Andrea Feldman

Quote:
Cleopatra situates itself in the same relationship to Hollywood as the Warhol/Morrisey films of the
period. It corresponds to Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1963 Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor and
Richard Burton which Auder’s cast watched and used as the starting point for scene by scene
improvisation Auder drew his cast from Warhol’s ensemble – including not only Viva and Louis
Waldon, but also Taylor Mead, Ondine, Andrea Feldman, Gerard Melanga and others.
The film revels in epic excess like Mankiewicz’s cinematic debacle which succumbed to vast length,
a bloated budget, multiple revisions and a scandal occasioned by the extramarital escapades of its
co-stars.Read More »

From Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art:
A bizarre, yet mild version of “Sunset Boulevard” a la Warhol, with a bevy of voracious females of varying proportions vying for the casual favors of a passive Joe Dallesandro. The dialogue is fresh, simple, funny, as is the relaxed, improvised acting. Fellatio and demythologized sex make their usual appearance, though – for Morrisey – in a curiously reserved manner. While these desperate people and their always-interrupted sex acts are perhaps too small really to engage one’s concern, Morrisey’s talent for a new, weird kind of naturalism (as in his Trash) now seems fully established. Most notably, sex is both ubiquitous and joyless, an almost inevitable chore that can neither be avoided nor really enjoyed.Read More »