Paul Swan

These two 35 minute non-stop reels of films are, I think, one of the very few times when the concept was effective. Someone suggested that Andy photograph a dramatic reading given by a man in his eighties. Paul Swan was a dancer who was contemporary with and a rival to Isadora Duncan. He was also a very fine painter, sculptor and poet. He ran a monthly ad in the Village voice for his recitals which he gave in his living-loft. Underneath his photos in the ad a line appeared in quotes ''The Most Beautiful Man in the World''. The photo of himself in profile had been taken forty years earlier, but he remained very handsome.
Because of his advanced age he didn't really understand that the camera kept running after he finished his poems as he changed costumes. What makes this film so interesting is its combination of extreme theatrical artifice (the Paul Swan recital) and the total lack of any artifice in the intervals of the costume changes. It is also a record of a kind of performing art of the early years of the century, but more fascinating being performed in the middle sixties long after it had gone out of fashion.
There was very little direction, if any, of this elderly man needed. It reminded me of the Candid Camera TV-show in which people didn't know they were being filmed. This is the only instance of this in any of the experiments when someone didn't know they were being filmed.
Paul Morrissey

Medverkande
Paul Swan: Producent
Andy Warhol: Foto
Paul Morrissey: Talat språk
English