THE SHOT HEARD 'ROUND ANDY WARHOL'S WORLD.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

When you're walking the thin line between genius and madness, 15 minutes of fame hardly seems enough.

That, apparently, was one of the things that bugged Valerie Solanas, the brilliant lunatic who did the deed ``I Shot Andy Warhol'' is built around. A fascinating slice of cultural history, somewhat less successful at character exploration, the film goes on for an hour and three quarters. That's about all anyone can reasonably be expected to take of the obsessive Ms. Solanas (portrayed here with unrelenting intensity by Lili Taylor), not to mention the effete crowd that orbited the famed artist in the '60s.

Like Warhol's own, endlessly repeated 15-minute prediction, this movie has a surface-skimming quality that both mitigates and aggravates its discomfort factor. We're left expecting to have learned more about what made Solanas and the denizens of Warhol's legendary studio/hangout, the Factory, tick. But by then, we don't really want to know.

But even though things get a little tedious at times, there's no arguing that director/co-writer Mary Harron has meticulously re-created the scene and at least the surface characteristics of the self-styled superstars who inhabited it. Those who have a low tolerance for archness mistaken for creative cool - and Solanas definitely fits into that majority, which gives her at least one likable trait - should also be impressed with Harron's uncanny ability to capture the mood of a unique subculture and the era that spawned it.

Solanas was a fascinating, ferocious case, packed to bursting with rage, blazing intelligence and cockeyed courage. After a troubled childhood and an impressive, if contentious, academic career (which she partially financed by hooking) Solanas wound up sleeping on rooftops in Manhattan. A confirmed lesbian and vociferous feminist, she self-published the infamous ``SCUM Manifesto,'' which pretty much advocated the elimination of all males (SCUM stood for her one-woman Society for Cutting Up Men).

She also wrote a scatological play that one of Warhol's Factory workers amusingly described as ``too disgusting, even for us.'' Solanas' tenuous hope is that Warhol (played with detached delicacy by Jared Harris) will produce the thing, even when it's clear he'll never finish reading it.

Valerie's soon annoying the Factory folks no end - and considering how irritating most of them are, this really takes some doing. When the eternally blase Warhol makes himself scarce, that combined with poverty and her self-generated isolation sends Solanas into a paranoid spiral. The result was the crime that, in June 1968, seriously wounded Warhol and effectively killed the wide-open Factory lifestyle.

Those who know them by reputation or snippets from Warhol's underground movies won't get any deeper understanding of Ondine (Michael Imperioli), Viva (Tahnee Welch) or filmmaker Paul Morrissey (Reg Rogers) here. Even the transvestite Candy Darling, impersonated so well by Stephen Dorff that he makes Nathan Lane seem positively oafish, still comes off as little more than a boy who wants to be a girl and is darn good at it.

As for our heroine, Taylor injects humor and genuine intellectual rigor into Solanas. She's perhaps most convincing when, unable or unwilling to sell her body at any given moment, Valerie propositions men for paid conversation. Taylor exposes her loneliness, desperation and the driving force of Solanas' ever-burning mind all at once; it's rare bravura acting that's as emotionally complex as it is powerful.

But even an actress as gifted as Taylor can't keep Solanas' countless cussing jags and predictable, depressive degeneration fresh for the full length of a movie. ``I Shot Andy Warhol'' is good enough to enshrine this fascinatingly difficult individual forever. But it still leaves us hoping that, in the future, there will be few people quite as infamous as Valerie Solanas.

THE FACTSThe film: ``I Shot Andy Warhol'' (NR; language, sex, violence, nudity, drug use).

The stars: Lili Taylor, Jared Harris, Stephen Dorff, Martha Plimpton.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Mary Harron. Written by Harron and Daniel Minahan. Produced by Tom Kalin and Christine Vachon. Released by Orion Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 46 minutes.

Playing: Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Goldwyn Pavilion, West L.A.

Our rating: Three Stars.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) Lili Taylor is the troubled Valerie Solanas i n ``I Shot Andy Warhol.''

(2) Warhol, played in the film by Jared Harris, was seriously wounded in the June 1968 shooting.