The Face in Flight: Andy Warhol’s Henry Geldzahler

Abstract

Existing analyses of Andy Warhol's Henry Geldzahler (1964) interpret it as a psychological portrait that reveals its subject's interiority. This article, by contrast, refutes such claims of psychological depth. Through a close analysis of the film's surface and of Geldzahler's performance, it reads the work in terms of parody, play with props and materials, and queer affect. It illuminates its peculiar nonpsychologizing portraiture through William James's theses about transitional mental states and the continuity of the psychic and the material. It concludes with a reconsideration of Warhol's film portraits in light of these ideas.