Outer and Inner Space
Poor Little Rich Girl
Shot in the summer of 1965 with newly available portable video equipment from Norelco, this prescient experimental work is built around a multiple portrait of Factory superstar Edie Sedgwick, who is seen both in close-up on the video monitor and seated next to it talking, smoking, and just hanging out. Warhol multiplies the mirroring structure by creating a second film that similarly resituates Sedgwick and her video double.
Organized as a day in the life of Edie Sedgwick, the “poor little rich girl” of the title, this semi-documentary takes portraiture to a new level as Warhol’s out-of-focus cinematography is set to the strains of the Everly Brothers. We follow Edie as she wakes up, orders up coffee and juice, smokes and exercises, talks on the telephone, and explains how she ran through a sizeable inheritance in just six months.