Paul Morrissey

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For other people named Paul Morrissey, see Paul Morrissey (disambiguation).
Paul Morrissey
Born (1938-02-23) February 23, 1938 (age 86)
New York City, U.S.
OccupationFilmmaker
Known forWarhol superstar

Paul Morrissey (born February 23, 1938) is an American film director, known for his early association with Andy Warhol.[1] His most famous films include Flesh (1968 film), Trash (1970), Heat (1972 film), Flesh For Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974), all starring Joe Dallesandro and produced by Warhol, and the New York 80's trilogy Forty Deuce (1982), Mixed Blood (1985) and Spike of Bensonhurst (1988).[2]

From 1965 - 1973, Morrissey ran the publicity and filmmaking activity for Warhol at The Factory (first at E. 47th St. and then at 33 Union Square in New York City).[3] Additionally, he managed the Velvet Underground and Nico and co-conceived and named Warhol's traveling multi-media Happening the Exploding Plastic Inevitable.[4] [5]In 1969, alongside Warhol and publisher John Wilcock, Morrissey launched the print magazine Interview.[6]

In 1998, Morrissey was given the Jack Smith Lifetime Achievement Award at the Chicago Underground Film Festival.[7]

Early life and career[edit]

Of Irish extraction, Paul Joseph Morrissey was born in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx. The second youngest of five children, Morrissey would attend Fordham Prep and Fordham University, both Catholic schools. Upon graduation, he enlisted with the United States Army, going through basic training at Fort Benning and Fort Dix, achieving the rank of First Lieutenant. While on reserves from active duty, he moved to the East Village in late 1960 opening the Exit Gallery, a small cinematheque at 36 E. 4th St., where he programmed a mix of underground films and documentaries including Icarus (1960), the first film by Brian De Palma.[8] Simultaneously, Morrissey began making his own short, silent 16mm comedies including Mary Martin Does It (1962), Taylor Mead Dances (1963) and Like Sleep (1964).[9] [10]

Introduced by poet and filmmaker Gerard Malanga, he first met Andy Warhol in June 1965 at the Astor Place Playhouse where Morrissey was screening a retrospective of his work. Warhol, taken by Morrissey's resourcefulness and filmmaking expertise, invited him to the Factory to assist him with his next project Space (1965 film), filmed at the E. 47th St. Factory in July 1965 and featuring Edie Sedgwick, Danny Fields, Donald Lyons (a friend of Morrissey's from his Fordham University days) and folk-singer Eric Andersen. Several more Warhol-Morrissey collaborations followed including My Hustler (1965), Chelsea Girls (1966), Imitation of Christ (film) (1967), Tub Girls (1967), Bike Boy (1967), I, a Man (1967), San Diego Surf (film) (1968) and Lonesome Cowboys (1968).[11]

While filming a scene in the Manhattan apartment of John Wilcock for Andy Warhol's 25 hour movie Four Stars (1967 film), Morrissey first met Joe Dallesandro who had arrived there to meet a friend. Morrissey immediately cast him in a scene that would later appear in Loves of Ondine (1967), Dallesandro's first appearance in a Factory film.[12]

After the attempt on Warhol's life in June 1968 by Valerie Solonas, Morrissey directed his first solo feature Flesh (1968 film). Produced for $4,000 by Andy Warhol and starring Joe Dallesandro alongside Maurice Braddell, Geri Miller, Geraldine Smith, Louis Waldon, Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling the film became a box office hit in West Germany where over 3 million tickets were sold.[13]

Flesh (1968) — German lobby card featuring Joe Dallesandro and Louis Waldon

The commercial and popular success of Flesh continued into the 1970s with two more films directed by Morrissey, produced by Warhol and starring Dallesandro: Trash (1970 film), featuring Jane Forth and Holly Woodlawn, the first transgender actress ever cast as the girlfriend of a lead character,[14] and Heat (1972 film), a satire about Hollywood based on Sunset Boulevard (film) starring Dallesandro alongside Sylvia Miles.

In 1971, Morrissey would executive produce and direct Women in Revolt a send-up of the Women's liberation movement starring trans Warhol superstars Jackie Curtis, Holly Woodlawn and Candy Darling.[15] A film still of Candy Darling from Women In Revolt appears on the cover of the Sheila Take a Bow single by The Smiths, the second such instance of a Morrissey film appearing on the cover of a Smith's record.

Reflecting on this period in an interview with Lucy Hughes-Hallett for British Vogue in 1978, Morrissey said: "To me, moviemaking is dealing with personalities, people who are always the way they are in every film, like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, that kind of film-star personality which is not very fashionable now. It doesn’t really matter what the camera’s doing as long as the people are worth watching.”[16]

Paul Morrissey in 1970; Constantin-Film promotional postcard

Post-Factory years[edit]

In 1973, Morrissey went to Rome to film two features back-to-back Flesh For Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974) starring Dallesandro and Udo Kier. Produced by Carlo Ponti and presented by Andy Warhol, their international success propelled Morrissey out of the Factory and into his first and only attempt at directing a studio film The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978 film), co-written by Morrissey, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. A commercial and critical flop[17], Morrissey moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s and returned to independently produced features starting with Madame Wang's (1981), a satire on the LA punk-rock scene, starring Patrick Schoene alongside Morrissey's niece Christina Indri.[18] [19]

Returning to New York City in the early 1980s, Morrissey began a successful collaboration with playwright and screenwriter Alan Bowne.[20] Beginning with Forty Deuce (1982), starring Orson Bean and Kevin Bacon, Morrissey would collaborate with Bowne on the screenplay for Mixed Blood (1985) and Spike of Bensonhurst (1988), a trilogy of films taking a satirical yet empathetic look at the political, social and moral decay of New York City and its outer bouroughs during the Ed Koch years.[21]

Mixed Blood (1985) advertisement

When film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum asked Morrissey in a 1975 interview for Oui (magazine) why he portrayed drug addicts and street hustlers with such sympathy despite his personal convictions as a lifelong conservative Catholic, Morrissey responded:

"A human being is a sympathetic entity. No matter how terrible a person might be, someone with an artist’s point of view will try to render his individuality without condescension or contempt. That’s the natural function of a dramatist. The movies I’ve made have no connection to my personal beliefs. They don’t say, "Do this", or "Don't do that". They portray a kind of emptiness in people who are living through a transitional cultural period when they don’t know who they are or what to do."[22][23]

Morrissey's most recent feature News From Nowhere (2010) made its U.S. debut at Film at Lincoln Center in fall 2010.[24]

Filmography[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Grimes, William (1995-12-26). "A Warhol Director On What Is Sordid, Then and on MTV (Published 1995)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-12-02.
  2. ^ King-Clements, Eloise (2024-02-22). "Brontez Purnell on Paul Morrissey, the OG Edgelord". Interview Magazine. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  3. ^ https://denniscooperblog.com/paul-morrissey-day/
  4. ^ https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-velvet-underground-and-nico-10-things-you-didnt-know-109041/
  5. ^ https://warholstars.org/velvet_underground_cafe_bizarre.html
  6. ^ https://warholstars.org/warhol/warhol1/warhol1c/warhol1cl/interview.html
  7. ^ "UNDERGROUND FILM FEST A MIX OF THE TASTELESS AND THE ARTFUL". Chicago Tribune. August 7, 1998. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  8. ^ https://books.google.com.au/books?id=-5RfCEnrMhwC&printsec=copyright#v=onepage&q&f=false
  9. ^ https://brooklynrail.org/2005/12/film/the-wild-wild-east
  10. ^ https://books.google.com.au/books?id=-5RfCEnrMhwC&printsec=copyright#v=onepage&q&f=false
  11. ^ "Paul Morrissey meets Andy Warhol". warholstars.org. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  12. ^ Sandstrom, Emily (2024-02-05). "Joe Dallesandro Tells Bruce LaBruce About Life as a Warhol Superstar". Interview Magazine. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  13. ^ "Flesh". warholstars.org. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  14. ^ Lee, Linda (2000-03-05). "A NIGHT OUT WITH: Holly Woodlawn; Talking 'Trash'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  15. ^ https://warholstars.org/women-in-revolt.html
  16. ^ https://www.roxycinemanewyork.com/stories/the-gospel-according-to-paul-morrissey/
  17. ^ https://www.splittoothmedia.com/paul-morrissey-hound-of-the-baskervilles/
  18. ^ https://home-of-films.com/en/festival-film/madame-wangs/
  19. ^ https://burningretina.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/madame-wangs/
  20. ^ https://www.artforum.com/events/forty-deuce-directed-and-adapted-by-paul-morrissey-from-the-play-by-alan-bowne-224569/
  21. ^ https://www.chicagotribune.com/1988/11/11/spike-of-bensonhurst-a-comedy-streaked-with-despair/
  22. ^ "Conversation with Paul Morrissey (Part I) | Jonathan Rosenbaum". jonathanrosenbaum.net. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  23. ^ https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2021/12/conversation-with-paul-morrissey-part-ii/
  24. ^ "An Evening with Paul Morrissey featuring News From Nowhere". Film at Lincoln Center. Retrieved 2024-05-18.

Further reading[edit]

  • For an analysis of each of Morrissey's feature films, see Maurice Yacowar, The Films of Paul Morrissey (Cambridge University Press, 1993).
  • For an indepth interview with Morrissey on his early years as an independent filmmaker, see "Captured: A Film/Video History of the Lower East Side" Clayton Patterson, ed. (New York: Seven Stories, 2005)
  • An indepth interview with Morrissey about his years working with Warhol appears in "The Autobiography and Sex Life of Andy Warhol" by John Wilcock. Edited by Christopher Trela; photographs by Harry Shunk.(New York, Trela Media, 2010.)

External links[edit]


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