Emmy-Nominated ‘The Andy Warhol Diaries’ Paints New Portrait Of The Artist As Gay Man: “In The Diaries His Lust Is Very Palpable”
deadline.comIn the mid-1970s Andy Warhol began keeping a diary–of sorts. It started out as a dry accounting of expenses–a tube of paint here, a quart of milk there—dictated to his collaborator Pat Hackett.
But over time the entries shifted from the strictly mundane to something deeper and more personal.“I’ve got these desperate feelings,” he noted in a 1981 entry, for instance, “that nothing means anything.”Andy Warhol’s diaries were published posthumously in 1989, Hackett having edited the raw 20,000 pages to a more manageable, if not inconsiderable, 807.
But it was not until this year that The Andy Warhol Diaries were transformed into a documentary series for Netflix, and an acclaimed one at that.
It has earned four Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series and individual recognition for Andrew Rossi for writing and directing the series.“The diaries when they were published were seen as scandalous because of all of the gossip,” Rossi tells Deadline. “But of course, it’s those statements that he makes about himself that are the most revealing and fascinating.”The candor of the diaries allows Rossi to completely reframe our understanding of the artist and the person.
