Sept 1-7 John Waters Best of the Year Week: To be fair, these movies aren’t ALL funny, but JOHN WATERS is funny. He’s become more of a writer and public commentator these days. Still, he helps keep the arthouse from taking itself too seriously with his annual top-ten lists, while celebrating the comically serious.
In 49 years, Christa Päffgen — Nico — was born to a father who was a descendant of the wealthy Päffgen Kölsch master brewer family dynasty, a Catholic, and a conscript into the Nazi army, and a lower-class Protestant mother who took her away from the war to the Spreewald forest. Her father was either shot by a sniper and put out of his misery by a superior, went insane, died in a concentration camp or just faded away from combat shock.
Growing to be 5’10”, with strong features and pale skin, she was noticed as a teen as she sold lingerie by photographer Herbert Tobias, who named her after a man who had obsessed him, Nikos Papatakis. She dyed her hair blonde, later claiming she was inspired to do so by Ernest Hemingway. She then became a model in Paris before abandoning that life, running away to New York City.
After a small role in Mario Lanza’s For the First Time, she played herself in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and was in the Jean Paul Belmondo film A Man Named Rocca and Jacques Poitrenaud’s Strip-Tease. At some point, she met Nikos Papatakis, and the two lived together between 1959 and 1961. He noticed her singing and paid for lessons. A few years later, she recorded her first single, “I’m Not Sayin'”, produced by Jimmy Page, for Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate label.
Brian Jones introduced her to Warhol and Paul Morrissey, which led to her appearing in Chelsea Girls, The Closet, Sunset and Imitation of Christ. Warhol suggested her to the Velvet Underground as their chanteuse, and she appeared on four songs on their first album: “Femme Fatale,” “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” and “Sunday Mornings.g However, she never got along with many members of the band. That said, Velvet Underground members Lou Reed, John Cale and Sterling Morrison all played on her debut solo album, Chelsea Girl. By her second album, The Marble Index, she dyed her blonde hair red and started a style of dress that we’d call goth today*. She also made seven films with French director Philippe Garrel in the early 1970s, opened for Tangerine Dream — and later Siouxsie and the Banshees—and had a backing band on The End, which included John Cale and Brian Eno.
Somewhere in there, she had time to have a son with Christian Aaron Boulogne, whose father was either Papatakis or Alain Delon.
But her life was not all positive. After all, most of the last 15 years were spent on heroin; several claim she was misogynistic, anti-Semitic and said that black people had “features like animals,” while others say that she often made jokes in bad taste. Who knows? On vacation in Ibiza with her son, she fell off her bike, landed on her head and died a few hours later.
As you can tell, I’m a big fan of her music and the strange stories of her life. So, Nico, 1988 was perfect for me, as director and writer Susanna Nicchiarelli lets you know that Nico was more than the Velvet Underground. Images of Jonas Mekas’s films appear; the framing is meant to remind you of “the decadence and the quality of the VHS.” Actress Trine Dyrholm does more than an imitation; by singing and acting as the role, she becomes a version of Nico that imbues this movie and gives it a heart. The end, where she feels renewed, as well as the manic energy she feels playing the secret show in Czechoslovakia, is the most real feeling of being a singer that I have seen.
Even if you don’t know or like the music, I think you’ll find something here.
John Waters said of this movie, “A small, sad, fearless biopic that asks the question’ “Is junkie dignity possible?” The answer is no. Trine Dyrholm as our heroin-loving heroine plunges headfirst into the despair of showbiz with fierce determination.”
Waters also told Graham Russell: “She played at this disco, and I went. And people went, but not a lot. It wasn’t full. And she was heavy and dressed all in black with reddish dark hair, and she did her (makes guttural moaning noise). Afterwards, I said, “It’s nice to meet you, I wish you’d play at my funeral,” and she said (mimics doom-laden Germanic voice), “When are you going to die?” I told her, “You should have played at The People’s Temple; you would’ve been great when everyone was killing themselves!” Then she said, “Where can I get some heroin?” I said, “I don’t know.”. I don’t take heroin, so I don’t know. But even if I did, I wasn’t copping for Nico!”
*Indeed, in 1982, Nico and Bauhaus played “I’m Waiting for the Man” live, and her supporting acts included the Sisters of Mercy and Gene Loves Jezebel.
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