Tagline: When Andy met Eddie, life imitated art.
The year is 1965, and Edie Sedgwick is living every young girl’s dream. Rich, ambitious and breathtakingly beautiful, Edie’s life changes forever when she meets Andy Warhol, New York’s most famous artist, and the man who will transform this trust fund baby into the Big Apple’ss most dazzling Superstar.
At the center of this exciting and decadent new world is The Factory, Warhol’s downtown loft, a place where musicians, artists, actors and all types of misfits gather to create art and movies during the day, and to throw fabulous parties at night. It is here that Edie takes her place at Andy’ss side as the Factory’s most alluring and irresistible Superstar.
Edie has the world at her feet. Every woman wants to be her. Every man wants to be with her. But unable to find the love she craves from Andy and The Factory Edie turns to the “voice of a generation” singer-songwriter Danny Quinn, a captivating and talented musician who represents everything that Andy is not – where Andy is all cool surfaces, Danny burns with the fire of his convictions. Danny pushes Edie to free herself from Andy, who has been using her in his movies but never paying her. Edie quickly falls for Danny, but every affair has its price.
Factory Girl is a 2006 American biographical film directed by George Hickenlooper. It is based on the rapid rise and fall of 1960s underground film star and socialite, Edie Sedgwick (played by Sienna Miller), known for her association with the artist Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce). The film premiered in Los Angeles on December 29, 2006 to largely negative reviews from critics, who nonetheless praised Miller’s performance as Sedgwick.
The film was set back by numerous delays, including a lawsuit by Sony Pictures, as well as the schedules of Miller and Pearce, so additional shooting was delayed until mid November 2006. Consequently, producer Harvey Weinstein had to postpone the release date. Additionally, according to director George Hickenlooper, the budget was once expected to be $8 million, but ended up being less than $7 million.
Hickenlooper helmed the additional shoots and mixed the final cut of the film in New York City, where he worked in close collaboration with Weinstein. Weinstein released the picture on December 29, 2006 in Los Angeles. Because the post production schedule was so delayed, Hickenlooper continued to sound edit the film after its initial release. The film received a nationwide release on February 2, 2007.
During the fall of 2008, Hickenlooper uploaded a rough director’s cut of the film to Youtube now referred to as “The Unseen Director’s Cut.” Due to the Weinstein Comapny’s ownership of the footage and the material not being authorized for release, it was removed from the website.
Synopsis
Factory Girl imaginatively unfolds the comet-like rise and fall of 60s “It Girl” Edie Sedgwick, the blazing superstar who came to define both the glamour and the tragedy of our celebrity-obsessed culture. Sedgwick appeared to be the quintessential American princess, with her blue blood, her trust fund and her Harvard education, not to mention her ethereal beauty and vivacious charisma.
But she was also a lost and fragile little girl; and when she met up with counter-culture anti-hero Andy Warhol, everything changed. Suddenly, Edie found herself at the center of a Pop Art universe bursting with sex, drugs, style and rock ‘n’ roll — and a mad rush for fame and fabulousness that was destined to spin out of control.
Arriving into the chaos of mid-60s New York, Edie (Sienna Miller) is taken under the wing of the famously deadpan artist Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce) who sees in her untamed vulnerability the makings of an irresistible muse. Warhol invites Edie into the wild world of The Factory, a former downtown hat factory he has transformed into a bohemian paradise.
Here, a rag-tag mix of musicians, poets, artists, actors and misfits gather to create avant-garde movies during the day and throw glam parties all night long. Edie quickly ascends to become the star of Warhol’s movies, an idol at The Factory and a media darling. She is on top of the world when she falls in love with a larger-than-life rock star (Hayden Christensen). But when Edie becomes caught between Warhol’s world of sexy surfaces and her new love, she winds up rejected by both – and once again, set adrift in the modern world.
Into the Machine: Researching Edie and The Factory
Over a period of the next two years, Captain Mauzner (Writer / Co Producer) and George Hickenlooper (Director) took the screenplay for Factory Girl through various iterations and revisions as they delved deeper and deeper into the Factory.
To get an authentic, inside view on what life in Warhol’s coterie was really like, the pair conducted hour after hour of probing interviews with many of Andy Warhol’s and Edie Sedgwicks’ closest intimates, including: Gerard Malanga, the influential poet and Factory filmmaker who co-founded Interview Magazine with Warhol; Warhol “Superstar” sisters Brigid and Richie Berlin; art curator Sam Green who helped to build Warhol’s career and first introduced Andy to Edie; Factory member Danny Fields who went on to become a major rock music manager; and Edie Sedgwick’s widowed husband, Michael Post. Pulled into the Factory’s inner circle, Mauzner and Hickenlooper also spent days browsing through endless archival material, from formal artworks to revealing, casual photographs.
Edie Sedgwick: Timeline
1943: Edie is born in Santa Barbara, California to a blue-blooded American family – the 7th of 8 children — and grows up surrounded by wealth and privilege, but also familial mental illness.
1962: Edie is hospitalized at Silver Hill Mental Hospital, suffering from anorexia.
1964: Edie’s brothers, Minty and Bobby, both die in separate tragic incidents – yet later that year, Edie’s life changes dramatically when she moves from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Manhattan, where she makes a dramatic impact.
1965: Edie begins her ascent as a counter-culture superstar after she meets Andy Warhol and starts becoming a regular at The Factory. She soon stars in a succession of Warhol’s films, including Poor Litle Rich Girl, Vinyl, Beauty #2 and Chelsea Girls.
1965: Zooming to the pop culture forefront, and becoming a household name, Edie is featured in Vogue as a “Youthquaker” and gets a full layout in Life Magazine.
1966: The Velvet Underground release the song “Femme Fatale” written about Edie at Warhol’s request.
1966: Edie and Andy make a public split. Edie starts living in the Hotel Chelsea, where she becomes part of New York City’s burgeoning folk-rock scene.
1967: Edie begins shooting her final film, Ciao Manhattan. That same year she is committed to the hospital for drug addiction and returns to her family in California.
1969: Edie meets Michael Post, who she will later marry.
1971: Edie marries Michael Post and attempts to get clean of drugs, but does not succeed. On the night of November 15, 1971, she attends a fashion show at the Santa Barbara Museum. In the morning, her husband finds her dead. The coroner’s report rules that it was an accidental suicide by barbituate overdose. Edie is buried in the family’s Oak Hill Cemetery.
Continue Reading and View the Theatrical Trailer
Edie: Factory Girl (2006)
Directed by: George Hickenlooper
Starring: Sienna Miller, Hayden Christensen, Guy Pearce, Mena Suvari, Jimmy Fallon, Tara Summers, Shawn Hatosy, Beth Grant, James Naughton, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Illeana Douglas
Screenplay by: Captain Mauzner
Production Design by: Jeremy Reed
Cinematography by: Michael Grady
Film Editing by: Dana E. Glauberman, Michael Levine
Costume Design by: John Dunn
Set Decoration by: Cynthia Anne Slagter
Art Direction by: James A. Gelarden, Eva Radke
Music by: Ed Shearmur
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive drug use, strong sexual content, nudity and language.
Distributed by: Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Release Date: December 29, 2006
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