It’s called “The Velvet Underground,” and among other things it’s a fascinating study in how necessity becomes the mother of invention. Michelle Williams to Play Peggy Lee in Biopic for Director Todd Haynes, Billie Eilish Eyeing EP Roleīut now, the great director Todd Haynes has, at long last, made a documentary about the Velvet Underground. How Director Todd Haynes Brought Lou Reed to Life in 'The Velvet Underground' DocumentaryĬan Big-Screen Musicals Pump Up the Box Office? The albums are there for all time, but as a historical presence the Velvets can seem a bit like a group of ghosts. (It’s quite an irony considering that Warhol, the band’s mentor, was the first person to be notorious for filming everything around him, but there you go.) The Velvet Underground, whose music was a mesmerizing midnight trance-out, had no radio niche, no publicity, no “media,” no backstage verité Pennebaker or Maysles. Every time I’ve raised the subject with those in the know, the explanation comes down to: “There’s no footage.” What they mean is: There are random bits of footage, and plenty of photographs, but if you want to see the Velvets in their prime performing “What Goes On” or “White Light/White Heat” in a steamy rock club, or get a taste of what it was like to see the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (the hypnotic chug-a-chug of the band, the psychedelic blobs and Warhol films) at the Dom in New York City in 1966, or to see any full-scale concert clip that would allow you to experience the Velvets in a you-are-there, that’s-what-they-were-like way, you’re out of luck, because those clips basically don’t exist. ![]() There’s a reason we’ve never seen that film. ![]() So surely they deserve to be captured and memorialized in a film that does them justice. They are, along with the Beatles and the Stones, one of the three seminal groups in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. For years, I’ve been longing for someone to make a documentary about the Velvet Underground.
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