Cinematical

We all know about Andy Warhol. Art neophytes or pop culture collectors alike are familiar with the man who made art of death, commodity and famous faces. Behind the artist was the Factory, where many circled, but few made lasting names for themselves to the world at large. It was hardly the environment to achieve singular greatness, between the shadow of Warhol himself and the ego and drugs that surrounded him. It is in this mess that the world never really noticed Danny Williams, a Harvard dropout, Factory member and presumed Warhol lover.

One day in 1966, he borrowed his mother's car, drove to the sea, and vanished. His disappearance left a deep, cavernous question in the lives of the family that he left behind. Years later by chance, niece Esther Robinson and her family were presented with forgotten films made by her uncle during his tenure at the Factory. This fuelled Robinson to create A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory -- a documentary meant to try and suss out who Danny was, and what happened to him in the time leading up to his disappearance. The film features scenes from Williams' silent films, family mementos/interviews and of course, a number of chats with the surviving members of the Factory, such as Paul Morrissey, Brigid Berlin, Danny Fields and Billy Name.

The wild children of Warhol are far from the clearest and most cogent sources for information on the little-known or noticed man. Their memories are clouded in decades-old gossip, the distance of years gone by and the haze of drugs. However, Robinson is able to sort through this muddle and present an intriguing, piecemeal collage of a man so close to the center, but also so far away. The confused memories of his artistic cohorts are intermingled with the praising words of a grieving mother, which allow for not only a view of the forgotten man, but also an interesting examination into the dynamics of memory.

With family, Esther had to coax her grandmother to speak about her long-vanished son. Her words are a mixture of motherly pride, criticism and pain. During one scene, she looks back and forth between two pictures of Danny, talking of how strong he looks in one, and how soft he looks in another -- as if one was the successful, and one wasn't. The interviews with Factory members play out in a similar way. For over-zealous and jealous Morrissey, the relationship between Warhol and Williams is downplayed, as are the man's achievements. He claims that Danny had no involvement in the impressive lighting for the Exploding Plastic Inevitable shows with The Velvet Underground, yet Ron Nameth speaks in detail about Williams' lighting innovations. Surprisingly enough, these inconsistencies and instances of muddled thought help to fuel the piece and give it more depth than just a woman trying to learn about the uncle she doesn't know. Each interview captures ways in which bright and crazy youths deal with age, as well as how they store and remember memories.

Along with lighting innovations, Williams was an impressive silent filmmaker. The clips that were discovered are beautiful. Simplistic, yet complex, they capture shadows, thoughts and subtle moments within each of his subjects. One collection of scenes records Warhol stoically sitting with his head in his hand. It's a simple, but deeply intriguing moment. Even more stunning is his shadowy footage of Harold Stevenson. Williams captures many slight mannerisms as the man smilingly moves in and out of light and shadows. With hair waving and flying around haphazardly, he instinctively tries to push it behind his ear. Years later Robinson captures the same move as she interviews Stevenson, which makes for the only moment of sheer visual coherence. Otherwise, her filmmaking is quite different than her uncles, and quite jarring. What seems like inexperience -- with blurring images and too-close shots that often have to re-find their subject when the body moves to or fro -- is actually what Robinson finds beautiful. Perhaps this would work in another film, but matched with the silent clips, it seems harsh and unpolished.

Perhaps this is the plan -- to reveal the "complex middle" between extremes -- both visually and contextually. Just as her cinematic eye rests on a different plane than Williams, the accounts of his life lay in extremes. No one person seems to be exactly right. The film cannot definitively answer who he was, but Robinson doesn't bother trying to make an answer where one doesn't exist -- just as she refuses to hypothesize on her uncle's ultimate fate. It changes with her mood. On good days, he might have disappeared in order to make a better life for himself. On bad days, we walked into the sea and never came back.