... you can learn from:
Sally (Sylvia Miles): You're NOT a lesbian. I mean, everybody has girlfriends. Men have friends, women have friends. That doesn't make you a lesbian. Do you sleep in the same room with her?
Jessica (Andrea Feldman): Sure. How else can I be a lesbian?
Sally: Where does Mark sleep?
Jessica: With us.
Sally: In the same bed?
Jessica: In the same bed.
Sally: Is that a way to bring up a boy? He'll be a lesbian!
Jessica: How can a boy be a lesbian?
The relationship between Sylvia Miles and Andrea Feldman in Paul Morrissey's Heat, the final part of his trilogy also including Flesh and Trash, is one of the greatest things ever committed to celluloid. The capper to this conversation comes later in the film when Jessica has decided to stop being a lesbian and start sucking off Joe Dallesandro every chance she gets - and who can blame her? - and her mother shouts, with the sort of tinny flair these films relish, "She can't even get being a dyke right!" Glorious.
Watching one of these movies you always get the distinct feeling that the actors have just taken the needle out of their arm right before the director yelled action, and so it was with trepidation that I approached Andrea Feldman's IMDb page. I really enjoyed her tone-deaf performance, but you just really got the feeling watching her that she wasn't long for the world. And sure enough she died in August of 1972, two months before the film was even released. According to IMDb:
And since that's a depressing note to end on, here's some video of her in happier times, when she got to stick her hands down Little Joe's pants and bite his nipple in the movie.
Watching one of these movies you always get the distinct feeling that the actors have just taken the needle out of their arm right before the director yelled action, and so it was with trepidation that I approached Andrea Feldman's IMDb page. I really enjoyed her tone-deaf performance, but you just really got the feeling watching her that she wasn't long for the world. And sure enough she died in August of 1972, two months before the film was even released. According to IMDb:
"She committed suicide in 1972 by jumping from the fourteenth floor of her apartment building in New York City. In her hands were a rosary and a can of Coca-Cola."
And since that's a depressing note to end on, here's some video of her in happier times, when she got to stick her hands down Little Joe's pants and bite his nipple in the movie.
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4 comments:
The bit about dying with a rosary and a can of Coca-Cola sounds too perfect to be true, almost like something straight out of a Godard movie.
Andrea Feldman is great in Heat but really shines in Trash, shouting the classic lines - "it's TIME FOR A SHOWTIME!" and the essential words-to-live-by: "you have to be weird if you're going to do acid."
Dame James - I know, right? It's so bizarre and poetic.
John - I still haven't seen Trash. It's the only one of the trilogy I haven't seen yet, but it's on Netflix Watch Instantly so it'll be viewed soon. And due to your description SOONER, because that all sounds wonderful.
I love Heat. Maybe even more than Trash.
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