More trouble for film 'Factory Girl'

Dec 14, 2006, 12:20 GMT

epa00719336 (FILES) A file photo dated 29 June 2001 showing US music legend Bob Dylan performing at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. Bob Dylan, also known by his real name Robert Allen Zimmerman, will celebrate his 65th birthday on 24 May 2006. EPA/Niels Meilvang

Bob Dylan wants to stop the release of new film 'Factory Girl' because he believes it falsely implies he is responsible for Edie Sedgwick's suicide.

The music legend has written to producers Bob Yari and Holly Wiersma, and screenwriter Aaron Richard Golub, demanding the movie - a biopic about artist Andy Warhol's young muse - is shelved until it has been determined whether or not he is defamed in the film.

Sedgwick, played by Sienna Miller, was Warhol's biggest protégé until she became addicted to drugs and killed herself by overdosing on barbiturates in 1971.

While living at New York's Chelsea Hotel she befriended Dylan and the pair are rumoured to have had a relationship.

Dylan's lawyer, Orin Snyder, has said the original screenplay portrayed the alleged relationship using Dylan's name, and suggested he dumped Sedgwick - causing "her tragic decline into heroin addiction and eventual suicide."

The name has now been changed to 'Danny Quinn' in the film and the character, played by Hayden Christensen, is said to be a combination of Dylan, the late Doors frontman Jim Morrison and Sir Mick Jagger.

But Snyder insists critics who have previewed the film say it is unmistakably Dylan.

A trailer shows Quinn wearing Dylan's trademark harmonica brace and cap as he performs.

According to the New York Post newspaper, Snyder warned: "You appear to be labouring under the misunderstanding that merely changing the name of a character or making him a purported fictional composite will immunize you from a suit. That is not so. Even though Mr. Dylan's name is not used, the portrayal remains both defamatory and a violation of Mr. Dylan's right of publicity.

"Until we are given an opportunity to view the film, we hereby demand that all distribution and screenings immediately be ceased."

The Weinstein Company, which is releasing the film on December 27, has so far declined to comment.

(C) BANG Media International