Ramona! Ramona!

When I was a younger man I remember seeing strange disintegrated clips of Warhol talking with his mother. I remember them making me feel very upset, sad, scared and depressed. I believe it was these few clips that continued my skepticism of his art into my college years. I couldn’t wrap my head around his humor and thought it to be too spiteful, cold and heartless.

However, after seeing Viva’s amazing performance in Agnes Varda’s Lions Love I stumbled across Lonesome Cowboys. My initial interest was merely in Viva but soon into the film I realized the skill behind Warhol’s genuine balance of heartfelt emotion and playful humor towards his characters and their representations.

He spins the idea of the western film on its head in such a loopy way that it’s hard to decide where to draw the line between the characters and performers, where man ends and woman begins or who is the backwoods “whooer” and the renegade “whurgin.” This is a hilarious yet extremely sharp study of the western genre and it’s associations with manhood through deliberately amateur techniques. And let’s not forget who holds the pen (sexual pun intended) behind the story, but Mr. Morrissey himself.

PS – Ben, I would be forever indebted if you could track down a torrent of Lions Love. So far I’ve been unsuccessful.