Chelsea on the Rocks

Chelsea on the Rocks celebrates the personalities and artistic voices that have emerged from this legendary residence in the heart of New York.Once considered an untouchable, impenetrable tower for writers, artists, musicians and mavericks, it has recently been claimed as a boutique hotel venture for a management company which shows blatant disregard for its formidable history. The officially landmarked building is recognized as an American cultural icon and renowned for those who have lived and created there, including Sir Arthur Clarke, Bob Dylan, Stanley Kubrick, Arthur Miller, Joni Mitchell, Dee Dee Ramone, Larry Rivers, Dylan Thomas, Mark Twain,Tennessee Williams, Milos Forman, Janis Joplin, Donald Sutherland, Patti Smith, Philip Taaffe, Dennis Hopper, Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, Eugene O Neill, Jane Fonda, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Tom Waits, Courtney Love, Sam Shepard, Charles Bukowski, Julian Schnabel, Jasper Johns, Viva, Quentin Crisp, Jimi Hendrix and many others (some of whom appear in this film). And then there are those - most famously Sid Vicious girlfriend Nancy Spungen - who died there. Interviewing current tenants, recreating scenes of events that occurred at the Chelsea and intertwining archival footage with different formats of film and video, Ferrara creates a film that breaks through the documentary mould into something that captures the essence of the Chelsea Hotel.