Guggenheim, an heiress, was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went to his death on the Titanic, a sad blow to his daughter and a major tragedy in her life.

The film is built around discovered recordings of comments by Guggenheim in interviews with Jacqueline Bogard Weld about her life and work. The tapes were lost but fortunately discovered. Guggenheim had a reputation for candor and self- aggrandizement, and these qualities are amply present. She made no bones about sleeping with a variety of notables, whom she left nameless in her autobiography but later identified.

Samuel Beckett was one of her lovers, for example. When I learned this my comic imagination made me think of how funny the situation might have been--she and Beckett in bed waiting for Godot to arrive for a threesome. This personal diversion of mine aside, the film covers the personal territory of her life entertainingly and informatively.

This is a very serious exploration of how important Guggenheim was in the art world. Many have visited the museum that she established in Venice, one of her lasting achievements. She was an astute early collector of modern art, and she obviously enjoyed being at the center of things and reveling in her well-earned credit. She was not a dilettante but a genuine art lover, yet, as the film shows, she enjoyed the attention that her passion for art brought her.

There are plenty of shots of her in the film at exhibits and other events that stressed her importance. The film is replete with comments by those who knew her. Through them we are able to fill out a portrait of her and her relationship to such important figures as Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder and Jackson Pollock.