Technical failure can be recast as the essence of an art form

Evidence

Projecting a sublime indifference, the movie opens with a jerky pan and prolonged close-up of Edie’s face—or to be more exact, what might be Edie’s face. Her image is not only motionless but completely out of focus. Thanks to Warhol’s ineptitude or a defect in the Auricon’s lens, Rich Girl has the shallowest depth of field of any movie ever made. The image is as indistinct as a sonogram. Edie’s features are veiled by the grain. This screen-filling pale oval is the pure beauty of cinema or it’s nothing. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 713