Review: 'The Andy Warhol Diaries' a Fascinating Primer on Pop Art's Most Influential Figure

The Ryan Murphy-produced docuseries "The Andy Warhol Diaries," running for six episodes on Netflix starting March 9, sheds new light on the life and vision of the most famed, and revered, figure in the realm of pop art.

Born Andrew Warhola Jr. in Pittsburgh in 1928, Andy Warhol made his way to New York city in 1949, at age 20, and started working as a commercial artist. But he had grander ambitions: Fascinated by fame, Warhol established his "Factory," a nexus of artistic life where he surrounded himself with all sorts of people, from street kids to members of high society, and fostered the arts – pretty much all of them: Painting, photography, film, and music. In this way, we learn, "Warhol" became a brand, and the man behind the name turned out to be something of a prophet for the world we live in now – a world bedazzled with fame, celebrity, wealth, and the various discontents that come along with those things (a global case of ADD, for instance, or a conflation of notoriety with talent and extremism with glamor).

Warhol's diaries – dictated over the phone daily to Jean Hackett, who later edited the manuscript for publication in book form – started off as a record keeping exercise to track business expenditures, but soon became a kind of travelogue, not only to the destinations to which Warhol ventured, but also his moods, social interactions, insecurities, and, to some extent, his love life. It's observed that Warhol worked to keep a certain bland mask between himself and the public, but it was in his journals that he expressed his opinions.

That's true – but what's also true is that Warhol's manner of expressing those opinions was, in some ways, as inscrutable and remote as the public persona he cultivated. Despite his direct, even blunt, way of stating his thoughts, it still feels like Warhol's not turning loose; at a couple of points, unwilling to delve too deeply into painful experiences, Warhol simply says that "the diary can write itself."

Still, his opinions could be forceful, and his thoughts, as expressed here, startling. At one point, talking about a Pride parade, Warhol muses that all the good-looking gay men must have been elsewhere that weekend; at another, following a breakup with his first long-time boyfriend, the interior decorator Jed Johnson, Warhol makes a conscious, and seemingly calculated decision to express himself more romantically with his next partner – and decides, just as methodically, that said next partner should be Paramount Pictures executive Jon Gould. (It seems Warhol succeeded in this, and though some of the interviewees can't seem to bring themselves to comment definitively on whether this was sexual, vs. platonic, love, the doc presents evidence that Gould reciprocated Warhol's affections.)

The series reminds us of its provenance from time to time by putting up title cards with specific dates, after which something about the day in question will be read out. This brings a new level of immediacy to certain key moments in Warhol's life, such as when he met Basquiat (after which the two embarked on a fruitful, and famous, collaboration).

Director Andrew Rossi employs AI to alter the voice of actor Bill Irwin, who reads the passages aloud, so that the narration sounds more like Warhol's voice. It's a fascinating conceit, but not much more; the narration sometimes has a slightly synthetic quality to it reminiscent of Stephen Hawking's electronic voice, and while the result is a good match of Warhol's actual voice, as heard in archival clips, it's nothing that a voice actor couldn't have done just as well or better without the gimmick of processing the readings through an AI.

As with most documentaries of this sort, new interviews with colleagues, friends, and commentators round out well-chosen archival clips, while occasional dramatizations (Warhol and Basquiat painting; Warhol at work in a well-appointed room), filmed out of focus and otherwise visually obscuring the actors to achieve a dreamlike effect and maintain the illusion, adds a welcome additional layer of texture.

These six hour-long episodes are a welcome and illuminating exploration of Warhol and his oeuvre, and they feel like the tip of a much larger iceberg. Warhol looms large over the art world; he'll loom even larger in your imagination after viewing this series.

"The Andy Warhol Diaries" streams on Amazon Prime March 9.