There's a lot I didn't expect that was in the Velvet Underground documentary, now streamable via Apple TV. I was pleased that avant-gardists LaMonte Young and Marian Zazeela were interviewed, and that substantial screentime is given to Jonas Mekas, whose writings about film are full of vitality and passion. I was happy to learn that American minimalist Tony Conrad - the only person in the film I actually got to meet, once - was in an early version of the Primitives, with Lou Reed and John Cale. It was interesting that Mary Woronov got a fair bit of screentime (she's one of these Helen Mirren types who apparently only gets more striking with age), though curious that her actual interactions with the band weren't much discussed (I believe she used to whip Gerald Malanga on stage during "Venus in Furs," or at least that's how Chris D. told it to me... it's barely explored). I was happy that Moe Tucker got to tell a few stories, and mildly surprised that her current political allegiances didn't come up and/or weren't allowed to taint things. And there were some charming, completely unexpected contributions by Jonathan Richman, and certainly a LOT of interesting image-making; not a lot of footage of the Velvet Underground playing, but lots of split screen collage-y stuff with clips of band members, scenes from "deep context" arthouse filmmaking like Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures, etc. Todd Haynes clearly is interested in situating both this film and the band in the experimental/ arthouse world, specifically that of NY circa 1967, and there's more discussion of that context - including bits on drone music and nearly half an hour on the Theatre of Eternal Music/ Dream Syndicate stuff, very relevant to what John Cale was doing immediately pre-VU - than there is about heroin, or Lou's bisexuality, or the whole "art as hustle" element to things (which maybe runs antithetical to Haynes' ambitions, but is certainly relevant to Warhol, the Factory, and the general milieu; it would have been interesting to have some of the naysayers - besides Cher - give their view of the scene). It's kind of a wart-free, "respectable," respectful, deeply-researched documentary that just, when all is said and done, doesn't make you feel the passion of the band, doesn't really take you into their personalities, doesn't really grip you with any of the tensions and contradictions and dramas of the art world, and doesn't even really talk about the songs. It strives to put the Velvet Underground on one of the very top shelves of American cultural life (which is where Haynes' himself clearly aspires to be; much as I enjoyed it, his choice to have lots of footage of Jonas Mekas says a lot more about him than it does about the Velvet Underground); it may even succeed in doing that. But YOU WILL NOT LEARN HOW THE SAUSAGE IS MADE by watching this film. It's got about as much sausage-making in it as Jim Jarmusch's Iggy doc has cock in it. It's well-researched, well-crafted, and kind of dead, about a tenth as much fun as, say, Velvet Goldmine. (Which is another Haynes' film I have limited fondness for, but much more vibrant and enthusiastic than this one).
Oh, and the third and fourth studio albums get less than ten minutes screentime each, and there is no mention that Yule went on to record yet another VU album, Squeeze, post-Lou (not much about Yule at all, in fact, and wasn't his brother in the VU for a time? You would never know)... Haynes really is interested in the NY art and film scene more than he is the band or their whole trajectory, and the cornerstone of his "respectable" version of the band is kind of John Cale, at least insofar as the music scene goes. The film devotes over an hour of its time to the prehistory and the first two albums, the ones with Cale, and he probably interviews Cale more than anyone else, but Haynes loses a lot of interest in the band once Cale is out. There IS some time given for the literary figures who inspired Lou Reed (there are a few minutes set aside to Delmore Schwartz, even mention of Hubert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn, tho' no mention that Lou would later interview Selby). People wanting to learn more about Lou's time with Pickwick will find stuff, too. There *are* a fewstories offered that don't highlight Cale or Reed's artistic ambitions or background, like Moe talking about singing "After Hours," or deets about Nico, but charming as moments like that are, they are few and brief, and feel like asides, distractions, digressions, insufficient to really convey much in the way of human warmth to the film.
I could go on. There were things I learned from the film, but it is a very particular "take" on the band that kind of ultimately left me cold, or colder than I wanted to feel, given how much I love some of their music. By contrast, The Sparks Brothers documentary and the Zweig Records film are both vastly more entertaining, more dynamic, more enriching, and actually get us reasonably close to the human beings at their core. You're left - especially by Zweig, interviewed a few posts back - asking questions beyond the confines of the film, as it spills out into life, which is the goal. The Velvet Underground remains aloof and strangely outside its subject matter, however deep it goes into the facts, however impressive its eyewitness testimony may be, and it never really seems to open out into the world, just curves back onto itself. You might learn a few things about Lou Reed or John Cale or New York in the early 1960's - but you won't learn much about humanity. There isn't much of it on hand.
It's unfortunate - I had hoped for more.
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