What Fresh Hell Hath Harvey Wrought?

Factory Girl opens in NY today and, like most local critics, David Edelstein could barely condescend to spit out a coupla hundred dismissive words. But his final line caught my eye: "Factory Girl does suggest a resonant topic for future cultural-studies classes: the evolution of the downtown film scene from Warhol to Weinstein."

Obviously, Edelstein's not seriously trying to do much more than jab at Harvey for ordering a rush job on what would still probably end up a bad film. But really: how odd, to equate cultural relevancy with zip code. Beyond the easy joke, the sentence itself doesn't make any sense: no one engaged in serious scholarly pursuit would suggest that Harvey Weinstein shares any kind of common ancestry with the Anthology Film Archives set.

A more interesting case could be made linking Weinstein back to Warhol, not in the context of geogrphical center, but as birds of a feather -- culture vultures, born manipulators; insecure men with sharp eyes for talent and a tendency (or compulsion) to overshadow the stars they create. But I'd argue that what Harvey lacks in ingenuity or vision, he makes up in loyalty. This is a man who is by all accounts unbearable to be around, and yet filmmakers tend to join up with him for life. For all of the Harvey Scissorhands lore that goes around, filmmakers as varied as Kevin Smith and Anthony Minghella can testify that box office success aside, once you've learned how to work for Harvey, Harvey will always give you a place to work. Unlike Andy, who famously sucked his "friends" dry only to discard them, leaving them, as Edelstein puts it, "trapped in—and destroyed by—their roles." Moth men might have shared an instinct to conquer lesser personalities, but ironically, Harvey managed to turn that into a business model by being -- and this is the kicker -- a nicer guy.

Edelstein seems to imply that Harvey has somehow killed the underground film scene, but of course that's not it at all -- he was never interested in "underground," or even "art". Any attempts he's made to find unknown talent have only been in the name of keeping up front costs down so as to maximize returns. I'm no Weinstein apologist -- I've been as harsh as anyone on the post-Miramax output, and I haven't seen Factory Girl, and I probably won't. But to give the impression that Harvey Weinstein is somehow more exploitative than Andy Warhol is just lazy.