Celebrity charisma trumped craft in early Warhol productions

Evidence

Harlot was followed by Screen Test #1 and Screen Test #2, The Life of Juanita Castro and Vinyl, in which Edie had a cameo. All were written by Tavel, who appreciated Sedgwick’s charisma but, despairing of her bratty unwillingness to learn lines, found it insufficient. He wrote one film for her, Kitchen, and another, Shower, which—coached by her would-be Svengali Chuck Wein to inform Warhol that she refused to be a mouthpiece for Tavel’s “perversities”—Sedgwick flat out refused to make. Tavel turned it into a one-act play. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 730

Categorization

• XREF: Charisma-over-craft in Warhol’s circle is an instance of the broader substitution of persona for skill that the subculture-to-counterculture shift capitalized on.