International Velvet

Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol shot nearly 500 Screen Tests, beautiful and revealing portraits of hundreds of different individuals, from Warhol superstars and celebrities to friends or anyone he thought had "star potential". All visitors to his studio, the Factory. Subjects were captured in stark relief by a strong keylight, and filmed by Warhol with his stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black and white, 100-foot rolls of film. The resulting two-and-a-half-minute film reels were then screened in slow motion, resulting in a fascinating collection of four-minute masterpieces that startle and entrance, mesmerizing in the purest sense of the word. Songwriters Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, formerly of the band Luna and currently recording as Dean & Britta, incorporated original compositions as well as cover songs to create new soundtracks for the 13 films.

Joe Buck is a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy New York City women; he finds a companion in Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida.

Photographed entirely in color, Four Stars was projected in its complete length of nearly 25 hours (allowing for projection overlap of the 35-minute reels) only once, at the Film-Makers' Cinematheque in the basement of the now-demolished Wurlitzer Building at 125 West 41st Street in New York City. The imagery in the film is dense, wearying and beautiful, but ultimately hard to decipher, for, in contrast to his earlier, and more famous film Chelsea Girls, made in 1966, Warhol directed that two reels be screened simultaneously on top of each other on a single screen, rather than side-by-side.

Andy Warhol's experimental reconstruction of the assassination of the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, which serves as his critical commentary on the way the media presented the tragic event.

Lacking a formal narrative, Warhol's mammoth film follows various residents of the Chelsea Hotel in 1966 New York City. The film was intended to be screened via dual projector set-up.

Documents each member of The Velvet Underground having their cards read at a big apartment party. The tarot reader is continually interrupted in her readings by the chaos created by the characters around her.

Queen of China (Hanoi Hanna), based on Ronald Tavel’s scenario, loosely refers to the real-life radio show host who broadcast antiwar propaganda to American soldiers in Vietnam. It is Mary Woronov’s showcase piece, in which she metes out physical and psychological abuse to Susan Bottomly, Angelina “Pepper” Davis, and Ingrid Superstar in a room at the Chelsea Hotel. At first, the cast tries to accurately adhere to Tavel’s scenario, but by reel two it all falls apart—the performers begin to use their real names and exhibit a sort of residual stress disorder that permeates the rest of the film.

Susan Bottomly/International Velvet's screen test is dark as her piercing eyes stare into the camera, as Warhol plays with the lighting and zoom features.

The films were made between 1964 and 1966 at Warhol's Factory studio in New York City. Subjects were captured in stark relief by a strong key light, and filmed by Warhol with his stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black and white, 100-foot rolls of film at 24 frames per second. The resulting two-and-a-half-minute film reels were then screened in 'slow motion' at 16 frames per second.