“Andy Warhol Diaries” assesses Warhol’s life as an artist, influencer, entrepreneur, and gay man.
The Andy Warhol Diaries (★★★★☆) is well worth dipping through its many tangents and digressions to gain an informative, artfully assembled portrait of the artist.Executive produced by Ryan Murphy, and written and directed by Andrew Rossi, the series is based on Warhol’s diary entries, as dictated over the phone to his friend and collaborator Pat Hackett starting in 1976.Opening with Warhol’s description of a “perfect” Thanksgiving spent with his lover Jed Johnson at the rustic home of artist Jamie Wyeth, The Andy Warhol Diaries were published in 1989, two years after Warhol’s death.Appearing in the series, along with several Warhol associates, muses, and fellow artists, Hackett has a ready response for anyone who, then or now, might take issue with how Andy portrayed them.“Of course, it’s subjective,” she insists, adding that if anybody has a problem with it, “write your own diary.” From episode one, the show firmly establishes that Andy Warhol’s voice will guide our voyage through his world.To that end, the filmmakers commit to the unexpected, yet oddly apropos, choice of an artificial Andy Warhol to serve as narrator.
Created using an AI program, then further synthesized with the vocal performance of actor Bill Irwin, faux-Andy is tuned to sound like the real Andy, and does just enough to perfectly suit a subject who mused for years that he wished he could be a machine.Eventually, a group of roboticists did engineer an Andy Warhol android, an arduous process captured in footage shown in episode three.
Living his dream come true, Andy gleefully participates up until the moment the plaster mold he spent hours posing for breaks.
