If I were going to try to convince someone of the value of Andy Milligan's work, VAPORS would be the film I'd show. In fact, I HAVE shown it to a few people over the years with that purpose. It's a gritty 16mm black-and-white feature set in a gay bathhouse and it seems very much like a "small theatre group" play, which makes sense since Milligan himself ran a few such theatre groups. The film transcends the gay aesthetic it represents and is really a meditation on loneliness--gay, straight, or whatever. While the room-tone echo on the recorded sound takes a little getting used to, it should not diminish the quality of the acting, which is quite moving in the case of the two leads. While the late Mr. Milligan was a unique filmmaker, Warhol always seemed to be his main-man artistically, and that's clearer here than anywhere else in Milligan's work. Milligan obviously knew what it meant to be lonely, to be afraid, and to reach out. This beautiful but raw film captures that as well as, for example, any Bergman film or Saul Bellow novel. History will view this film as a pioneering work of cinema. Please be warned, though, that it is NOT for the casual viewer or the viewer who cannot see beyond the film's lack of traditional qualities of slickness and "professionalism." Seeing this on a big screen at the time of its minimal release must have been a revelation!!! If Milligan had never made another film, this would rate him as a major filmmaker in my book.
