The Screen Tests of Andy Warhol are silent black and white close ups of an individual lasting between two and a half minutes to four minutes. They were an appropriation by Warhol, of the test rolls used by Hollywood to consider actors suitability.  They aim to capture the essence of a person and their personality, as Warhol remarked: “I only wanted to find great people and let them be themselves.”[1] I am interested in them because they bring to light the complexities of looking and being looked at. Against a plain background in Warhol’s Factory, the films were shot between 1964 and 1966 on a Bolex Movie Camera[2].

The portrait style films are a deconstruction of charisma, in which the human face becomes subject to scrutiny by the viewer. Ann Buchanan[3]’s screen test in particular, one of his earliest films, is a powerful example. Under instructions not to blink for the duration of filming, after a minute and half, tears begin to form and fall from her face and continue for the rest of the film. Warhol tests Buchanan’s physical stamina but more than this, the process of the screen test itself – shown at sixteen frames a second, the film is intentionally slowed down. The set up of the camera and flat lighting, two points of which are reflected in her left eye while a single point appears in her right one[4] and her concentration throughout the four minutes, all point to the lingering ritual of the act of looking and being looked at.

Buchanan’s screen test is particularly unnerving because there is an “utter discrepancy between her deadpan expression and the tears that fall from her eyes”[5] yet seeing such spontaneous action demonstrates how expression can be transformed, how things one try to hide come through on film. Warhol manipulates temporal duration to create transformation. The films are shot in black and white and end with a silvery fade out in which the face dissolves. The circular celluloid appears at the end bursts of light Warhol uses the materiality of film by demonstrating its textures. The ghostly effect when coupled with the film’s drawn out duration could be an explicit reference to mortality or rather, films defence against it. They offer the opportunity to gaze on the human face for a prolonged period of time.

In my practice so far I have explored various tactics of Warhol’s creating my own version of a screen test and also by singing directly to an individual maintaining eye contact.

 

 

 

 

[1]Andy Warhol, quoted by The Barbican http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?id=10741 (Accessed April 2017, online)

[2]Callie Angell, Introduction ‘Andy Warhol Screen Tests: The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne (Abrams: New York, 2006) p.12

[3]Andy Warhol, Ann Buchanan The Girl Who Cried A Tear The Screen Tests of Andy Warhol, 1964 (Accessed April 2017, youtube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dsRVOM4KkM

[4]J.J Murphy, The Black Hole of The Camera: the films of Andy Warhol

 (University of California Press, 2012) p.1

[5]J.J Murphy, Introduction ‘The Black Hole of the Camera: the films of Andy Warhol’  p.2