Show of the week
One expert interviewed for this stylish profile calls Andy Warhol a "philosophical artist" because it's "impossible to look at [his] work without thinking." The Whole Warhol is similarly stimulating.
The British-produced documentary does a first-rate job of relating Warhol's life to his oeuvre, from the icon-filled church he attended as a child in Pittsburgh to the Last Supper paintings he left behind at his death in 1987. This is a study that takes its subject seriously but never solemnly, allowing that reasonable people might see something absurd about Warhol's multiple images of soup cans or his eight-hour-plus film consisting of one continuous shot of the Empire State Building.
Beyond the art analysis, the documentary uses the reminiscences of former associates to present a full picture of this most contradictory man—shy self-promoter, religious libertine, exalter and subverter of pop culture.
Bottom Line: Work of art
