The Velvet Underground

Twangy sounds of the cheapest types

Sounds as stark as black and white stripes

Bold and brash, sharp and rude

Like the heat's turned off and you're low on food

How in the world were they making that sound?

Velvet Underground

Last year's THE VELVET UNDERGROUND is a real coup for director Todd Haynes; he has reinvigorated the documentary form, which of late has twitched and damn near coded. I'm speaking of the sterile, digitally shot cheapies with endless talking heads and amateurish re-enactments.  And often unimaginative use of archival footage, which is where any good doc lives and breathes.  Given his impressive filmography, which includes the glam tribute VELVET GOLDMINE,  it is unsurprising that Haynes' approach here is as hypnotic as his subject, The Velvet Underground, a band that featured Lou Reed and John Cale and was managed and promoted by pop artist Andy Warhol back in the mid to late '60s.  Inevitably, there would be personnel shakeups and firings, so by the early '70s the band had broken up.  

That Haynes came to be involved with this project is some kind of divine underground intervention.  I can't think of another high profile director more suited for this milieu.  The first hour of this film. much of which details pre-VU history, plays with as much experimentation of anything out of the Warhol factory.  Use of multiple squares on the screen, each with something interesting happening, creates a visual feast; some will be compelled to freeze the Blu-ray multiple times to process it all.  The detail crammed into each frame of this movie is astounding, yet somehow I never felt overwhelmed, or if I was watching a film student vomit every idea that came into his frontal lobes.

There are talking heads.  Surviving members of the band and Warhol's camp are interviewed onscreen and give fascinating recollections (for the most part).  Cale comes off as wistful and grateful.  Drummer Maureen Tucker is a bit caustic, recalling the band's distaste for hippie culture and The Mothers of Invention.   Mary Woronov, one of Warhol's "Superstars" is amusing, as is Jonathan Richman, a superfan who saw the band upwards of sixty times and wrote a song about them, referenced at the top of this review.  The others are all given generous sketches through descriptions, footage, writings, and audio.  Lou Reed is painted as a moody, complicated, exacting artist.  While some old documentaries seem to ignore the dark sides of musicians, this one embraces them.  To explain the Velvet Underground, with its challenging music and trash glamor, there can be no other way.  I did want more about Nico.  

Being interested in this subject is pretty much mandatory for appreciation, but even if you think the VU were merely droning noise (and you wouldn't be entirely wrong, save the Loaded LP), there is enough of an examination of '60s NYC culture to make it worthwhile.  Todd Haynes presents a document that is loving without being sentimental in the slightest, and a perhaps a graphic designer's wet dream.