Dallas Film Now.

Being an artist is hard. Being a starving artist, literally subsidizing one’s nutritional intake on free, cheap wine at parties, and living with tumor-infested rats crawling around the room, is very hard. That’s the portrait weaved by filmmaker Brian Vincent in Make Me Famous as he charts the existence of New York artist Edward Brezinski toiling away in the bowels of mid 1970’s and early 80’s New York City…. yes right in the heart of the city’s dilapidated wallow of ruin after being told to “drop dead”. That he lived across the street from the famed James Street men’s shelter in a crumbling tenement where his art served as wall decoration for so many years is a bold statement about the dichotomy of squalor and treasure living side by side during this era.

However, for all its condemnations and abject sights of poverty, the film is also an ebullient treatise on the downtown art scene personalities that would eventually roll out of the muck and become the leading figures of the American new wave art scene (or beg your pardon, whatever it was named). Alternating between well-known figures like Basquiat, Richard Hambleton, James Romberger and Kenny Scharf, Make Me Famous is actually more concerned with the lesser-known bright flames of the movement.

The one that comes to garner the most attention through an inquisitive light is Edward Brezinski. No where near as iconographic but just as equally hungry for recognition, Brezinski’s art soon becomes the focus of Make Me Famous and becomes a dual examination of the man, first when it studies his unique personality and artworks, and secondly as the film spins a quasi-mystery around his suspicious death announcement in France in 2007. If the outcome is less Dashiell Hammett than simple life, that’s okay. The film does a nice job of creating an air of mystery while getting to know Brezinski and his humanity.

Outside of Brezinski, the film is fueled by a ton of talking head footage from many of the key players and commentators of the era. Even if there are times that Make Me Famous feels a bit self-indulgent, we have to remember we’re dealing with a sect of people who love to talk about themselves, spin their stories about a night at Max’s Kansas City, or choose to pivot their point of view as it suits the rosy colored memories of cold, embattled nights in New York City. What’s the point of being a starving artist if creative license isn’t available decades later? And I could think of five different documentaries that could be spun from the reels of this film. David McDermott in his Ireland mansion? A travel show with James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook? Those are just a few of the tasty asides in Make Me Famous. If nothing else, the film will make one want to jaunt to their local art museum and appreciate the works that have survived from crumbling tenements all around the world.

Make Me Famous will begin a week-long run with screenings at the Violet Crown Cinema in Dallas starting Friday March 28th Tickets can be purchased from the following link: https://dallas.violetcrown.com/movie/VC002063