“Make Me Famous” - Film Review
New York City in the 1980s was known for its wild, unruly art scene. Some point to it as the last great era of the city before it became sanitized when Disney moved into Times Square. It was a time when artists ruled the city. When Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Andy Warhol incited the same thrill as the Beatles did in the 1960s. While those names have endured the test of time, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of artists whose work didn’t make it into the public consciousness. Such is the case of Ed Brezinski who finds himself posthumously at the center of Make Me Famous, a documentary about this bygone era.
©Joseph Szkodzinski
The art world has a way of isolating those who are not In The Know. If you can’t recognize a Rothko, you might feel as though your opinion of art hanging in galleries and museums doesn’t matter as much as those who are knowledgeable and considered to be the arbitrators of what is Art. That’s the age-old question that exists in all art forms and mediums. What’s the difference between art that never sees the light of day and art that is shown around the world, then sold for millions of dollars? Is the artist whose work is widely unknown a lesser creator than someone like Picasso, whose name carries nearly universal awareness? To its credit, Make Me Famous offers an excellent crash course about the who’s-who of this world for its audiences in a way that makes the subject matter accessible to those who are not art aficionados.
In Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women, Jo (Saoirse Ronan) argues that “Writing doesn’t confer importance. It reflects it.” Her sister Amy (Florence Pugh) disagrees, saying, “Writing things is what makes them important.” If we apply that mentality to the works of Ed Brezinski, Make Me Famous is giving him his long-awaited due. Ed was moving in the same circles as the people who would end up becoming famous and beloved, but he was never able to get a taste of that success for himself. All the people in the documentary talk about how notoriety was always at the forefront of Ed’s mind. He wanted fame, pure and simple, yet it remained elusive to him. Ed is most remembered for throwing a glass of wine at a very prominent gallerist, Annina Nosei, and eating a fake donut that was part of an art piece.
©James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook; Edward Eats, ink and water color, 2020
It may be decades late, but Make Me Famous is giving Ed the importance he so deeply craved. This desire to be known and celebrated is not unique to him. Every artist dreams of being paid for their art, to be able to make a living from their creations. It’s a struggle that continues to exist today, and one that’s not exclusive to painters. Filmmakers, writers, sculptors, we all do the thing we love because we love it, but we’d also love to not have to scrounge a living doing odd jobs. Make Me Famous is an ode to Ed and all of the other artists whose names have been left out of the conversation. As one of the interviewees notes, the documentary is “kind of like filling in the blanks of history.”
“Art is only great if you say ‘wow.’” Perhaps that’s how we should all look at paintings, films, and other works. Does it instill a sense of awe? After all, art is personal, both in its creation and in its reflection. No two people will ever have the exact same reaction to a piece of work, so why are we trying to make a homogenous canon of the greats? It sounds ironic to be posing that question in a review written by a critic, but the job of a critic is to explain their personal experience of a piece of art. Its strengths, weaknesses, ability to delight, to scare, to create a sense of awe. In reading critiques, there’s the hope that the reader will look at art differently. Not to necessarily see what the critic sees, but to form their own opinion, to revel in their own experience. Make Me Famous is a breakdown of the art world to get to its core: a celebration of the awe that art can inspire in an individual.
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