Todd Haynes has spent more than three decades stirring and stirring passions in the form of a feature film, series, documentary, short or whatever is ahead. Even in making of format. After his sober judicial drama a couple of years ago, the Californian filmmaker returns to what he does best with ‘The Velvet Underground‘: juggling between pop and art.
Return of the damned
It could not be otherwise. Director arty who (almost) began his career with a violent love story between the poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine had to pass, sooner or later, through the velvet side of Lou Reed, John Cale and company. Through a montage more akin to artistic reproductions than to the usual documentary, the film is, of course, a brilliant tribute to a band led under the influence of malditism and intravenous drugs.
One of the most striking aspects of ‘The Velvet Underground’ is that he prefers selectively mythologize memories. He prefers to adore an era than certain names, but always with the exquisite taste of a prodigious filmmaker who has gifted us with some of the best films of our life, such as ‘Safe’, for example.
Haynes, music lover and connoisseur of the most glam and wild side of rock, is in no rush to tell us about the band’s beginnings, Andy Warhol’s patronage, and bohemian life within what was known as “the world’s largest nightclub.” Priceless how Cale comments on the histrionic and very out of tune recording of ‘Venus in Furs’, a song we always suspect pagan and which we listen to with different ears thanks to Rob Zombie’s masterpiece, ‘The Lords of Salem’.
To address one of the bands that helped change rock, Haynes chooses to place particular emphasis on the genesis of the New York group and its antithetical leaders, Lou Reed and John Cale, who ended up creating a wall of sound unprecedented in rock. The grumpy American and the fearless Welshman had little in common, but that little bit – a delicate family background and a passion for experimentation – was enough to get the world’s attention.
The year of the horse
With Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker, and Nico, request of a Warhol who had taken the reins of the career of the actress and model after his participation in ‘La dolce vita’, “la Velvet” was ready to revolutionize music, although this creative freedom had to find an environment conducive to its development.
Haynes puts all his machinery and all his art at the service of this gang of self-destructive and provocative geniuses through work that oozes love for rock too, color and editing work with archival images or interviews for the film.
Without a voiceover, a thousand miles from Ken Burns or the talking busts and with a linear narration spiced up with musical excerpts and recordings, ‘The Velvet Underground’ takes the viewer to a psychedelic inner journey through a delicately experimental approach. Refrain fans of the flower power movement, do not be angry.
From the hand of Todd Haynes the band becomes the symbol of a cursed twentieth century to return to whenever we feel like it. And it always feels like a lot, especially if Jonathan Richman infects us with his enthusiasm. As Edgar Wright just did with ‘The Sparks Brothers’, Haynes’ film is perfectly recommended for fans and neophytes.