Fairweather Magazine

PREMIERE 2013

Fairweather is all about living life to the fullest, embracing and following dreams. Fairweather’s mission is to take you to the place of those dreams with unique stories on art, film, fashion, design, travel, business, philanthropy and politics.

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Her flm highlights Warhol's voyeurism, his intense longing to be a celebrity and his dismissive nature towards sex. To mark the anniversary of the flm as well as Lana's achievements, the documentary will have a special screening at Guild Hall's auditorium in East Hampton this summer. While Lana spent most of her adult life around groundbreaking artists, she earned a bachelor of arts degree in languages, which included a year of study in Paris. She attended the Boston Museum School of Fine Art, but dismissed the career of an artist for herself. And so Lana decided to move to New York. Once there, the young, exotic, twenty-something Lana, drove up to Max's Kansas City (a popular New York City watering hole for artists, musicians, and poets in the 1960s and 1970s). Only "macho" artists lined the bar (including John Chamberlain, Neil Williams and Frosty Meyers), which certainly intimidated her. Lana says "when you are in your 20s, you are fearless on some other levels. "It was just a wonderful scene," Lana says of her time at Max's. It was a time of discovery for me, and to actually see the artists, and then become friends with them. So I felt inspired and very privileged to be among this crowd of artists. They are a very special breed of people, and I learned a lot from them. Just wonderful memories of when we came to New York. [The city] is great, since it opens the world to so many wonderful surprises. It can change the course of your life." Apparently this was true for Lana as she entered into the flmmaking business more or less by accident after her move to New York. She ran into documentarian D.A. Pennebaker by chance at Max's one night and he was instantly impressed by her ability to hold her own among the rough and tumble bar crowd. Completely charmed by her, Pennebaker said he would be happy for her to become his apprentice in flmmaking and he would pay her $75 per week. The arrangement with Pennebaker paid of and after three months she met Norman Mailer, who asked her to edit his motion pictures: Beyond the Law (1968) and Maidstone (1970). Andy was already a "superstar" in the art world when they began working together on his flms. And so despite her early successes in the flm industry, Lana is still surprised to this day that she was asked to edit Andy's flms: "I don't know how the Warhol people heard of me," says Lana. This was the frst time that Andy hired an editor for his flms. He had already completed many flms over the past 10 years, but this was the frst time he was going to edit his works. Their collaboration was a success, with Paul Morrissey directing and Lana editing the flms: Heat (1972) and L'Amour (1973). Heat is a sort of parody on Sunset Boulevard (1950), featuring a down-on-his-luck former child star who is forced to work as a hustler in Los Angeles. L'Amour focused on two American "gold-diggers" in Paris and featured a young Karl Lagerfeld. Due to her skill and charm, it was not long before Lana became a part of Andy's entourage. Soon into their friendship, Lana decided she wanted to make her own flm on Andy as she had the urge to return to documentary flms and found herself drawn to Andy's exhibitionist qualities. "When you are on camera, you let go and let a lot of things pour out of you," says Lana. Thankfully he agreed to be her subject and Lana's documentary ofers a rare glimpse of the man (and not the celebrity) that only his inner circle would see. "Andy was very good at PR for himself… [my] flm gives a whole picture of what was going on at that time, [but] he really opened up [while being flmed]…He talked a lot, which was really rare," Lana states. The flm seeks to bridge the gap between the public persona of Andy Warhol and his more private side. "You get to see a side of him that very few people get to see. As he became more and more famous, he became less accessible to ordinary people…The people who worked in the Factory all felt at home with him, because we all knew him," says Lana. Her work reveals a rare soulful side of the artist: a man who loved dogs and children. During their friendship Andy even expressed the desire to be the godfather of Lana's "fctional unborn child.'' His request that she sire a "factory baby" for all of them to help raise was demurred by Lana. FAIRWEATHER | SUMMER 2013 | 23

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