Did Andy Warhol care for Edie?

This is just my personal opinion, but I don't think Warhol really cared for anyone but himself. He used Edie, he played with her like a child plays with a toy, or like a cat plays with it's prey. And when he got tired of her, he threw her away and moved on.

I suppose in the end of the movie where she died I kinda wanted to see him break down in tears or something but knew that wasn't going to happen.

When Guy Pierce was studying for the role, Brigid Berlin showed him a series of telephone recordings she made, one of which she informs Andy that Edie has died. Pierce said the following:

“He had a number of reactions, the phone conversation goes for five minutes. There were a couple of moments where he’s clearly shocked and stunned by what’s happened. And his very first reaction is to go, ‘Who, what, where, how, why, who?’ And he does an incredible job of evading the actual information. Then there’s a huge long pause – they end up talking about her husband for a while, Michael Post - and then there’s this huge long pause and Andy says, ‘Does he get all the money?’ And then they get back into it again and Brigid’s clearly not happy with that response. Then there’s another big pause after they talk about some other stuff and Andy says, and you can tell he’s about to cry, he says, ‘Gee, I just thought she was going to pull through and get well,’ or something like that. So in typical Warhol fashion, I think he didn’t want to attach to the emotional response and tried to evade.”

Even if Warhol hadn't had any kind of emotional reaction to Edie's death, I would hardly blame him. It had been almost six years since they last saw each other, and they were not any closer emotionally than Edie was with many others during that time (though she expressed a desire to get closer).

A word of advice to the OP. Don't believe anything you saw in this film..

Based on what the movie depicted -- and I'm not going to address whether the movie was realistic -- "movie Warhol" (mW) cared a great deal for "movie Edie" (mE), but he was so emotionally stunted that he was unable to feel grief at the loss of their friendship and later her death.

The early scenes of them spending time together obsessively, being wrapped up in each other, show that there was a deep connection -- almost a non-romantic, all-encompassing infatuation -- between mW and mE. Just because he couldn't grieve her loss doesn't mean he didn't feel connected to her. With the exception of psychopaths, everyone -- even emotionally damaged people -- crave connection; unfortunately, they aren't any good at the give-and-take required by healthy/mature relationships, and they aren't able to cope with any of the taxing emotions (disappointment, frustration, anger, grief).

So, yes, mW felt a great deal for mE; couldn't handle feeling rejected as her focus shifted slightly away from him and onto Billy; dropped her; and compartmentalized such that he seemed to discard any feelings he'd had for her. By the time she died, he thought of her as a marginal person in his life (rather than re-feel grief at the dissolution of their friendship, feel regret or even self-recrimination at how badly he'd treated her).

Again, the above is about mW and mE, based on what the filmmaker and actors showed us. That said, what I know about AW suggests that he was an emotional cripple who couldn't let people in, couldn't cope with the emotional demands of partner relationships and true friendship.

"All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people."

Not a stupid question at all, and a very relevant one.

Did Warhol care about Edie Sedgwick? Probably in so far as it could get him somewhere. He saw her as incredibly privileged but too simple to actually make anything of herself. So he saw an opportunity to get what he wanted out of her but at the same time to give her what she always wanted; to be famous...just for the sake of it.

I think Warhol gave people what they were looking for; warts and all. I believe Warhol despised famous people; or was at least incredibly indifferent to them, and he played with them for his own amusement. He would give them what they wanted and then step away and watch the show play out; come what may.

Warhol saw vulnerability and used it to his advantage. He could even see Dylan's vulnerability and called him on it in that wonderful scene between the two.

Dylan needs to be directed because he can't think of anything to say for himself; and Dylan's way of masking that is to be arrogant and put Warhol down. Essentially through doing nothing but putting a camera on Dylan and asking him to just say whatever, we see what Dylan really is; without all the bells and whistles of fame and interviewers creating a stage for Dylan to act upon. Warhol says, "here's your stage; it's a chair and a camera...what have you got? Let's see who you really are".

In that wonderful scene you see Warhol command the room; he's telling Dylan that he sees him for what he is and doesn't back down; it's Dylan that founders in that scene, not Warhol, because Warhol accepts himself for who he is, where as he is surrounded by people who don't, and seek out fame to validate themselves.

In a way, Warhol's canvass was people; he liked to strip people back to the bare bones and watch the show that ensued.

Sorry, went a little of topic there, but Warhol was a fascinating creature.