Todd Haynes tells the true story of the Velvet Underground in new documentary opening at Film Forum
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND (Todd Haynes, 2021)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Opens Wednesday, October 13
212-727-8110
filmforum.org
The Velvet Underground was more than just a music group; they electrified a generation, and continue to do so today, half a century later. Todd Haynes, whose 1998 Velvet Goldmine was set in the world of glam rock and whose 2007 I’m Not There explored the career of Bob Dylan through six characters and a nonlinear narrative, now turns his attention to the true story behind the Velvets. Haynes details the history of the band by delving into leaders John Cale and Lou Reed’s initial meeting, the formation of the Primitives with conceptual artists Tony Conrad and Walter DeMaria, and the transformation into the seminal VU lineup at the Factory under Pop icon Andy Warhol’s guidance: singer-songwriter-guitarist Reed, Welsh experimental composer and multi-instrumentalist Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, drummer Maureen Tucker, and German vocalist Nico. Much of Haynes’s documentary focuses on Warhol’s position in helping develop and promote the Velvets. “Andy was extraordinary, and I honestly don’t think these things could have occurred without Andy,” Reed, who died in 2013, says. “I don’t know if we would have gotten the contract if he hadn’t said he’d do the cover or if Nico wasn’t so beautiful.”
Haynes and editors Affonso Gonçalves and Adam Kurnitz pace the film like VU’s songs and overall career, as they cut between new and old interviews and dazzling archival photographs and video, frantic and chaotic at first, then slowing down as things change drastically for the band They employ split screens, usually two but up to twelve boxes at a time, to deluge the viewer with a barrage of sound and image. Among the talking heads in the film are composer and Dream Syndicate founder La Monte Young, actress and film critic Amy Taubin, actress and author Mary Woronov, Reed’s sister Merrill Reed-Weiner, early Reed bandmates and school friends Allan Hyman and Richard Mishkin, filmmaker and author John Waters, manager and publicist Danny Fields, composer and philosopher Henry Flynt, and avant-garde filmmaker and poet Jonas Mekas. “We are not part really of the subculture or counterculture. We are the culture!” Mekas, who passed away in 2019 at the age of ninety-six, declares.
Haynes also talks extensively with Cale and Tucker, who hold nothing back, in addition to Morrison’s widow, Martha Morrison; singer-songwriter Jackson Browne, who opened up for the Velvets back in their heyday; and big-time fan Jonathan Richman (of Modern Lovers fame). While everyone shares their thoughts about Warhol, the Factory, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable shows, and the eventual dissolution of the band, Haynes bombards us with clips from Warhol’s Sleep, Kiss, Empire, and Screen Tests (many opposite the people who appear in the film) as well as works by such artists as Maya Deren, Jack Smith, Kenneth Anger, Barbara Rubin, Tony Oursler, Stan Brakhage, and Mekas and paintings by Warhol, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Mark Rothko. It’s a dizzying array that aligns with such VU classics as “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” “I’m Waiting for the Man,” “Heroin,” “White Light / White Heat,” “Sister Ray,” “Pale Blue Eyes,” and “Sweet Jane.”
Several speakers disparage the Flower Power era, Bill Graham, and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, with Tucker admitting, “This love-peace crap, we hated that. Get real.” They’re also honest about the group’s own success, or lack thereof. Tucker remembers at their first shows, “We used to joke around and say, ‘Well, how many people left?’ ‘About half.’ ‘Oh, we must have been good tonight.’” And there is no love lost for Reed, who was not the warmest and most considerate of colleagues.
The Velvets still maintain a remarkable influence on music and art today despite having recorded only two albums with Cale (The Velvet Underground and Nico and White Light / White Heat) and two with Doug Yule replacing Cale (The Velvet Underground and Loaded) in a span of only three years. (For example, the tribute album I’ll Be Your Mirror was released in September, featuring VU covers by Michael Stipe, Matt Berninger, Andrew Bird & Lucius, Kurt Vile, St. Vincent & Thomas Bartlett, Thurston Moore & Bobby Gillespie, Courtney Barnett, Iggy Pop & Matt Sweeney, and others.) Haynes (Far from Heaven, Safe) sucks us right into their extraordinary orbit and keeps us swirling in it for two glorious hours of music, gossip, art, celebrity, and backstabbing. The documentary, which premiered earlier this month at the New York Film Festival, opens at Film Forum on October 13 and begins streaming on Apple+ two days later. If you end up watching the film at home, turn it up loud. No, louder than that. Even louder. . . .
[Film Forum will be hosting Q&As with Gonçalves and Kurnitz on October 14 and 16 following the 7:50 shows, and Taubin will introduce the 7:50 screening on October 15. In addition, Haynes will join Gonçalves and Kurnitz at Film Forum for the 7:50 screening on November 12.]