Production

Andy Warhol shot sixteen 32-minute reels of film for all the interior shots (with all of the cast except for Taylor Mead) during January 1967 in a Hollywood Hills home called the Castle (which Warhol rented for his L.A. visits). The exterior segments with Pat Tilden Close and Taylor Mead were filmed in San Francisco parks and streets during May 1967.

A long version of the film (480 minutes) premiered in November 1968, and then was withdrawn from circulation — the long film was thought lost for many years, and then was found in the early 2000s. In December 1968, the entire eight-hour film appeared as a segment within another Warhol film, the 24-hour long **** (aka Four Stars)

Four Stars (film)

Four Stars is a 1967 avant-garde film by Andy Warhol, actually consisting of 25 hours of film . In typical Warhol fashion of the period, each reel of the film is 35 minutes long, or 1200 ft...

. In late 1969, Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey condensed the eight-hour Imitation of Christ to 105 minutes, and re-released it under the same name.

Excerpts of Imitation of Christ were also included within the film Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story, a 75-minute documentary about the life of actor Brigid Berlin (Brigid Polk), directed by Vincent Fremont and Shelly Dunn Fremont, produced by Vincent Fremont Enterprises, and released September 7, 2000.

Cast

• Brigid Berlin (also known as Brigid Polk) played Mother.
• Bob Olivo (also known as Ondine
  Ondine (actor)
  Robert Olivo aka Ondine was an American actor. He is best known for appearing in a series of films in the mid-1960s by Andy Warhol, whom he claimed to have met in 1961 at an orgy....
  
  ) played Father.
• Patrick Tilden Close (credited as Pat Close
  Pat Close
  Patrick Tilden "Pat" Close was a former child actor who later appeared in the 1967 Andy Warhol film, Imitation of Christ.-Career :...
  
   for previous work as a child actor in both film and television) played Son.
• Nico
  Nico
  Nico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress, who initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s...
  
   played The Maid.
• Taylor Mead
  Taylor Mead
  Taylor Mead is an American writer, actor, and performer. Mead appeared in several of Andy Warhol's underground films including Tarzan and Jane Regained.....
  
   played Hobo.
• Andrea "Whips" Feldman
  Andrea Feldman
  Andrea Feldman was an American actress and Warhol Superstar. She committed suicide in 1972.-Career:Andrea Feldman was a native New Yorker. She attended Quintano's School for Young Professionals, a high school for the performing arts...
  
   played Son's Girlfriend.

Summary

The title for this film comes from the Imitatione Christi, a spiritual guide written in the fifteenth century by Dutch mystic/author Thomas à Kempis

Thomas à Kempis

Thomas à Kempis was a late Medieval Catholic monk and the probable author of The Imitation of Christ, which is one of the best known Christian books on devotion. His name means, "Thomas of Kempen", his home town and in German he is known as Thomas von Kempen...

(1390–1471). The film itself is a realistic dramatic comedy about a handsome young man called Son, silent and moody, who spends much time in his bedroom with the family maid, who feeds him corn flakes, strokes his hair, and reads to him from the Imitatione Christi. Elsewhere in the family home, the young man's mother and father lay in bed and argue over Son, trying to analyze what's wrong with him, while, at the same time, admitting their physical attraction toward him, and lamenting over their own sad lives. Son also has angry arguments there in his home with his abrasive girlfriend, over minor matters. Intercut into the film are outdoor scenes of Son ambling through the streets of San Francisco with a hobo.

Critical reception

There was much praise at the initial release, calling Warhol "the equivalent of Victor Hugo" , but there was much criticism of the fact the film was not released after the premiere event except in a shortened form.

Sources

• "The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures produced in the United States, Issues 1941-1950" University of California Press (1997) ISBN 0520209702, page 524

External links

• Imitation of Christ webpage on the NICO Films website