presented in association with Frameline and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Admission: $15 general / $12 Cinematheque, Frameline and SFMOMA members (day of event; at box office only)
NOTE: The Castro Theatre Box Office accepts cash only.

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In the early 1960s, Mary Woronov was sculpture student at Cornell University, afflicted with ennui, aching for escape. A class fieldtrip in 1964 to Andy Warhol’s legendary Factory (“It was dim and dirty-looking, as if it were underground”), led to an impromptu Screen Test (filmed by Gerard Malanga) and Woronov’s star ascended. Shortly thereafter she was dancing the infamous whip dance with Malanga on stage with the Velvet Underground and, in 1966, appeared in eight(!) of Warhol’s legendary filmic studies on stardom, camp and performativity. A lifelong career as an underground movie icon was launched. Mary Woronov appears in person at each screening to regale the congregation with tales of these tumultuous times. This two-part series is curated by Dale Hoyt and Steve Polta, in association with the San Francisco Art Institute.

At the majestic Castro Theatre we present The Chelsea Girls, Andy Warhol’s sprawling parody of the Hollywood melodrama. Inspired by wide-screen cinema, this enormous double-projected camp classic simultaneously screens scenes from the decadent and desperate downtown lives of Warhol’s art world entourage, in garish color and gritty black and white. Mary Woronov appears in her debut role as Hanoi Hannah, interrogating a humiliated cast of captured GI Joes (portrayed by Ultra Violet and International Velvet) with other outrageously improvised “performances” by Nico, Eric Emerson, Brigid Polk, filmmaker Marie Menken and the one and only Pope Ondine. Soundtrack features a rare live recording of the Velvet Underground. (Steve Polta)

Image above:
Andy Warhol
The Chelsea Girls (1966)
16mm film, black & white and color, sound, 204 minutes in double screen
©2014 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, a museum of Carnegie Institute. All rights reserved.
Film still courtesy of The Andy Warhol Museum.

WATCH OUR SPECIAL VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH FILMMAKER JEROME HILER ON PROJECTING THE CHELSEA GIRLS (over 150 times!).