Abel Ferrara's documentary of the Chelsea Hotel (NY) was screened at Filmekimi, and made me feel the vibrations of a religion that I only studied before. Contrary to what Stanley Bard (ex-managing partner of the Hotel) is saying, they do teach these in school books now.
The documentary wasn't a spectacular one, in fact I didn't like it, the magic was not even in the stories told, it was how they were told by witnesses and the stars that shined in their eyes. It is common for a communion place to foster emotional attachment to the group after all....
The hotel is (was before the new heartless hotel management forced everyone out) a legend and a sanctuary for numerous artists, musicians and writers: Thomas Wolfe, Charles Bukowski, Jean Paul Sartre, Jack Kerouac, Arthur Miller, William S. Burroughs, Bob Dylan, Stanley Kubrick, Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jane Fonda, The Grateful Dead, Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Dee Dee Ramone of The Ramones, Henri Chopin, Édith Piaf, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Sid Vicious, Leonard Cohen, Pink Floyd, Frida Cahlo, Richard Bernstein, Diego Riviera, Andy Warhol, Henry Cartier Bresson... They came here, they came home and stayed for months to get out of boundaries, to "feel" the union they belong to, to get high, to have sex, get high again , then to create, to stab one another and to commit suicide.
Why here?
Because they were welcome to.
The room prices were ranging from 3 to 900 dollars. No credit check for the broke if they were "in". One could stay for years. One could fill the room with trash. One could loose consciousness. One could become a whore. One could stab all paintings on the walls. One needn't be intelligent.
Elevating creators of art... with half their brain melted on drugs and alcohol, defying consciousness, almost unable to talk. "They based their lifes on what they were doing, on 'being in the game'. The pressure was immense, and they had no other way to cope" says sweet old Stanley, and if you are incined to believe, it does makes sense.
Good or not, there was a religion/a culture constructed here, and there were the group members, desperate to be immortal but not as much enthusiastic to be mortal. They broke "the rules" and created their own ones that were no less effective in choking them. Then again, they, the dwellers justified each other. Most died young, some died of fame, leaving their soul here, at the Chelsea Hotel.
