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48 out of 51 people found the following review useful:
Pure Warhol, 2 September 2005
Author: squeezebox from United States

Andy Warhol made many movies that are meant to be watched. VINYL, LONESOME COWBOYS, WOMEN IN REVOLT, THE CHELSEA GIRLS are all masterpieces of avant-garde, minimalist cinema. On the other hand, he made many movies that were never meant to be watched, but only looked at. SLEEP, **** (FOUR STARS), EAT, COUCH and, of course EMPIRE.

Anyone who attempts to watch EMPIRE from start to finish (nearly five hours in length when viewed at the correct speed) is missing the point. Just as with much of Warhol's work, the art is that the piece exists, not necessarily the piece itself.

I had a teacher in film school who bragged about having watched EMPIRE in its entirety. I have often wondered what Warhol would have said to that. My guess is, "What a waste of time." EMPIRE is simply a moving still life. Instead of spending eight hours painting the Empire State Building, Warhol photographed it for eight hours, at a fast camera speed so when played at normal projection speed, the image is actually slowed down. The film was intended to be projected on a wall during gallery shows, so that people could stop and look at it the same way they would a painting. It was not meant to be watched like a regular movie. Yet countless underground and art film aficionados have done just that, as though they are accomplishing something.

The fact that people find this movie so fascinating and have written and pondered so much about it is a testament to Warhol's genius. Aside from being a phenomenally imaginative and intelligent artist, Warhol was one of the world's greatest satirists, in that he led much of the world, and particularly America, to become a parody of itself, without even realizing it. That was, in many ways, his greatest work of art.

Now, we have paparazzi inundating us with images of famous people who are viewed by the public as demi-gods, simply for being famous. We have people paying outrageous amounts of money to be walking billboards for companies such as Tommy Hilfiger, Nike and Ambercrombie and Fitch.

And many people still think EMPIRE is a deep, meaningful masterwork of cinema.

It's a five hour long static shot of the Empire State Building. Nothing more. And Warhol is still laughing his ass off at all the people who've read more into it than that.

Because a star rating would be meaningless for this film, I have not given it one.

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41 out of 63 people found the following review useful:
A nonstop, nerve-racking thriller, 20 July 2004
Author: Titleist18 from Hopkinton, New Hampshire

Empire has got to be considered one of the most suspenseful movies ever made. 485 minutes, with every one of them keeping you on the edge of your seat, seemingly impossible for an eight-hour movie to accomplish. The scene changes are so subtle and quick, they barely seem to happen, making you feel as if the story hasn't changed, all setting up each individual shock. The acting is fantastic, each character so stoic and emotionless, as if they aren't in the scenes in the first place. Warhol does a fantastic job at threading each scene together, to make it appear as if it is just one ongoing one. Absolutely ridiculous that the AFI refused to include it in its 100 thrills list. See it, and prepare to have your imagination and sense of reality warped.

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14 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Try to see Andy there, 29 April 1999
Author: Petr Ferenc from Prague, Czech Republic

Watching this movie is a fight. If you know about the details, you just sit, look at that building at night, watch the small light in the background (appears every 20 minutes) and wait for Andy Warhol who passes in front of the camera for about five times. I've seen him three times. At the end, the lights on the building are switched off and you just watch two small lights on the dark screen (it takes two hours). A really bizarre experience.

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7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Mesmerizing, but not for everyone., 30 September 2004
Author: PeterBradford from Hollywood, CA

I saw EMPIRE at the Whitney some time circa the early 90's. I watched the first 90 minutes of it, which I thought was an appropriate feature length. The film is silent, which makes it difficult to watch in a theater. It's easy to get distracted by the sounds of viewers shifting in their seats, or the talking among the blue-haired ladies who had no idea what they walked into. The film works (at least the first 90 minutes) because the Empire State Building goes from dusk to night, so there is a change slowly occurring on the screen. The film is mesmerizing, and I don't think I have ever looked up at the Empire State Building since without thinking about this film. There is something captivating about staring at it's fixed image, flickering on screen at 16 frames per second (which is what it was shot at, and a projector at the Whitney was modified to run at that frame rate). I wouldn't sit through 8 hours of it, but it's worth viewing for the experience of seeing this rare film.

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9 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Long...long ...long...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, 20 October 2000
Author: mark czuba (gspotbuy@hotmail.com) from Edmonton, Ab.

Warhol's Empire (1964), a static shot of the Empire state building that begins in day and ends at night. (climaxing when the lights turn on the building, eight hours later!!) The film itself is a re-examination of the way we view cinema, and it's been called the longest establishing shot that denies the viewer everything else.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Sublime proof that "Art is anything you can get away with"., 1 October 2008
Author: edchin2006 from Canada

This will be my first comment about a film that I've not seen which, merely, puts me in the company of the other commentators.

I was curious about what sort of person (if any) might actually sit through such a movie. I'm sure Andy Warhol wouldn't. So, when I read the comment that this film was not to be watched, but looked at, I realized the true genius of Andy Warhol.

"Empire" was not made to be watched nor looked at. It was meant to be talked about... And the proof (partially verified here at IMDb) is that we are all reading, writing, and talking about this opus.

I wonder if Andy would have made a followup work "Eiffel Tower" might it be deemed too exciting compared to the tranquil "Empire"?

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12 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
There's Nothing Like It, 7 August 2002
9/10
Author: alexduffy2000 (alexduffy2000@yahoo.com) from Hollywood, USA

EMPIRE'S greatness lies in the fact that no one has before, or since, made a film like it. This eight-hour long movie is one that you sit back and simply get lost in your own thoughts as you watch a single shot of the Empire State Building on one evening. It's like a moment of time captured forever, and more of an experience than a film, like watching a living portrait. It's amazing to watch this in a silent, darkened theater, if you have eight hours to spare, or even if you can watch just 45 minutes of it.

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Review of the 1 Hour Version, 19 October 2011
Author: (IMDBcinephile) from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Andy Warhol interests many enormously. Reading into him is, as he's mentioned continuously, a futile gesture.. He's boring, he's dreary, he's neurotic and he's gay. But, in his own right, he is a postmodern artist, and ergo has been hailed for his work in the dept of art, with reproductions and the way he prints things. However, where art underlies, films were, as he put it, "a lot of fun" (paraphrasing). Okay, so let's evaluate: Fun and cinema? Do the two mix? Yes. Gelling this with an audience is an impossible task and livid as anything. Andy said "I enjoy watching out the window". He also said before his untimely death that he couldn't care less about what people think. He also confessed to not working hard enough in his own life as well. He was really quite a cynic on his own self that for other people to upbraid him, it would just give more credence in his mind. I don't dislike this so called "film". I find it interesting. One of the film historians Adriano Apro, said that "People say Warhol's films are boring. That's partly true, from a superficial point of view. But not from an in depth point of view. The frames are studied thoroughly. Andy was a painter (first and foremost)". He said "Empire was in a way his most abstract film". To paraphrase, it's as if the abstraction of the world is only spotlighted with one static skyscraper. We must remember, also that Adriano said (in the Andy Warhol 4 silent movies collection as one of the introductions) that half of the lighting (in such films as "Blow Job" and "Kiss") that the lighting was probably coincidence, but it shows a talent that Warhol had.

Now, I want to say: Warhol was not one of the conventional film makers. And nor is this film his grand achievement. It's more like one of his most interesting enterprises. Somebody, who worked as one of the cinematographers on the film said (I don't agree with them on this) that it was sort of like the unveiling of Birth of a Nation. However, this I cannot concede with what he said after: They literally wanted to kill Warhol at the premier stipulating for their money back claiming "There's no movement in the picture". Again, remember, Warhol likes an extension of movement. As I do agree with Adriano, I cannot agree with him that there's some depth to the film. It's just Warhol staring out of a window eventfully.

Now why did I give it 5/10 as opposed to 1/10? I found the changing condition to be quite fascinating. I'd like to know if they do have a full 5 hour version of the film (it was badly cut due to its debacle) and to see how the lighting changes. Smudges and dust from the print make it fascinating as it becomes so luminous. It's phallic and disorientating - the building - and reified within our own minds eye; we see it, but it's only darkness around it that illuminates it. The movement varies from up and down to a transition in a white iris fade.

But in the end, it's definitely SUBJECTIVE. Objectively it's a still life; an object that has light now and again, but is generally underexposed (supposedly it was shot with an Arriflex camera and Warhol put the camera up to 24 fps, which is quite evident as our eyes watch the building, but the whole background is black and white, so the effect is minimum to the viewer. Shot on 16mm though, because, as he put it "it was cheaper"). I'd recommend watching it; or if not, at least understand that it wasn't meant to be entertaining. It has, not intentionally (from the film maker), become a time capsule. And its interest inherent in that is why I can't completely pan it. But the majority of his films were infinitely superior. Just don't expect influence from the film because only one man could get a static image to have a greenlight.

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It was filmed on the 42nd floor of the Time Life Building., 2 May 2011
7/10
Author: Nat H from United Kingdom

It was filmed on the 42nd floor of the Time Life Building. What makes this film contemporary is that it is not like a normal film, as with normal films you watch the entire film, but Empire is a challenge for the viewer to watch as it just features the same image of the tower. I think it is to be viewed more of a painting than a film. In short, Empire is an extremely weird and wonderful experimentation that Andy Warhol did. Empire is exactly a single uninterrupted shot of the Empire State Building in New York. My overall opinion of the piece is that Empire is one of the most unexpectedly gripping movies I have seen to date, as not much happens but you expect it to. I could not wait to see what was going to happen and as I watched it I began to believe that nothing ever would, but as soon as the lights go on I sprang out of a chair like I would on an action film. Just like in life, sometimes the most simple things are the most beautiful. If all films were a huge 485 minutes long I would most likely be bored out of my skull, but if I was listen to music that was that long I probably would not get bored as there is something relaxing in hearing and letting your other senses go to rest, just like with watching Empire which keeps my eyes busy but relaxes all the rest of me. I would say that the overall technique of Empire is mesmerizing. It used only one shot that would be boring and dull for most films but it uses it as a plus point by making it a film that is one of a kind film that has not be done before or after with any great success. I believe the techniques in Empire were done in a style that Warhol wanted us to relax and to be interpreted in our own way as we are not mentally stimulated enough to keep full concentration on the film itself. Also when I look at this documentary I don't see a film but more of history that has been frozen in time and I believe this is what Warhol wanted to achieve as the film appears to be in slow motion. I would describe the medium of the film as gritty as you can see a lot of grain in the film which is most likely due to it being night during most of it and the time the film was made. The fact that the film is black and white makes it feel more like a contemporary piece. What most films are made of include a visual and sound combined to make a pleasant experience for the audience. Even though this film is a silent movie it still relies on sound to give the whole effect of the film, as when I was watching it I found I was getting easily distracted by sounds around me bringing me out of the trance of the film and then bringing me back into it once I started watching again. The reason I selected this particular piece and Warhol is that I found this motion picture so captivating and it made me want to write about it. It makes me think while watching it and most films do the thinking for you. It is for this reason that this is one of Warhol's best films in my opinion and what makes him such a mastermind. Historical references I can link with this film and the artist is that it was made in the 60's which was a time for change and trying new things that had not been done before Examples include pop music from the Beatles or sex becoming a subject people talked about, so artists were becoming more daring in what they did. I believe if Empire was made in any other decade it would be a lot different from what we see today.

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9 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
Ridiculous, 30 June 2004
Author: Prof_Kermit from The Internet

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS (a joke)

Andy Warhol's "Empire" is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen (part of, anyway).

So basically he points a camera at the Empire State Building, presses a button, comes back eight hours later, removes the reel of film, and labels it "art".

Although it's a unique premise for a movie, there's a reason for that: it's one of the most idiotic ideas for a movie. Warhol is called genius, but that's certainly a difficult quality to deduce when you see he's made projects like this and "Sleep".

I pity anyone that watched all eight hours of this.

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