AllMovie

Documentary filmmaker Ric Burns explores the life and legacy of pop art's most beloved icon with this film that seeks to illuminate the public persona and creative complexity of painter, photographer, and filmmaker Andy Warhol. Host Laurie Anderson narrates as an erudite collection of curators, critics, and biographers dispel Warhol's own self-created image as a haute couture heavyweight to offer a more intellectually minded portrait of the man who forever changed the way the world views Campbell's Soup cans. From Warhol's boyhood experiences in a Czechoslovakian community in Pittsburgh to a disheartening stint at art school and initial work as a commercial illustrator in New York, Burns' film explores every aspect of Warhol's life to offer a detailed look at the artist whose short-circuited class-jumping gave him a most unique view on contemporary culture.