Empire (1964 Film)

Empire (1964 film)

Empire is a 1964 silent, black-and-white film made by Andy Warhol. It consists of eight hours and five minutes of continuous slow motion footage of the Empire State Building in New York City. Abridged showings of the film were never allowed, and supposedly the very unwatchability of the film was an important part of the reason the film was created. However, a legitimate Italian VHS produced in association with the Andy Warhol Museum in 2000 contains only an extract of 60 minutes. Its use of the long take in extremis is an extension of Warhol's earlier work the previous year with Sleep.