When Mary Harron made I Shot Andy Warhol in 1996, she was looking back at New York in the late 1960s. Thirty years later, the film feels surprisingly current.
Revisiting the movie on It Happened in Hollywood, Harron discusses a story that touches on many of the issues dominating the culture today: fame, identity, grievance and violence.
Part of that comes from her subject. Long before social media, Andy Warhol understood the value of attention. His Factory was full of aspiring actors, artists and personalities competing to be seen.
“He took his own desire for fame and he saw it in others,” Harron says. “People want attention.”
The film’s main character, however, is not Warhol. It’s Valerie Solanas, the radical feminist writer who shot him in 1968. Harron became fascinated by Solanas after reading the SCUM Manifesto and realizing there was much more to her than the headlines suggested.
