The Velvet Underground

One of the notable and important documentaries of recent times "The Velvet Underground" is a long overdue tribute to the great band and its incalculable influence on popular culture and artistic history. Utilizing a somewhat experimental slant in relating the group's fabled history this somewhat sedate and sombre academic take begins with the band members' origins and their path to legend. Chronicling their start from a garage band to the innovatory course they took that set them brilliantly apart from the rest and their fateful meeting with Andy Warhol onto the end of their career the film is a pretty compelling feast of art and music. Priceless footage of the band and interviews with people who played a part in the band's legend provide the information on what made the band tick. Considering The Velvets influence and importance it's a sorely lacking flaw that so many artists were not featured and interviewed in this doc. Having Jonathan Richman and a voice interview of a long dead David Bowie as the few luminaries featured is pitiful to say the least and diminishes/minimalizes on why the band is so important and why they will always matter. The lack of liveliness and a sense of fun and verve kill the sense of Rock n' Roll which is what this film is and should really be about. While the definitive Rockumentary on the mythical band has yet to be done this should be a good treat that'll have fans satisfied. A memorial to a time, a city and artists this is an aesthetic paean to perhaps the greatest and most influential Rock band in history.

Todd Haynes' artful documentary on the pioneering art rock band fronted by Lou Reed and John Cale takes almost 40 minutes before Reed and Cale even meet. Haynes doesn't use narration but he builds his movie with ample footage from the time period. He creatively makes the link between the avant-garde and the "underground" which sets the stage for the band to flourish.

By hooking up with Andy Warhol and becoming his 'house band', the Velvet Underground not only got attention, but it also guaranteed that film and still photography would document their every move. They never sold many records at the time, but their influence was profound.

The interview subjects range from John Waters to Warhol scenesters like Mary Woronov, to go along with the generous archive footage. It paints a vivid picture of the rise and premature fall of the group (Co-founder John Cale only appeared on the first two albums; singer Nico only on their debut). Reed, of course, became a rock icon as a solo artist, but, the band's impact stands apart as a singular achievement, something which Haynes captures brilliantly.

Pieced together almost as strangely as the band itself, this doc features excellent profiles of each band member and those closest to them. Was nice to have insight from people like John Waters, and who knew Jackson Browne was once involved with something that didn't suck?

Loved the early footage of Lou Reed and the band playing doo-wop.

'The Velvet Underground' is certainly artful and reverential to its subject. No stranger to music, Todd Haynes also made the fictionalized Bowie story 'Velvet Goldmine' (1998) and mysterious Dylan fantasy documentary 'I'm Not There' (2007)). Making the definitive VU documentary is something of a holy grail for film makers, but I'd say Haynes enjoyable film achieves its aims partially.

It's fair to say The Velvet Underground blazed the trail for punk and indie music 70s and onwards. Lou Reed, John Cale ... but so much more! Brian Eno famously once said: "Their first album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band". For Haynes film, the music nerd in me would have liked more information about the various songs (titles, albums, dates, producers etc.), even art history like this needs its points of reference. I guess it wouldn't bother most newbies as info can be checked easily these days, but I'm old school and like films to organize and document their subject matter, too difficult to catch everything in the final credits.

If you are coming to The Velvet Underground for the first time, they were only together roughly 1966-1970 so their music isn't hard to navigate. Counter intuitively, tackle the studio albums in reverse order. Start with the 4th and final 'Loaded' (1970), great songs by Lou Reed as he contemplated a solo career ('Sweet Jane', 'Waiting For My Man', 'Rock'n'Roll'), then go back to their eponymous 3rd (1969), 'unplugged' beautiful achingly sad songs in a story cycle again by Reed ('Pale Blue Eyes', 'Candy Says', 'Beginning To See The Light'). The band's 2nd 'White Light/White Heat' (1968) is chaotic and avantgarde, but its song 'gems' shine through all the noise, Cale and Reed shared the songwriting duties but it was to be Cale's last as a band member ... and finally there's 'The Velvet Underground & Nico' (1967), legendary, but so much written about it already. Live album '1969' is a nice homage to Reed's guitar playing, and 'Live at Max's' is a very collectable if poorly recorded bootleg of the band late career. Happy exploration!

Nice to hear people like John Waters and Jonathan Richman among many others contributing to Haynes' film ...

(Jonathan Richman on Velvet Underground): "For me, it was like being in the presence of Michelangelo!"

Now, let's not get too crazy here - Michelangelo never created anything as rad as "I'm Waiting for the Man" :p

This is the kind of documentary you can sink into, that moves from one part to the next seamlessly. And it made me realize that how they created those first songs and that first album is even more miraculous than I had thought before. It's like a really clear and inspirational look - and inspiration that comes from depicting life in an honesty and sadness that came from personal spots - also at how this group managed to synthesize art into many forms... because it wasn't "with it" (oh how they go after the hippies here, or at least Woronov who is a great interview). Real art actually pushes past what came before while embracing so many other kinds of art (from the most avant garde to the Everly Brothers in pop), and Haynes's doc does a superb job of revealing that.

Haynes did a q&a after the screening I went to (oh I'm so glad I got to see the title on a big screen if nothing else, but those Warhol Screen Tests really are more interesting in a theatrical setting, though it helps that there's split screen to juxtapose and so on that's so great, I digress but the editing is some of the most invigorating in a doc in years) - he called this kind of a Dreamscape of the 60s and New York, and it's a dream that vacillates in the joy and thrill of creating something new and the edge and uncanny and dark that comes with that. And the fact that the footage of the Underground largely rests in the Factory world makes it a story of that, too... up to a point.

But at the heart of it and what drives it to being so absorbing is Lou Reed. There's a mystery and sadness to him that the film can only scratch the surface to see, not because it doesn't mean to try but because it would be too disrespectful to try to make hypothetical things. He's just... Lou.

And lastly... I still don't get Warhol, either. Frankly, maybe I've just never been cool or hip enough for it. Vinyl (1965) is not bad, though. And I'm glad there was mention of (the Factory) being not all peaches and cream, especially for the women.