The movie follows Joe, a heroin addict, throughout his quest to score more drugs. The episodic plot occurs over a single day and centers on Joe's problematic relationship with his on-off, sexually frustrated girlfriend. During the course of the day, Joe overdoses in front of an upper-class couple, attempts to fool Welfare into approving his methadone treatment by having Holly fake a pregnancy, and frustrates the women in his life with his drug-induced impotence.
Andy Warhol's Trash, Trash - I rifiuti di New York, 渣, Lixo, Мусор
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Entry #20 in the month-long marathon of NYC films with my own trashy beefcake is a criminally underrated piece of cinema that I will continue to champion as a seminal work, and one I think @theironcupcake would very much appreciate.
A heroin-addled Joe (played by a brawny 20 year-old Joe Dallesandro), in his somnambulistic attempts to score drug money inadvertently plagues a lineup of concupiscent, eccentric women with his incoherent torpor and resolute impotence in Paul Morrissey’s 1970’s experimental film, Trash. His volatile but loving girlfriend—in a legendary performance by willowy dynamo and trans Warhol superstar, Holly Woodlawn—when not rummaging trash piles for her next interior design centerpiece, concocts a variety of schemes to hustle an income while trying to…
Along with the two other films in Paul Morrissey's Joe Dallesandro hustler trilogy, 'Trash' features some of the most idiosyncratic characters you are bound to encounter anywhere. And despite Morrissey’s grumpy, conservative and judgemental temper towards these often drug-addled and sex-obsessed figures over the past few decades, these films show such a deep affection for the mostly wart-encrusted personalities of his characters (It was no surprise to learn recently that Morrissey was an early influence upon Mike Leigh). In the films I have seen of Warhol’s before Morrissey gained more control over his productions, the actors are often allowed to let their improvisations run long and wild. This can be great at times, but in Morrissey's productions like 'Trash' and…
"I just wanna get some money, that's all—go get some more stuff."
In the early 1960s, former social-worker Paul Morrissey became a fixture at Andy Warhol's Factory, and by '65 he had begun working on Warhol's films often as a co-director. Following Warhol's near-fatal shooting by Valerie Solanas in 1968, Morrissey assumed greater control of the Warhol film complex, eventually making a name for himself commercially by blending Warhol's outlandish casting proclivities and offbeat campiness with a more traditional cinematic structure. Though the octogenarian filmmaker obviously has Warhol to thank for whatever notoriety he's managed to accumulate, Morrissey lashes out jealously at the dead master whenever possible. But I'd expect no less from a self-described "right-winger" like Morrissey than the…
"You really shouldn't worry, you know? Nowadays, anything goes!"
There is no acting school that can teach what Andrea Feldman could do. Truly a voice for the ages.
Paul Morrissey's films with the Warhol gang are endlessly fascinating to me, but few leave their mark quite like Trash (available for free on Internet Archive or on YouTube). I highly recommend taking a look at my pal Cuckoo's detailed write-up for all the necessary background on why this unique portrait of filth is such a classic, but you can also take it from critic Vincent Canby's New York Times description of the one and only NYC icon, Joe Dallesandro: "His physique is still so magnificently shaped that men as well as…
I’m pretty sure my kink is watching Joe and Holly being surrounded by absolute idiots
“I mean all I want is to have a little fun time , just a little gay time!”
“My dear, you were thrown out of high school for giving blow jobs in the cafeteria so don’t give me that shit.”
Although I adore all three, this is definitely my favorite of the Paul Morrisey trilogy produced by Andy Warhol. Here we have a heroin addicted Joe Dallesandro looking absolutely ridiculously good for a heroin addict and frankly good for any 20 year old.
He spends the majority of the movie naked wondering into the homes of various women looking for a handout and the endearing amateur quality of Andy’s stable of veteran actors combined with most ad-libbed dialogue results in…
Why doesn't Holly Woodlawn get mentioned more when it comes to all-time great performances?
She seriously gives an all-time great performance here.
Vegan alert:
Someone says "f you" to someone's hypothetical dog.
This may be one of the most effective anti-drug PSA-type films I've seen. The whole thing from front to back is full of such dirty interactions, wonderfully contrasting the comfy calmness of Flesh. While Joe's addiction makes him helpless and somewhat unlikeable as a protagonist, the focus isn't so much on him but the way others treat him, such as the rich couple who take him in like a pet just to toss him aside after he becomes too much for them, and the wellfare worker towards the end who takes advantage of Holly Woodlawn's minimal possessions, who is absolutely wonderful in this. These two primary interactions here perfectly showcase two sides of disgusting mistreatment of those who find themselves…
Basically perfect. Really devastating movie
Imagine Trash as the filmic equivalent of someone overturning a dumpster onto a red carpet.
Paul Morrissey’s nihilistic carnival of heroin, degradation, and disillusionment, produced under Andy Warhol’s glare, shoves the American Dream through a shredder and asks you to applaud the scraps. With Joe Dallesandro brooding his way through a series of aimless encounters, this is less a movie and more an aesthetic manifesto for the gloriously broken.
Call it a love letter to despair, written in dirty needles and crumpled dollar bills.
Plot? Forget it. Trash eschews narrative coherence for a series of grimy vignettes that make Fredric Jameson’s critiques of postmodern fragmentation feel like a prophecy. Joe’s inertia isn’t just a mood—it’s a lifestyle. Julia Kristeva’s abjection…
holly woodlawn is genuinely fucking fantastic in this movie. here’s how she can still win the academy award.
