Ghosts of the Chelsea Hotel (and other rock n' roll stories): the power to make you want to create

REVIEW by Drew Rowsome - photos CHIP BAKER FILMS
22 AUG 2023 -

New York City's Chelsea Hotel looms large in the history of visual art, literature and music. No matter one's tastes in art, the "elegant in a worn out way" location will have figured in the life of a prominent favourite creative. Ghosts of the Chelsea Hotel (and other rock n' roll stories) initially appears to be an attempt to chronicle the various guests and denizens who roamed the hallways, nestled within a historical overview. That is ambitious enough, the history is fascinating—from utopian commune to commercial enterprise—and the list of famous and infamous inhabitants is dizzying. From Sarah Bernhardt and Mark Twain through the Warhol set to Sid Vicious's violent final act, it seems that anyone who was anyone in influencing popular culture had a room at the Chelsea Hotel at one point or another. While watching, I found that I was merely jotting down names and anecdotes: William S Burroughs, Nico, Jack Kerouac, Dylan, Arthur Miller, Janis Joplin, Tennessee Williams, Michael Imperioli, Leonard Cohen, etc, etc. That was entertaining, but there was not enough time to go into depth on any of them. There are a hundred documentaries waiting to be created out of every few minutes of Ghosts of the Chelsea Hotel.

But of course filmmaker Danny Garcia (Nightclubbing: The Birth of Punk Rock in NYC, Rolling Stone: The Life and Death of Brian Jones, Sid: The Final Curtain, Stiv: No Compromise, No Regrets) has a cleverer end game in mind. Just as Ghosts of the Chelsea Hotel begins to feel it is in danger of becoming a gritty celebrity profile of a building, the film takes a sharp turn into the 'ghosts' portion of the title and Garcia's thesis becomes clear. It is powerful, cathartic and pulls all the stories into a radiant focus. Very subversive filmmaking. And it has been very entertaining getting there. Garcia has interviewed long term residents of the Chelsea Hotel and they are a motley collection of characters, all as interested in self-aggrandization as they are in telling anecdotes. Unreliable narrators to the core, but highly amusing ones. The interviews are intercut with archival footage, stills and three thematic throughlines. Firstly the camera roams the dilapidated halls of the hotel in an homage, or precursor, to Kubrick's The Shining. While an eerie contrast to the hideous boutique hotel renovations we eventually do see, it also sets up Garcia's thesis succinctly.

The second clip that repeats is of a staff member endlessly vacuuming the welcome mat in front of the hotel. A blunt metaphor but a resonant one. The third clip is of Patti Smith playing with mylar balloons, fusing rock n' roll with Warhol's perpetual influence. Smith figures throughout Ghosts of the Chelsea Hotel. She may not be the most famous of the artists who lived there, but she is definitely one of the most influential. Her brilliant autobiographical work, Just Kids, which includes the time she and Robert Mapplethorpe lived together in the Chelsea Hotel, is referenced a few times as a definitive description of a period in the hotel's existence. Of the hotel's flavour and ambience. The film has already recounted the stays of Dylan Thomas and other literati with it being stated that "writers were the rock stars of the time," before moving on to the rock n' roll hedonism that is the more recent perception of the Chelsea. Smith is a bridge between those worlds and those times, existing in both while being uniquely herself. The latter being a requirement to be a success at the Chelsea Hotel.

The individual anecdotes have something for everyone. I was fascinated to get back story on Harry Smith who created the influential Anthology of American Folk Music and was also a pack rat. There is a stunning and heartbreaking segment that filled in a gap that I didn't know existed in the life and death of Jobriath. And so many other anecdotes: Arthur C Clarke wrote 2001 at the Chelsea Hotel which just happened to operate on a malfunctioning computer named HAL. Jackie Gleason was a regular with the hotel's occult practitioners. An artist performs Kabuki in the lobby. Dee Dee Ramone and owner/manager Stanley Bard get heartfelt tributes, and of course the Sid Vicious saga can't be ignored, here getting an intriguing twist. There is almost an overload of celebrity gossip (which gets thin by the time a Josh Brolin siting is considered newsworthy, the times they are a-changing) that feels almost random until Garcia, a gay ghost (possibly from the equally notorious YMCA across the street), and a philosophical Imperioli give a spooky summation. One character claims that "this place had the power to make you want to create," it certainly did for filmmaker Garcia.