Ric Burns
Producer, Director and Writer
Thursday, September 21, 2006; 3:30 PM
Producer, director and writer Ric Burns was online Thursday, Sept. 21, at 3:30 p.m. ET to discuss his PBS American Masters film, Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film , and the life of the legendary artist.
Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film airs Wednesday, Sept. 20, and Thursday, Sept. 21 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings).
The transcript follows.
Nicknamed the Prince of Pop, Warhol is best known for his paintings of daily objects, such as Campbell Soup cans, and celebrities, like Marilyn Monroe. In the '60s, these paintings gained their popularity because they changed the standards of commercial art by encompassing characteristics of fine art. He also expanded his repertoire to include off-beat films, such as "Sleep," which showed poet John Giorno sleeping for over five hours.
Burns is a well-acclaimed filmmaker known best for New York: A Documentary Film , a 17 and a half hour movie about the evolution of the city that embraces more cultures than anywhere else in the world. The documentary was broadcast over the course of four years in a three part series. The series were awarded prestigious awards such as multiple Emmys for editing and cinematography and Alfred I. du Pont-Columbia University Award for excellence in Broadcast Journalism.
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Bethesda, Md.: Dear Ric,
Thanks for making such an in depth look at Warhol's life. I loved the Warhola to Warhol part. I was struck by the contradiction about Warhol's drive towards fame. He seems to have such a poignant view of consumerism and yet he wanted to mass market himself. Do you have any insight into why that was?
Ric Burns: I think Andy may have had an almost ancient Roman sense of fame as a virtue. The ancient Greeks and Romans thought of fame as a great virtue. It meant that one's reputation was extended in space and time. Because of some quality of value that the famous person had. So the idea that your reputation precedes you meant you had more staying power, you could last longer. And I think that idea of lasting longer, of holding onto the moment, of not falling thru the cracks of time into the abyss - that's at the heart of Andy's desire for fame. Its a profound, deeply human cry to say "I'm here, I know I'm not going to last forever, but while I'm here I'm going to hold onto it as powerfully as I possibly can." And I think all of Andy's work is a meditation on the paradox of being alive, which is to say: I want to hold onto it, I can't hold onto it. He paints his painting of Marilyn Monroe the day she kills herself.
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Buffalo, N.Y.: How did the Warhola family react when they heard you were going to spend time going into the personal details of Warhol's mother?
Ric Burns: The Warhola family was very accommodating. We spent the most time with Andy's middle brother, John. And John Warhola is a remarkable person who has his own sense of his brother, and his own pride in his brother, but I had a profound sense that he had faith that anybody with an open heart and mind would understand his brother correctly. I think that, and this is a guess, that for some Warholas, our frankness about Andy's sexuality might have been disconcerting. But he was gay. And it's not incidental to his life and his work, and it's something that needs to be brought into the picture, or you just wouldn't understand who he was. One of the curators at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh was tremendously protective of the use we might make of the film footage of Julia Warhola. I think my sense was that she thought that we would make fun of Julia. But again, Julia is one of the towering figures in the Warhol story. She is the single most important person in his life, no question about it. It was her genes that gave him his artistic spark, it was her nurturing that told this fragile, vulnerable boy that what he felt inside was right. And she bribed him shamelessly with chocolate bars to paint pictures. So at the end of the day, the little time we spent with Julia, I hope is seen as we see it, as a positive depiction.
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Harrisburg, Pa.: Did your energy for the project trail off to any extent as the Warhol oeuvre moved from silk-screen masterpieces to film? If it were me I think it would have.
Ric Burns: On the contrary, our energy gained strength. I think the films are arguably his greatest achievement. A remarkably unified sensibility governs Andy Warhol's work. And Andy's powerful urge to look into reality and to seize it and represent it and show us what it is comes to a crescendo in his film work from 1963 to 1966 with Chelsea Girls. So I look forward to the time when people have on their walls flat-screened digital chip versions of Andy's movies. SO you could have his "painting" haircut, kiss on your bedroom wall, looped permanently. They are so arresting. And they are film not painting. But there is a profound connection between what he's doing in painting and what he's doing in film.
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Winston-Salem, N.C.: How come the documentary did not include Andy speaking? It seems that the documentary used his quotes read by someone else. Just wondering.
I enjoyed the first part of the documentary. I also grew up in Pittsburgh and have visited the Warhol museum. I enjoy his work.
Thanks.
Ric Burns: Andy did not disclose himself in interviews. He was the master of the post-modern interview. Almost invariably you learn more about the interviewer than about Andy. Now that tells you something too about Andy! But we didn't want to get mesmerized by the hip, sort of agile, escape artist Andy Warhol, always slipping free from the noose of the interviewer. We wanted to get inside him. And the information about his life, the photographs and film footage of his life, the art he created, and the words he spoke that were transcribed in his books, I feel take us deep into who he is. And yet remember, this is a guy who was not interviewed in any medium that was meaningful until the early 60's, so there is no interview footage of him until he's really become Andy Warhol, in 63, 64. And pretty much the minute he became Andy Warhol, he figured out how to hide in plain sight. And we talk about that quality of him, hiding in plain sight. But we wanted to see Andy and feel who he was.
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Ventura, Calif.: Hello, I have already submitted a rave review of your film. Now I am wondering what do you think I should say to students who just don't get it? I feel Andy Warhol would say that it does not matter if people don't get his work, but I am a teacher and that doesn't work in my position. I would say and do anything for them to grasp the significance of bringing an awareness of images in pop culture to them. This did not exist before Warhol. In all the research that you have done, forgive me for asking, but is there statement, phrase or story of an encounter with this iconic artist that you think might break through some of prejudices students present to me? I would love to know. Thanks again for the inspiration. Your passion keeps me battling the dinosaurs.
Ric Burns: Andy once said, "Pop art took the inside and put it outside, took the outside and put it inside". He meant the world around us is suffused with the beauty of art. And swarming with images that powerfully shape who we are inside. Some artists want to take their insides and put them on the outside. Andy Warhol wanted to look out there, he wanted to look at the outside. And show us those images that had already shaped who we were inside. That's where I would begin. It's a different way of looking at art. It's the opposite of Picasso. It's not about projecting form, it's about finding form. And understanding how we literally are in-formed.
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Germantown, Md.: Ric,
Did you learn anything new about Andy during the research and making of the film that may have changed your opinions on Andy and his work? Are there any particular pieces of his work or periods of expression that you prefer over others and why?
Ric Burns: He was deeply religious. He was very well read. He was very kind. He was without pretension. He was deeply learned in the history of art. He was a very engaging conversationalist. He was deeply philosophical as an artist. And he was as candid as any artist can be. Those were revelations, I don't want to say we were surprised by them, but they were revelations to see how deeply true those things were. I think I love his early black and white silent films, and some of his paintings of the 70's and 80's best. The Piss paintings, and shadow paintings in particular. Because I think these are the most elemental.
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Austin, Tex.: What part did Fred Hughes play in Warhol's life?
Ric Burns: Fred Hughes helped put Andy's career on a solid business footing after the shooting. He was with Paul Morrissey, Bob Colacello and others. He was an antidote to the drag queen, drug taking ethos of the 60's Factory. For better or for worse.
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Linglestown, Pa.: Could you recommend Warhol sites to visit in Pittsburgh in addition to the museum? His neighborhood? The church? Thanks.
Ric Burns: I tell you, go to Dawson Street where he spent most of his childhood. Go to St. John Chrysostom Church where he worshipped with his mother every Saturday night and Sunday morning. And you get such a tangible sense of where he came from. Those two places, the home and the church just speak so eloquently about Andy's early life.
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Chicago, Ill.: How do you think your film influences the way that everyday people perceive this work, Andy Warhol as an artist, and the ever-perpetuated partially accurate/ partially fabricated story of the twentieth century artist as tragic hero/genius? Does the story telling of art history via the effects of filmmaking manipulate the public's understanding of all these issues?
Ric Burns: Real art is hard, it's difficult. It is work. And I hope this film is seen as a portrait of an artist whose gifts and tenacity and kind of psychic capacity were magnificent. His life is no more tragic or less tragic than anyone else's life. I mean he changed the way we see the world. That happens very rarely. One wants to honor an achievement that's on that scale. I don't care if we call it genius. I think it's genius, but it doesn't matter to me. He changed the way we see the world. Einstein changed the way we see the world, and we celebrate that. So Andy.
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Arlington, Va.: Hi. Pittsburgh-lover and Carnegie Mellon grad here. I enjoyed the program, but felt the tone towards Pittsburgh was a bit condescending, no?
Also, maybe it wasn't central to the story, but why no coverage of the plastic surgery (or did I miss it)?
Ric Burns: You missed it, you missed the plastic surgery which we did cover. Whatever condescension informs our portrait of Pittsburgh such as it was must have been completely unintentional. I don't see it myself, I'm not aware of it in looking at the film or treatment of Andy's life. No Pittsburgh, no Andy. You need free art classes on Saturday mornings at the Carnegie Institute. You need Carnegie Tech. And you need that little incubator on a working class street, Dawson Street. So I certainly was not conscious of feeling any condescension.
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Parsippany, N.J.: Ric, why did you choose to take the academic/Critic route to exploring Warhol? Why not include more of the people who actually knew him?
Ric Burns: We did include many people who actually knew him. But here's what we didn't want to do. We didn't want to trot out a cavalcade of famous or wacky Factory people. As if Andy's life was the last reel of a Fellini movie. We wanted to speak to people who grasped Andy's character as an artist. Whether they knew him personally or had come to understand him empathetically after he was gone.
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Los Angeles, Calif.: I had Laser Sergery for gall bladder removal. Do you think Andy would have survived the surgery had they had this technology back then?
Ric Burns: He survived the surgery. He did not survive the neglectful post-operative care. The surgery was successful. He was unmonitored and overhydrated and drowned tragically in his sleep and didn't need to. That's why New York Hospital settled the suit his family brought to the tune of some millions of dollars.
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Washington, D.C.: Dear Ric,
Was it difficult to select Warhol for this film? What made you pick him as an artist to chronicle? I was wondering if you immediately got support for Warhol as a subject or if you had to lobby to make the film.
Ric Burns: Two people, Daniel Wolf and Donald Rosenfeld, asked me to make a film on Andy Warhol with them. I instinctively said yes. It was non-stop hell to raise money for it. Andy was too gay, too "sixties", too boundary-breaking, too radical for corporate America.
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Ric Burns: Let me amend that. For literally hundreds of corporations that we approached. I've never had a harder time raising money for a project.
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Sea Cliff, N.Y.: Who where your supporters (Financially and historical advisory), in the making of this documentary? What kinds of relationships and background do they have with respects to the history of Andy Warhol?
Ric Burns: Art collectors were one group of supporters. The American Masters series. The Cordelia Foundation. The Overbrook Foundation. And many other individual and family foundations provided support. As did the PBS series of American Masters. Our principal editorial advisors were in large part many of the people we interviewed for the film. Dave Hickey, Wayne Koestenbaum, Neil Printz, Donna Da Salvo, Steven Koch, John Richardson, among many others.
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Alabama: You talk about pop art trying to make people see the beauty in the ordinary around them. As you write this, I'm reminded of John Cage's 4'33", which aimed to let people hear the sounds around them as music. As much as I respect Warhol's achievements, isn't fair to say that finding the transcendent in the ordinary was a goal of most late 20th century artists, pop or not?
Ric Burns: Yes it was the goal. But it's an ambition that has to be fulfilled, not merely stated, to be meaningful.
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Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.: Many young, gay men fail to effectively survive and prosper after a youth of such difference and introversion. Did you get a sense, as implied in the first part, that Andy's family integrated and accepted his "different" nature; that aside from predictable derision in the "outside" world, Warhol's whole family, in addition to his open-minded mother, somehow helped him stay focused? Or was he just a miraculous survivor?
Ric Burns: I think his family loved him to pieces. And Dave Hickey the art critic once said, he had the power of anyone who is deeply loved by their family. And you know, every Sunday of his life, Andy spoke with his brother John on the phone. All we need to do is consult our own lives and that will tell us whether we think that was a close relationship. He was empowered. His family said, you Andy, are OK. And I find that profoundly moving. It was like, he's our Andy, he's our little guy. And they protected him on the school ground, the ran flak for him, and they, his family, instilled in Andy, a knack for finding protectors. Men and women who would shield him and protect him. There's strength in numbers. And Andy had that special personality that attracted people to him, to take care of him and watch out for him. And I think that gave him amazing strength against the storm.
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Washington, D.C.: Enjoying this immensely. Long overdue.
Ric Burns: Thank you!
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Washington, D.C.: Wow - do you think the trouble with raising money for such a film has to due to with marketing to the public? It seems ironic that corporations would not want to support the one artist that gave art a corporate twist. Why wouldn't companies want to embrace that? Like Campbell's soup or something? It's the ultimate product placement!
Ric Burns: We live in a time of great fear. Ruled all too frequently by restrictive ideas of morality. 2006 is not 1965.
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Louisville, Ky.: Mr. Burns,
I just wanted to applaud you on your enthralling documentary on Andy Warhol, the first part of which I saw on PBS last night. I've been a fan of yours for years, and especially liked your "New York" series and your profile of Eugene O'Neil. This newest effort, which benefits from another spellbinding score by Brian Keane, merely serves to reinforce your status as the finest documentary filmmaker working today. I'm eagerly anticipating not only the second half of the Warhol film tonight, but future works involving your rewarding collaboration with the PBS "American Masters" series. Thank you!
Ric Burns: Boy, thank you for that! And my colleague Brian Keane is so unbelievably gifted that I couldn't make a movie without him.
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Ric Burns: Thanks for this conversation! The real dialogue for a film maker is with the audience. I'm not surprised that people are as moved by Andy as we are, but I'm so gratified. He is really, he's a hero for all of us, and it's been a privilege to walk around inside his life and try to distill some of it for the public. Thank you.
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