When the private diaries of ANDY WARHOL, edited by long-time confidante Pat Hackett, came out soon after his death, critics largely dismissed the entries as glib and shallow and mired in celebrity name-dropping. Think again. Gifted documentarian ANDREW ROSSI brings to Netflix a stunning, binge-worthy, six-part series, exec produced by RYAN MURPHY, that uses these diaries — what the artist says, doesn’t say and everything between each line — as a framework for exploring not just the life and times of the Father of Pop Art but every possible related subject: queerness, societal perceptions, art history, the creative process, the art market, identity and masks, race and appropriation, AIDS, isolation and relationships, feeding the fame demon, iconography and Catholicism, commissions and inspiration, the shifting lens of crtitical appraisal. You name it. And, yes, there is plenty of glitz, often aptly fatuous and empty, culled from gritty 70s and more so 80s NYC. It is an indescribable and unrelenting portrait of an at-times inscrutable genius. To tap into a creative and philosophical vein Andy would have appreciated: you can’t stop watching!
