would be another large scale work of this sort. I mean, I'm interested in the story of Leo Castelli as well, the art dealer who worked with Andy, but also with Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg who were lovers and part of a broader queer scene with Merce Cunningham and John Cage and others that we don't always think of in those terms. And then I'm also interested in some designers in the fashion world who have influenced our views of masculinity and the male gaze through advertising in this period, as well, and understanding what their backstories are in a way that hopefully is, again, unerasing certain things that we sort of, we take for granted, or we don't ask the question.
Matthew 40:45
Yeah, I thought that - I mean, I'm not wearing this in homage, but the preppy handbook was kind of an interesting segment in one of the episodes, too, and never - even the author hadn't really thought of it in the way that then it's kind of - you could see the revelation that came in her eyes as you were interviewing her.
Andrew Rossi 41:05
Definitely, I mean, and that's another thing that I sort of lived through, I remember the sort of the, like, hegemony, practically the cultural sort of pressure of this greed is good in 1980s, like, preppy aesthetic that was actually, in many ways, corrosive. I mean, certainly, you know, like, the sweater you are wearing is - it's a comfortable thing that maybe has lost its potency now.
Matthew 41:35
Right.
Andrew Rossi 41:35
And that's part of it, right? It's like those things, they become part of the culture, and we've stopped questioning them, but at the moment, they have a lot of power, and I think there's value in going back and understanding why, you know, what is the meaning of those symbols?
Matthew 41:48
And then was the 80s - so, you know, we don't usually think of the 80s - well, that's how we usually think of 80s is, you know, what was going on with preppies? You know, that kind of element, but then was the 80s art scene a reaction to that? Because that is an amazing art scene, just like the scene you discussed previously, that you might be exploring in a future film was an incredible art scene for its time, you just think of those names.
Andrew Rossi 42:13
Yes, well, I think you see the sort of the properties of Wall Street being applied to the fine art world, and the effort to commodify the works of artists as rock stars in a way that is definitely like, everything has to be under the yoke of capitalism and turbocharged in order to have value, and then, of course, there are tributaries of diverging opinion and movement and revolt against that, that can be found as well.
Matthew 42:45
Well, I guess you even have Warhol saying that there's no greater art than good business or something to that effect.
Andrew Rossi 42:52
Yes, that's absolutely right. And I think, you know, maybe he meant it ironically, or almost as satire, but there is a kernel of truth to that. And that's another reason why a lot of people maybe recoil at the thought of Andy. But that's something that, you know, can't be brushed over. And certainly, I tackle that. But at least Andy does say, after attending the Reagan inauguration that even though he'd sort of liked the enthusiasm of the Republicans, he's happy he's a Democrat, so that's a consolation to me.
Matthew 43:33
Or, but - I mean, well, one final question. I mean, with Warhol, what do we, I mean, because we've discussed Dylan, who comes out of this world with, you know, Bob Dylan, you know, what is the persona, what is real, what isn't, when he says something, what is - is it meant to be irony, ironic; is it meant to be - you know; do you have a radar for that? Does anyone have a radar for that?
Andrew Rossi 44:01
Sure. I do think that the diaries, when Andy talks about his feeling of not being good enough, and wanting to go on The Love Boat, or when he talks about certain movies, like, for example, The Neverending Story, and he says, it's all about the nothing, and that's my philosophy. I think it's actually in those smaller moments that we get a sense of who the real Andy was. But I also think that anyone can contain multitudes. And in fact, it's [inaudible] who says that Andy is like Walt Whitman, which is maybe an extreme example of that, but there can be competing thoughts within someone's worldview, and in fact, what they confess in the diaries.
Matthew 44:53
Indeed. Maybe we'll leave it at that, okay. Thank you, Andrew, so much. Thank you. We've been speaking with Andrew Ross - Rossi, sorry, Andrew Rossi, writer and director of The Andy Warhol Diaries, released on March 9 on Netflix. I'd like to give a shout out to Sam and Joe Graves at Innersound Audio in Escrick, England, in deepest, darkest Yorkshire. A big thanks to Nevena Paunovic, podcast manager at Alamo Pictures who ensures we continue getting great guests onto the show. And finally, a big thanks to our listeners. As always, we love to hear from you, so please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas. You can reach out to us on YouTube, social media, or directly by going to our website, www.factualamerica.com and clicking on the Get in Touch link. And as always, please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America signing off.
Factual America Outro 45:50
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