Dissolving & Reconstituting Narrative Cinema

15	Heat	1971 - Paul Morrissey (USA)
	Performance	Paul Morrissey & the Warhol factory; Morrissey's performers; performance & narrative

A: Background

Most of the Andy Warhol films many people have encountered are actually directed (and usually scripted) by Paul Morrissey. The most'. well known films make up the trilogy FLESH (68) TRASH (70) and HEAT (71). FLESH was Morrissey's first 'solo' film, which he shot and edited while Warhol was in hospital (recovering from a murder attempt). Warhol had just finished what was to be his last directorial effort LONESOME COWBOYS (1968). The FLASH TRASH HEAT trilogy are very much in this latter vein of Warholian Superstar improvization based around Hollywood esque scenarios (taking off genres and classical cliches). HEAT, for example, is a reworking of Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950) with William Holden (in the Joe Dallesandro role) and Gloria Swanson (in the Sylvia Miles role).

WOMEN IN REVOLT (1972) was the next film in a similar vein to the trilogy though with a more sophisticated finish. In 1974 Morrissey made two films for Italian producers : FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN and BLOOD FOR DRACULA (often advertised using Warhol's name, but only because the Warhol name serves an the production label for the films, like MGM or COLUMBIA, etc.), These are lavish costume horror films with the same perverse humour, tons of gore, and they're in Polaroid 3 D to boot! After a break, Morrissey, returned in the 80s with MADAME WANG'S (1981?) FORTY DEUCE (1982) and MIXED BLOOD (1985). The latter two films are more 'naturalistic' in their realism (ie. more conventional 'acting' performances though still with a total focus on the performer) and are 'heavier' in their drama.
 
B: Morrissey and performers

Central to all Morrissey's films are the performer and the performance. This arises mainly from Morrissey's fascination with the Golden years of Hollywood "when there were real stars". This mythology of the Star is articulated through mythical personae (eg. John Wayne) where their presence (their 'star quality", charisma aura, etc.) encases both actor and character. Performer thus alludes to the fusion of actor and character into the Star, while performance alludes to the moving presence of the Star on the screen.

For example, when we watch a John Ford Western, we experience not an actor playing a cowboy, but the corporate myth of "John Wayne" riding across the desert plains. This is to such an extent that the "John Wayne'' figure/presence/star virtually ruptures the generic iconography of the narrative, as he functions as a symbol that is not fully integrated into the narrative. We identify with him and his presence differently from how we would other more anonymous or non descript generic elements.

Morrissey deliberately constructs his narratives around this type of rupture. He privileges his performances in order to convey their presence, their own particular A star quality'. This in Fort is connected to the Warholian fostering of the so called Superstars of the sixties weirdos of the Factory scene who generated their own hyped-up presences which were a key part of the early Warhol movies. Morrissey developed Warhol's documentary style further by maintaining a balance betweenn narrative structure which provided a clear sequence of performances which in turn formed the narrative.
 
C: Performance & Narrative

In essence, HEAT is a documentary of people who been put in the position of attempting to act cut a scenario (through a series of chronological scenes) without relying on conventional or expected acting and dramatic techniques which could then generate a theatrical realism. They are left without technique, relying on either a simulation of those techniques (through improvization) or their own personality and schizoid capabilities (through fantasization). The film records this. Furthermore, the filming process is centered on capturing what these people 'do' following their every movement and obsessively registering every nuance of their behaviour in its mix of artificial self consciousness and realistic salt delusion.

This then forms the narrative, in that each scene is less a block of the plot action, and more a self contained performance which showcases the particular people 'doing their scene'. As such they are performers more than actors or characters, because it is their performance that forms the scene giving it its dramatic shape, realistic effect and space for, audience identification. TVs narrative in the connection, development and flow of those scenes. The plot is not really the comprehensible action of the story (what happens when, how and with whom) but rather the source material which is fed to the performer's in order to display and exhibit. their interpretation of, reaction to and identification with the scene.

This leads us to the possibility that the narrative of HEAT describes how the story manifests itself in the performances a mode in opposition to a narrative where the performances generate the telling of the story.
(Point for further consideration: how do all the different characters' performances interact?)
 
D: Quote by Morrissey

"Anybody can take film. The hardest thing is to appear in front of a camera and be interesting. I don't think directors make the big contributions. They help the actors make contributions that will last for hundreds of years. Direction has been so overemphasized that the performer has fallen into disrepute today.".