One obvious hurdle was that several central members of the band could not be interviewed because they have long since passed away (Nico died in 1988, Sterling Morrison in 1995, and Lou Reed in 2013.) Copious archival photos, footage, and interviews were used to fill in the gaps. In The Velvet Underground, Haynes dispenses with many of the usual documentary conventions, in part out of necessity. John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Lou Reed, from archival photography from The Velvet Underground. He takes a sideways route to his subject matter here, as he has done with all of his music movies-whether it’s telling a tragic story with Barbie dolls ( Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, released in 1987) creating a glam rock biopic modeled on David Bowie, without Bowie’s involvement or approval ( Velvet Goldmine, 1998) or exploring Bob Dylan’s life and psyche in a nonlinear narrative, refracted through six different actors and actresses who all play him ( I’m Not There, 2007). Todd Haynes has made several films dealing with music, but The Velvet Underground, a grandiose monument to the group released for Apple TV+, is his first documentary. They mostly labored outside the musical mainstream, and did not have great financial success over their relatively brief lifetime. They dealt with dark, transgressive subject matter, and while they had many sweet melodies, they weren’t afraid to verge on the unlistenable, with extended dirges and long cacophonous passages. Very little footage of the group exists, especially compared to other famous rock bands from the 1960s, such as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, whose performances were extensively documented.īut the Velvets weren’t the Rolling Stones or the Beatles to this day, finding them on a classic-rock radio station is a bit of an oddity. The Velvet Underground, directed by Todd Haynes, in theaters and streaming on Apple TV+Īs renowned as the Velvet Underground are as a band, something about them still feels deeply mysterious, nearly sixty years after their inception in 1964. Moe Tucker, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Lou Reed, from archival photography from The Velvet Underground.
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