The Velvet Underground

(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.

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.

It was not the full three-sixty on the band, but centers on their sound in the Reed-Cale era and rather than spend much time on theory, it focuses on who Lou and John were as people in order to explain it, delving into the environment they lived and created in. It also eventually compares them to contemporaries, but again, here it prefers to compare who they were in attitude and emotion. When John and Lou split, when the band starts winding down, the movie also starts winding down. I'm fine with all that. Visually, I felt like it was interesting, but not mind blowing. Personally, I didn't need to it to be a visual masterpiece to be satisfying. I didn't need it to interview every former flat mate or girlfriend, I didn't need it to chase down every subplot in the band, I didn't need a happy ending. I wanted a piece on Lou and John and what made the band what they were. It's a two-hour piece on that.

Very much enjoyed this, as a fan of the bands music, I'm not sure I learned much that I didn't know before but I loved seeing a lot of this archive footage and photographs, which I don't think have been seen before publicly.

Its very much a celebration of the bands music and legacy and a few of the interviews made me laugh and the closing montage may have made me cry a little. What more can you ask from a film?

I did find the Warhol style a little jarring at the beginning, with some of the flashing imagery, but it did calm down and seems fully appropriate to the subject and so much better than it being a dull series of interviews with talking heads... And while there were interviews with the remaining members of band and the scene they were all completely relevant, thankfully we didn't get a series of other fans or celebrities talking about the band and themselves. The film also did really well including those members who are no longer with us and it really felt that the whole band was featured and represented here.

It is not an encyclopedic history of the band which some people perhaps wanted, I guess you'd need a six or eight hour miniseries to cover that, or you could just read one of the many books and biographys that exist. Like I say I love the bands music and the artists subsequent careers, I don't know how the film would play if you were not familiar with Warhol and the band already but for me it was a perfectly judged and very enjoyable two hours.

The Velvet Underground: Documentary about the band and their artistic/social milieu. Many interviews, some bitterness fro Lou reed: "Andy Warhol produced The Banana Album in the sense that he was live in the studio when it was made". But y0u also see them together when Warhol was dying, friends again. Split screen is used to good effect, often using a loop of John Cale or Reed blinking when more info/clips are on the other half. Moe Tucker the VU drummer and sometime singer didn't like hippies, the West Coast or Frank Zappa. Demo tapes of Venus In Furs and Waiting For My Man plus many other VU songs. Great Music Social History film. Directed by Todd Haynes. 8/10.