Blue Movie

Blue Movie (also known as Fuck and F,k)[2][4][5] is a 1969 American erotic film written, produced and directed by Andy Warhol.[1][6] It is the first adult erotic film depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States,[1][4][6] and is regarded as a seminal film in the Golden Age of Porn (1969-1984), which, before the legalization of pornography in Denmark on July 1, 1969,[7] started on June 12, 1969[2] with the release of Blue Movie at the Elgin Theater, and later, the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre, in New York City.[1] Blue Movie helped inaugurate the "porno chic" phenomenon,[8][9] in which porn was publicly discussed by celebrities (like Johnny Carson and Bob Hope)[9] and taken seriously by film critics (like Roger Ebert),[10][11] in modern American culture, and shortly thereafter, in many other countries throughout the world.[12][13] According to Warhol, Blue Movie was a major influence in the making of Last Tango in Paris, an internationally controversial erotic drama film starring Marlon Brando and released a few years after Blue Movie was made.[4] Viva and Louis Waldon, playing themselves, starred in Blue Movie.[4]

This article is about the 1969 film by Andy Warhol. For other uses, see Blue movie (disambiguation).

Blue Movie
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAndy Warhol[1]
Written byAndy Warhol
Produced byAndy Warhol
Paul Morrissey
StarringViva
Louis Waldon
CinematographyAndy Warhol
Production
company
Andy Warhol Films
Distributed byAndy Warhol Films
Release date
  • June 12, 1969 (1969-06-12)[2]
Running time
105 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$3,000[3]

In 1970, Mona, the second adult erotic film that received a wide release, was shown. Afterwards, other adult films, were released, including Boys in the Sand, Deep Throat, Behind the Green Door, and The Devil in Miss Jones, which continued the Golden Age of Porn. In 2016, Blue Movie was shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan.[14]

Development

The film includes dialogue about the Vietnam War, various mundane tasks and unsimulated sex, during a blissful afternoon in a New York City apartment[1][6] (owned by art critic David Bourdon).[15] The film was presented in the press as, "a film about the Vietnam War and what we can do about it." Warhol added, "the movie is about ... love, not destruction."[16]

Warhol explained that the lack of a plot in Blue Movie was intentional:

Scripts bore me. It's much more exciting not to know what's going to happen. I don't think that plot is important. If you see a movie of two people talking, you can watch it over and over again without being bored. You get involved – you miss things – you come back to it ... But you can't see the same movie over again if it has a plot because you already know the ending ... Everyone is rich. Everyone is interesting. Years ago, people used to sit looking out of their windows at the street. Or on a park bench. They would stay for hours without being bored although nothing much was going on. This is my favorite theme in movie making – just watching something happening for two hours or so ... I still think it's nice to care about people. And Hollywood movies are uncaring. We're pop people. We took a tour of Universal Studios in Los Angeles and, inside and outside the place, it was very difficult to tell what was real. They're not-real people trying to say something. And we're real people not trying to say anything. I just like everybody and I believe in everything.

— Andy Warhol, cited by Victor Bockris in his book Warhol: the Biography (2003), p. 327[17]

According to Viva: "The Warhol films were about sexual disappointment and frustration: the way Andy saw the world, the way the world is, and the way nine-tenths of the population sees it, yet pretends they don’t."[18][19]

Cast

Production

Andy Warhol described making Blue Movie as follows: "I'd always wanted to do a movie that was pure fucking, nothing else, the way Eat had been just eating and Sleep had been just sleeping. So in October '68 I shot a movie of Viva having sex with Louis Waldon. I called it just Fuck."[4][5]

The film was supposedly filmed in a single three-hour session, with 30 minutes initially cut for the 140-minute version.[3] The climactic section was shot in a 35-minute take.[3] According to Variety, the film has only 10 minutes of actual sex.[2][20]

The film acquired a blue/green tint when Warhol utilized film stock that was meant for filming with tungsten lights, and the daylight coming through a large apartment window resulted in the film's middle reel turning blue.[21][22] According to Wheeler Winston Dixon, a filmmaker and scholar who attended the first screening of the film at Warhol's Factory in the spring of 1969:

[...] Warhol used 16mm reversal film for his movies, and if you were shooting color film in the 1960s and 70s, two of the most popular choices for film stock were Eastman Reversal 7241, balanced for use outdoors; and Eastman Reversal 7242, balanced for tungsten (indoor) lighting. If you shot Eastman 7242 outside without using a Wratten 85B filter, the image would become completely blue; and that's what was happening here. The only light used was the daylight coming through the window, thus making the final image very, very blue indeed [...] When the film ended ... I heard Warhol asking someone plaintively "Why is the whole second reel all blue?" So I told him about 7242, 7241, and the need to use the proper filter to balance the color when you used indoor stock outdoors, or vice versa. "Ohhhhhhh," said Andy. Long pause. "Well, I guess we should call it Blue Movie." [...] Michelangelo Antonioni [also present at the showing] laughed, as well, appreciating the obvious double entendre; a "blue movie" that really was a blue movie [...] Vincent Canby noted [in his New York Times review][1] that the film was "literally a cool, greenish-blue in color". Now you know why.

— Wheeler Winston Dixon, Andy Warhol, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Blue Movie (2012)[15]

Release
Cover of the 1970 book adaptation[23]

The film had a benefit screening on June 12, 1969, at the Elgin Theater in New York City.[2] Variety reported that the film was the "first theatrical feature to actually depict intercourse".[3][20][23][24] While it was initially shown at The Factory, Blue Movie was not presented to a wider audience until it opened at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theater in New York City[25][26] on July 21, 1969, with a running time of 105 minutes.[1][2][6][16][23] The film was also screened at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California.[3]

On its opening day in New York, the film grossed a house record $3,050, with a total of $16,200 for the week.[3] Warhol received 90% of the gross, which recovered the film's $3,000 cost quickly.[3] Viva, in Paris, finding that Blue Movie was getting a lot of attention, said, "Timothy Leary loved it. Gene Youngblood did too. He said I was better than Vanessa Redgrave and it was the first time a real movie star had made love on the screen. It was a real breakthrough."[17]

Controversy

On July 31, 1969, the staff of the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre were arrested, and the film confiscated.[4][6][27] The theater manager was eventually fined $250;[4][6][28] afterwards, the manager said, "I don't think anyone was harmed by this movie ... I saw other pictures around town and this was a kiddie matinee compared to them."[16] Warhol said, "What's pornography anyway? [...] The muscle magazines are called pornography, but they're really not. They teach you how to have good bodies[16] [...] I think movies should appeal to prurient interests. I mean the way things are going now – people are alienated from one another. Blue Movie was real. But it wasn't done as pornography—it was done as an exercise, an experiment. But I really do think movies should arouse you, should get you excited about people, should be prurient. Prurience is part of the machine. It keeps you happy. It keeps you running."[17]

Aftermath

Afterwards, in 1970, Warhol published Blue Movie in book form, with film dialogue and explicit stills, through Grove Press.[23]

When Last Tango in Paris, an internationally controversial erotic drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and starring Marlon Brando, was released in 1972, Warhol considered Blue Movie to be its inspiration.[4]

Mona the Virgin Nymph, an erotic film depicting explicit sex, also received a mainstream theatrical release in the United States in 1970. Shortly thereafter, other adult films, such as Boys in the Sand, Deep Throat, Behind the Green Door, and The Devil in Miss Jones, were released, continuing the Golden Age of Porn that began with Blue Movie. In 1973, the phenomenon of porn being publicly discussed by celebrities (like Johnny Carson and Bob Hope)[9] and taken seriously by film critics (like Roger Ebert),[10][11] a development referred to by Ralph Blumenthal of The New York Times as "porno chic", began for the first time in modern American culture[8][9] and later throughout the world.[12][13]

Revival

In 2005, Blue Movie was publicly screened in New York City for the first time in over 30 years.[29] In 2016, the film was shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan.[14]

See also

References
  1. Canby, Vincent (July 22, 1969). "Movie Review - Blue Movie (1968) Screen: Andy Warhol's 'Blue Movie'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 8, 2023. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  2. Staff (July 21, 1969). "Blue Movie (1969)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Archived from the original on September 8, 2023. Retrieved September 9, 2023.
  3. "Sex Act Film Cost 3G; Recoups Pronto; 'Times' Review Never Detailed It". Variety. July 30, 1969. p. 1.
  4. Comenas, Gary (2005). "Blue Movie (1968)". WarholStars.org. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
  5. Staff (April 27, 2013). "Andy Warhol – Blue Movie aka Fuck (1969)". WorldsCinema.org. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
  6. Canby, Vincent (August 10, 1969). "Warhol's Red Hot and 'Blue' Movie". The New York Times. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
  7. Staff (May 31, 2019). "Denmark legalized pornography 50 years ago. Did the decision turn out as expected?". The Local. Retrieved August 22, 2021.
  8. Blumenthal, Ralph (January 21, 1973). "Porno chic; 'Hard-core' grows fashionable-and very profitable". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  9. Corliss, Richard (March 29, 2005). "That Old Feeling: When Porno Was Chic". Time. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  10. Ebert, Roger (June 13, 1973). "The Devil In Miss Jones - Film Review". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved February 7, 2015 – via RogerEbert.com.
  11. Ebert, Roger (November 24, 1976). "Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved February 26, 2016 – via RogerEbert.com.
  12. Paasonen, Susanna; Saarenmaa, Laura (July 19, 2007). The Golden Age of Porn: Nostalgia and History in Cinema (PDF). Retrieved September 15, 2017.
  13. DeLamater, John; Plante, Rebecca F., eds. (June 19, 2015). Handbook of the Sociology of Sexualities. Springer. p. 416. ISBN 9783319173412. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
  14. Staff (April 7, 2016). "Andy Warhol's Blue Movie (1968)". Whitney Museum of American Art. Archived from the original on May 7, 2020. Retrieved September 9, 2023.
  15. Dixon, Wheeler Winston (April 22, 2012). "Andy Warhol, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Blue Movie". University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Archived from the original on September 14, 2017. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
  16. Watson, Steven (2003). Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties. New York City. p. 394. ISBN 9780679423720. Retrieved January 19, 2016.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  17. Bockris, Victor (August 12, 2003). Warhol: the Biography. New York City. pp. 326, 327. ISBN 9780786730285. Retrieved January 19, 2016.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) [Note – in "view all"/"page 327" – from the book text, "In a final defence of his methods, which were used in Blue Movie for the last time, Andy told Leticia Kent, [in a Vogue interview] ..."]
  18. Bockris, Victor (2003). Warhol: the Biography. Hachette Books. p. 274. ISBN 9780786730285. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
  19. "Viva and God". The Village Voice. Vol. 111, no. 1. May 5, 1987.
  20. "Warhol's 'Blue Movie' The Bluest of 'Em All, If and When Released". Variety. June 18, 1969. p. 2.
  21. Flatley, Guy (November 9, 1968). "How to Be Very Viva--A Bedroom Farce". The New York Times. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
  22. Goldsmith, Kenneth (April 1, 2009). I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews 1962-1987. New York City. ISBN 9780786740390. Retrieved December 29, 2015.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  23. Comenas, Gary (1969). "July 21, 1969: Andy Warhol's Blue Movie Opens". WarholStars.org. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  24. Haggerty, George E. (2015). A Companion to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies. John Wiley & Sons. p. 339. ISBN 9781119000853. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  25. Staff (2013). "Garrick Cinema 152 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012 - Previous Names: New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre, Andy Warhol's Garrick Cinema, Nickelodeon". CinemaTreasures.org. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
  26. Garcia, Alfredo (October 11, 2017). "Andy Warhol Films: Newspaper Adverts 1964-1974 – A comprehensive collection of Newspaper Ads and Film Related Articles". wordpress.com. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
  27. Haberski, Raymond J. Jr. (March 16, 2007). Freedom to Offend: How New York Remade Movie Culture. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0813138411. Retrieved January 19, 2016.
  28. Staff (September 18, 1969). "Judges Rule 'Blue Movie' Is Smut". The New Day. Retrieved January 19, 2016.
  29. Staff (October 2005). "Blue Movie + Viva At NY Film Festival". WarholStars.org. Archived from the original on October 27, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2016.

Further reading
  • Bockris, Victor (1997). Warhol: The Biography. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81272-X.
  • Danto, Arthur C. (2009). Andy Warhol. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-13555-8.
  • James, James (1989), "Andy Warhol: The Producer as Author", in Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the 1960s pp. 58–84. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Koch, Stephen (1974; 2002): Stargazer. The Life, World and Films of Andy Warhol. London; updated reprint Marion Boyars, New York 2002, ISBN 0-7145-2920-6.
  • Koestenbaum, Wayne (2003). Andy Warhol. New York: Penguin. ISBN 0-670-03000-7.
  • Warhol, Andy; Pat Hackett (1980). POPism: The Warhol Sixties. Hardcore Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 0-15-173095-4.
  • Watson, Steven (2003). Factory Made: Warhol and the 1960s. New York: Pantheon. ISBN 0-679-42372-9. Archived from the original on August 29, 2010.
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