Vinyl (1965)

 

Vinyl

1964 is now officially over for me and my movie calendar says 1965. It is also about a week until I am moving back to Denmark with my family. Busy days!

First movie of 1965 is Andy Warhol’s “Vinyl”.

If you are into sadomasochistic gay sex this is likely something for you. Sadly, sadomasochistic gay sex is not my thing and that leaves… very little.

“Vinyl” is supposed to be a pre-Kubrick take on “A Clockwork Orange”, but you could have fooled me. I did not perceive any story at all. What we do get is a one-hour movie consisting of two camera positions. The first, lasting about 80% of the movie has a sadomasochistic séance in the background (not so much sex though, they a mostly just torturing the poor fellow) while in the foreground a dude called JD is first making an obscure speech, then is being the subject of another sadomasochistic séance led by a dude called The Doctor. Again not so much sex, mostly torture, humiliation and sexual undertones. All the while a girl is sitting on the right side of the picture doing… nothing. To call her an observer is too gracious. She is just there, looking as if she is wondering why she is there at all.

There is dialogue, but it is a declamatory dialogue that makes little sense and I tuned it out completely. I do not remember a single line.

At some point the camera zoom in on JD, but nothing else changes.

There is music and it is actually good music. The only redeeming feature of the movie, but exactly what the role of this music is I do not know. It is just there.

In art exhibitions Warhol is a big name and his paintings and installations are both interesting and influential, but if “Vinyl” is typical for his movie production then I would say that they miss the mark. I could do without.

Thankfully there are no free-flying dicks in “Vinyl”, but that seems merely a coincidence. Otherwise this movie follows pretty well the path setup by the List editors for underground gay movies. I get that there must be something for the LGBT community and that Warhol is a pretty big name, but for crying out loud, there must be something better than this.