Abel Ferrara, whose past films includes the anguished cult classic “Bad Lieutenant,” premiered his documentary on New York’s legendary Chelsea Hotel at the Cannes film festival Friday.To make “Chelsea on the Rocks” he even moved in to the hotel whose residents have included scores of artists and writers such as Bob Dylan, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Sid Vicious.
Actor Jamie Burke, who plays Vicious in a brief fictionalised recreation of his turbulent stay, said the hotel is “an artistic tornado of death and destruction and love and broken dreams.”
The recreation centres on the fatal stabbing of Nancy Spungen, the Sex Pistol singer’s girlfriend, in one of the hotel rooms.
Ferrara’s film interviews past and present residents including actors Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper, cartoonist Robert Crumb, and film-maker Milos Forman as well as the hotel’s long-time manager Stanley Bard.
Bard encouraged artists to move in to the hotel’s apartments and often let them go for long periods without paying rent if they were struggling financially.
But the hotel’s new management is trying to oust the long-term residents and turn the Chelsea into an upmarket hotel, according to Bard.
Ferrara has made a series of strange, off-kilter movies since his 1979 debut with the slasher film “The Driller Killer,” including “King of New York” with Christopher Walken, “Bad Lieutenant” with Harvey Keitel and “Snake Eyes” with Madonna.
