Chelsea On The Rocks

If there are any doubts about Abel Ferrara's edge, or whether he still has it, they should be dispelled by Chelsea on the Rocks. Admittedly, a documentary is a long way from a fiction film in terms of content or focus, but his 88-minute account of the history, distant and recent, of the renowned Chelsea Hotel in New York recaptures a lot of the excitement and pacing of the place, from its heyday in the mid-20th century to the more sedate early 21st century. The Chelsea, for those unfamiliar, was the residence of such varied figures as Samuel Clemens, Dylan Thomas, Vladimir Nabokov, Tennessee Williams, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Andy Warhol, Milos Forman (who sho...