The Velvet Underground – Criterion

Director: Todd Haynes
Screenplay: Todd Haynes
Starring: John Cale, Maureen Tucker, Sterling Morrison, Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman, Mary Woronov, Jonas Mekas, Nico
Country: USA
Running Time: 121 min
Year: 2021

The Velvet Underground were a band that didn’t last long and didn’t sell many records but proved to be hugely influential. There’s a famous quote from Brian Eno saying that while the band’s groundbreaking 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, sold only 30,000 copies in its early years, “everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.” That’s obviously not strictly true but the stature of the album grew exponentially over the years and it’s now considered among the greatest rock albums of all time. The following three studio albums the band produced (with any founding members) failed to make much commercial impact but, once again, became critical darlings and are considered classics of their genre.

The band gradually dissolved as these albums were produced, with singer/guitarist Lou Reed moving on to a much more commercially successful solo career and multi-instrumentalist John Cale also going solo, as well as becoming a much-sought-after producer. The other initial members of the band, guitarist Sterling Morrison, drummer Angus MacLise and his replacement Moe Tucker, either moved away from the music scene or drifted off into obscurity but their place in rock history was forever cemented through their involvement in The Velvet Underground.

With the band now held in such high regard, it’s no surprise they became the subjects of a documentary charting their turbulent history. It’s only a surprise it’s taken so long (though there was a rather academic study made in 2006’s The Velvet Underground: Under Review).

Todd Haynes was approached to direct the documentary. He hadn’t directed one before, but he’s a big fan of the band and you’ve only got to look at some of his previous films, most notably Velvet Goldmine and I’m Not There, to see he has a deep admiration for music and the era of the band. As such, he jumped at the chance and the film was released by Apple in selected theatres and on their Apple TV service.

Fast forward a year or so, and Criterion have now added it to their collection. Being a fan of the band myself, I got hold of a copy of The Velvet Underground and my thoughts on the film and disc follow.

Very little performance/concert footage exists of The Velvet Underground, so Haynes had his work cut out for him, but there are plenty of photos of the members and footage of the avant-garde films they were involved with or at least they were connected with through the scene they were a big part of.

There’s a nice use of Andy Warhol’s ‘Screen Tests’ in particular at the start of the film, allowing the audience to look deep into the subject’s eyes whilst audio soundbites tell their story.

Other avant-garde films of the era make up a lot of the visual content, alongside archival and new interviews. These are skillfully edited together using split-screen and overlay effects to help the documentary remain visually arresting.

The avant-garde films also help give a palpable sense of the era and scene the band were an important part of, being the house band of Andy Warhol’s Factory studio and part of his travelling multimedia show, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable.

Also helping the film rise above the sea of cookie-cutter rock docs, is the fact that all the contributors are people who lived through the era and were involved with the band or scene. This is a welcome move, avoiding a bunch of publicity-seeking celebrities lavishing bland praise on the subject. There are one or two interviews with musicians that were inspired by the band but they are people who actually had some involvement with the personnel.

However, as admirable and slickly made as much of The Velvet Underground is, I found myself slightly disappointed by it on the whole. I think this is purely down to hype and expectations though, so you might take my opinion with a pinch of salt.

The expectations started with my great love of the band setting the bar very high but also, possibly more importantly, due to my having seen Brett Morgen’s gobsmacking Moonage Daydream prior to Haynes’ film. The marketing of The Velvet Underground promised an “utterly revolutionary … ecstatic swirl of sound and image”. Whilst the use of avant-garde films, split screens and such is well-executed, it didn’t hold a candle to the hallucinogenic beauty of the David Bowie documentary. The talking heads interviews in The Velvet Underground, whilst given a slight quirk in their academy ratio framing, also seem very conventional in comparison to Morgen’s pure use of the artist’s own words and music to tell a more enigmatic story.

It’s perhaps unfair to base most of my criticism on such a comparison when the films took different approaches to their material, but I couldn’t help but feel that The Velvet Underground was, in essence, a conventional talking-heads band documentary, even if the archive material and experimental film clips are well utilised. The band’s story is an undeniably fascinating one though, so it’s well worth exploring, in any style. Plus, if, like me, you’re a fan of The Velvet Underground, you’ll find great pleasure in merely sitting back and listening to the music whilst catching a glimpse of the band and the art scene they inhabited during the group’s short life.

Film:

Disc/package: