Paul Morrissey: the director of Warhol's best known and most commercial films goes on record about their work and his old partner's talents and weaknesses

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Paul Morrissey directed a dozen films that were produced by Andy Warhol, starting with Chelsea Girls in 1966 and ending with Blood for Dracula in 1974. During this time, Warhol's films went from definitely underground to almost mainstream. With Flesh, Lonesome Cowboys, and then Trash, he created a new style, combining the low-tech boredom-courting, leave-'em-wanting-less Warhol style with a greater appreciation of cinema, and incorporating seemingly unlikely influences like John Ford. Since leaving his partnership with Warhol, Morrissey has directed eight more films. Nelson Lyon, an old friend of Morrissey's and Warhol's, conducted this interview on April Fool's Day.

NELSON LYON: How did you meet Andy Warhol?

PAUL MORRISSEY: It was, I guess, in 1965. On Monday nights, Jonas Mekas took over an off-Broadway theater for screenings. It's still there off of Astor Place where they've been showing Blue Man Group for the past 20 years. They would show anybody's movies who walked in with a can of film under their arm. The projector was in the last row of this small theater, and the projectionist would just go from one can to another. You could tell friends to come, so they could see your footage. Andy had been doing these 30-minute reels. Somebody told him to buy an Auricon camera, which held more film because it would be a lot less trouble--if the camera had to stop and start, he wouldn't know what to do. He didn't know how to load a camera or set a light meter.

NL: He didn't?

PM: No, never. The Auricon was a newsreel camera, and the sound went directly on the edge of the film in optical form. Anyway, one night he brought some footage of Edie Sedgwick dancing. Of all the films shown that evening, Andy's was the most unusual.

NL: Did he ever pan or make any movements in these early films?

PM: No. In those days, all he did was zoom in and out. At the end of the night, when you went to take your cans home, there was Gerard Malanga, who knew me, and he said, "I want to introduce you to Andy." That was what Gerard did in those days. He went everywhere with Andy. He had to do the talking. He'd say, "Oh, come up to the Factory." You could tell immediately that Andy was incredibly shy and timid.

NL: You didn't talk to him at all?

PM: I did. He said, "Oh, your stuff is great. It's great. My stuff is not good. It's out of focus. Nobody knows what they're doing. Yours was in focus." Which it was. He said, "You should come and help me make movies." That was about it. I said, "Okay. When are you going to make another movie?" He said, "When can you come?" I said, "Thursday." He said, "Okay, come Thursday." t showed up, and for the last week, he had told everybody he met, "Come up, we're gonna do a film on Thursday afternoon." So when I got there, there were about 25 people, and they were all sitting on one end of the Factory loft space. I said, "Oh, well there's a lot of people. What kind of film are you doing?" He says, "I don't know. What should I do?"

NL: Did you have any idea who Andy was? At that time, his fame as an artist was growing.

PM: He didn't have much fame yet as an artist. He was a little bit known for doing film experiments like Sleep. So anyway, he didn't know what to do. I said, "Well, first of all, you want to put the camera here and you want the people there. And there are a lot of them. You need a couple lights here and there, and then you're going to have to photograph them by panning across them." And he said, "Oh, no, no, I can't do that." I said, "Why not?" He said, "I can't move it, because ... I don't know. It'll shake." I said, "If you want them all in the shot, without any panning, you have to go back on the other side of the huge loft and they'll be invisible." He couldn't quite understand that, so I said, "Look, let me show you." The first day I went there, I more or less had to take over. Because I hadn't been there before, I didn't know this was Andy's modus operandi.

NL: Was there any context for those people he had assembled at the Factory being together?

PM: No. Andy ran into them during the week on his nights out and said, "Come up. I'm gonna make a movie." The big occasion was that I was coming. Maybe he thought that would be some sort of magic wand. He had run into somebody who was a musician--a really nice guy, very good-looking, named Eric Andersen. He looked kind of like an Ashton Kutcher type. He was tall and thin and very likable, and he had very pretty songs.

NL: Was he in the crowd?

PM: Yeah, he was a star of the crowd--Edie Sedgwick was sitting alongside of him, I think. Afterward, Andy invited me and Eric and Edie and one or two others to some restaurant. He was always going to restaurants every night. In those days, he went to every restaurant with Edie. Edie would put the check on her tab because Andy didn't have any money to spend. But Andy was an indomitable optimist. He'd say, "Oh, let's do another film next week." And basically I went back for another one. What happened was that other people were suggesting movies to him. There was this guy named Ronnie Tavel who wrote plays that were done in coffee shops. He would say to Andy, "I've got a new play." Andy would say, "Great. Come up and cast it and rehearse it and I'll turn the camera on." So Ronnie would bring people up--mainly Mario Montez. Mario couldn't remember anything. I'd load the camera, set the lights, and tell them to walk in the space because Andy still didn't want to pan. In Hedy [1966] there's a scene where Mario says, "My name is Hedy. I've been shoplifting all day." But when we were filming, he went blank. [laughs] It was only like 30 seconds into a 30-minute reel. There was a woman visiting, very nice. She just happened to be there, and I said, "Mario's not saying anything, and the camera's running, and Andy doesn't want to stop. Go and talk to Mario." So she went in front of the camera and said, "Oh, Hedy, please come home. You've been working too hard. I've got soup on." And then Mario said, "I'd like a cup of milk." "Oh, yes, I'll go get it." So she ran off camera and she said, "What do I do?" I said, "Well, make believe you're bringing him some milk." So she brought him an empty cup. And he was standing around primping his hair and he would pretend to drink the cup and then he says, "More milk, Yvette." Mario was so ridiculous, caught in front of the camera trying to improvise something. He couldn't come up with anything. And then the poor woman kept carrying the dialogue.