The people in this film didn't need to act, they just played themselves and who they were. More an example of inadvertent Cinema Verite than anything else, Heat is surely Sunset Boulevarde transplanted to the Hollywood/LA motel scene and is at once heartbreaking and astonishing. Sylvia Miles said she improvised most or all of her lines. A one time Hollywood star, now relegated to appearing on game shows to make ends meet while her effeminate ex-husband attempts to perform fellatio on the detatched and unassuming eye candy that was Dallesandro.Was she playing herself? Was Pat Ast playing herself as the rude, lasvicious lounge lizard motel proprietor? Most notably, Andrea Feldman played.....who else - Andrea Feldman. Somebody once quoted, that the saddest and most criminal element of this film was that Feldman didn't have to play or 'act' crazy, she was actually clinically insane at the time. You only have to look at her and watch her in this film. However, instead of supporting her or taking this into account, the people involved mercilessly exploited her, the camera gloating on her obviously dire condition. Needless to say, before the film premiered, she went waltzing out the window of her parent's 14th floor NYC apartment. Rest in peace darling, you were priceless. Every character or more appropriately 'person' in this movie is spiralling sadly and gladly out of control in the phoney muppet-like quagmire that is Los Angeles, California. It's an hilarious, touching and ultimately unnerving masterpiece, made even more so when you realize that very few of the cast were any different from the actual roles and 'characters' assigned to them. Despite the amateurish production values and the involvement of both Warhol and Morrissey, it's decadent, desperate, sun-baked squalor will remain with you the rest of your film going days if you are game enough for it.
