Agnes Varda smiled at me! The director was present at the showing of this film (with her 1982 short Ulysse shown beforehand), and she described the historical background of Lions Love (about two feet from my face!). This was her only film made in America, and it's very much influenced by the cinematic court of Andy Warhol. Lions Love stars Warhol model Viva and two men, James Rado and Gerome Ragni (the creators of the musical Hair) as a spiritually linked threesome living in L.A. Filmmaker Shirley Clarke crashes at their apartment, having come to L.A. to meet with producers. To sum the film up, it's late '60s garbage. Sorry to say it, but it is. Mostly improvised, with a lot of goofy, goofy scenes. Warhol and his cronies are almost completely forgotten, at least the cinematic section of it. I would guess that this was just one of a hundred films made in a similar style during this period. My only point of reference is the 1972 film Ciao! Manhattan, which depicts the toppling of Warhol's most famous protege, Edie Sedgwick. That film, I think, is a masterpiece, despite of or because of its cinema verite insanity. Lions Love is much less interesting, and it never reaches an emotional level like Ciao! Manhattan does. Still, Lions Love isn't worthless. It may be garbage, but it is amusing garbage. This is probably due to my youthful interest surrounding the late 1960s, and most who lived through the era would probably find the film insufferable. And it does find a structural anchor, if not an emotional one, in the assassination of Robert Kennedy, as well as the attempted murder of Andy Warhol. If the film depicts the events factually (and, from what Madame Varda seemed to imply, these things happened as they were making the film), those two events happened on the same day. 6/10.
Review of Lions Love (... and Lies)
