Engaging study of artists and radicals hanging on at the legendary New York building in the face of hungry developers is charming but vague
New York’s Chelsea Hotel is the almost mythic building renowned for the radical bohemianism and life-on-the-edge danger of its famous residents, who have included Dylan Thomas, Patti Smith, Sid Vicious, Bob Dylan, Madonna and Iggy Pop. But unlike CBGBs or checker cabs, the Chelsea is a New York institution that does in fact still exist, and is the subject of this interesting, if meanderingly vague documentary from Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt.
It is all about the now ageing artists and radicals still living there, such as dancer and choreographer Merle Lister, who once staged performances in the Chelsea’s beautiful stairwell with its wrought-iron balustrades. They are the ageing holdout generation with legally protected tenancy – and they resent the forces of gentrification for...
New York’s Chelsea Hotel is the almost mythic building renowned for the radical bohemianism and life-on-the-edge danger of its famous residents, who have included Dylan Thomas, Patti Smith, Sid Vicious, Bob Dylan, Madonna and Iggy Pop. But unlike CBGBs or checker cabs, the Chelsea is a New York institution that does in fact still exist, and is the subject of this interesting, if meanderingly vague documentary from Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt.
It is all about the now ageing artists and radicals still living there, such as dancer and choreographer Merle Lister, who once staged performances in the Chelsea’s beautiful stairwell with its wrought-iron balustrades. They are the ageing holdout generation with legally protected tenancy – and they resent the forces of gentrification for...
- 1/18/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Any day now the renovated Chelsea Hotel will fully reopen, capping a drawn out process that has seen the grand edifice on the west side of Manhattan shrouded in netting and defaced by scaffolding for over a decade.
Repeated construction delays, legal wrangling between residents and the building owners, as well as a dispute with the city agency devoted to historic properties all contributed to the endless postponements. But the magic of a place that has been home to the artistic and idiosyncratic for over a century seemingly cannot be obscured by clouds of construction dust.
The new documentary Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel invites viewers inside the red brick palace to spend time with long-term residents who contribute to, and perhaps are, the essence of the Chelsea’s charm.
“It’s a film of encounters and the people we met, we love them,” explains Maya Duverdier, who co-directed...
Repeated construction delays, legal wrangling between residents and the building owners, as well as a dispute with the city agency devoted to historic properties all contributed to the endless postponements. But the magic of a place that has been home to the artistic and idiosyncratic for over a century seemingly cannot be obscured by clouds of construction dust.
The new documentary Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel invites viewers inside the red brick palace to spend time with long-term residents who contribute to, and perhaps are, the essence of the Chelsea’s charm.
“It’s a film of encounters and the people we met, we love them,” explains Maya Duverdier, who co-directed...
- 8/5/2022
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
There are many layers to the mystique of the Chelsea Hotel. Long before it became a hipster hangout, the 12-story, 250-room fortress, built in the 1880s, was home to Mark Twain. In the ’50s, the Chelsea played host to assorted literary figures, the first of whom to lend it a dissolute aura was Dylan Thomas, who was living the lush life in room 205 when he became ill and died in 1953. The beats moved in, and so did Arthur Miller after he divorced Marilyn Monroe and Arthur C. Clarke while he was writing “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
But it was Andy Warhol who put the stamp of underground cachet on the Chelsea when he shot his three-and-a-half-hour multi-screen ramble “The Chelsea Girls” there in 1966. By the time that Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe took up residence in 1969, they already saw themselves as the next generation in the Chelsea tradition of bohemian squalor.
But it was Andy Warhol who put the stamp of underground cachet on the Chelsea when he shot his three-and-a-half-hour multi-screen ramble “The Chelsea Girls” there in 1966. By the time that Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe took up residence in 1969, they already saw themselves as the next generation in the Chelsea tradition of bohemian squalor.
- 7/10/2022
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
In most major cities, history is the first thing to be obliterated. Whether you live in New York, Los Angeles, or any other metropolis, not a day goes by when an architectural wonder isn’t being razed or otherwise altered, a legacy forever changed in the name of “progress.” Such is the case with the famous Chelsea Hotel in New York City, a haven for poets, musicians, and other raconteurs of the ’60s and ’70s, including Patti Smith, Marilyn Monroe, and Dylan Thomas. What was once a location of creative inspiration is now a literal shell, slowly transforming into a chic hotel, with its long-term residents punted off into quiet corners where they can’t disturb anyone.
“Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel” is less about where the hotel has been and more about where it’s headed. Directors Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt head into the Chelsea with...
“Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel” is less about where the hotel has been and more about where it’s headed. Directors Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt head into the Chelsea with...
- 7/7/2022
- by Kristen Lopez
- Indiewire
Artfully toggling between the ephemeral memories associated with the infamous Chelsea Hotel, and the more granular concerns of its present residents, Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt’s new documentary, the Martin Scorsese executive produced “Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel,” is a concise reflection of the erasure of historical monuments in the name of gentrification. Centralizing the protracted construction process that closed down the hotel in 2011, but allowed its long-term residents to stay, the doc mainly follows the hold-outs in their ninth year of construction, many who view the hotel as one the last examples of bohemian, and affordable, living in Manhattan.
Read More: Tribeca 2022 Festival Preview: 24 Films & TV Series To Watch
While populated by various artists and eccentrics, Merle Lister — an elderly dancer, choreographer, and artist — serves as the film’s guide, moving through the construction zone with her walker, discussing the historical moments with various construction workers,...
Read More: Tribeca 2022 Festival Preview: 24 Films & TV Series To Watch
While populated by various artists and eccentrics, Merle Lister — an elderly dancer, choreographer, and artist — serves as the film’s guide, moving through the construction zone with her walker, discussing the historical moments with various construction workers,...
- 6/13/2022
- by Christian Gallichio
- The Playlist
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