“Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel” – Asleep [MOVIE REVIEW]
Opening on an archival clip of a very young Patti Smith declaring that she wanted nothing more in life than to stay in the same hotel as Dylan Thomas, one had hopes that this documentary would explore that storied past. After all, the Chelsea had been, at one time or another, home to writers like Mark Twain, Thomas Wolfe, Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas (who died there after a bout of binge drinking), Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Arthur Miller. It was also popular with musicians including Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, and painters like Childe Hassam, Jackson Pollock, and Larry Rivers (who painted a mural in the hallway). There have been songs written about the hotel (“Chelsea Morning” by Joni Mitchell, “Chelsea Hotel” by Leonard Cohen) and Andy Warhol filmed “Chelsea Girls” there. This just scratches the surface of the famous artists who took up residence here and this is more information than you’ll get from “Dreaming Walls.” A group of primarily French and Belgian filmmakers were intrigued by the shell of the famous Chelsea Hotel and its history. The Chelsea, on West 23rd Street in Manhattan, was undergoing renovation, one that took over a decade…
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