THE VELVET UNDERGROUND FULL MOVIE 2021 TV

The Velvet Underground inspired Bowie to write Queen Bitch while Iggy Pop’s cover of European Son features on 2021 tribute album I’ll Be Your Mirror. The director's notorious early film, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987), restaged the troubled life of the singer as a melodrama with Barbie dolls his ostensible Bob Dylan biopic, I'm Not There (2007), refracted the folk star's many personae through performers of various age, race and gender while his fabulous, fictitious glam rock odyssey, Velvet Goldmine (1998), scrambled the identities of David Bowie and Iggy Pop – two of the Velvets' most visible early acolytes. Thank the stars, then, for American filmmaker Todd Haynes (Carol Far from Heaven), whose hypnotic new documentary on the New York pioneers – simply titled The Velvet Underground – is a genuinely cinematic experience, part oral history and part tribute to the richness of the queer, avant-garde scene in which the band emerged.That there's barely a mention of the band's rock 'n' roll legacy should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Haynes, who has never been one to play by the rules when it comes to pop stardom. The Velvet Underground is in select cinemas and launches on Apple TV+ Oct 15.For musicians as famously, almost mythically influential as The Velvet Underground – as the saying goes, hardly anyone bought their records, but everyone who did started a band – it would have been easy for a documentary to take a historically revisionist approach to the 60s art rock icons stacking the deck with glowing testimonials from the generations of glam, punk and indie rockers who followed in their wake.Īfter all, it's not like the rock 'n' roll documentary is a form short on talking heads eager to evangelise on the importance of their favourite bands: these days, there's a VH1-quality documentary about every relatively forgotten musician and how they were actually, if you squint really hard, kind of a game changer or an enthusiastic, if vaguely embarrassing attempt at subverting the genre's tropes – like Edgar Wright's recent, animation-and-comedian-addled film about Sparks. If you already love the Velvet Underground, this is two hours of visual and aural bliss. ‘They were scary,’ says the sister of VU guitarist Sterling Morrison about their early performances. The Velvet Underground was what he said was pop, to the despair of the kids. The America of I’ve Got a S ecret is what Andy Warhol said was art, to the despair of the cultural elite. ‘Why would anyone ask you to perform it 840 times?’ asks the host, as the audience sniggers at this high-culture ludicrousness.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND FULL MOVIE 2021 TV

Right at the beginning, Cale is shown on a TV gameshow, I’ve Got a S ecret. His secret is that he was part of an 18-hour concert performing a short Erik Satie piano piece 840 times. He examines the NY scene of the early ’60s: the art, the gay clubs, the socialites. Haynes devotes a lot of time to find out how the VU became the myth of the VU. He makes a virtue of the band’s predicament as the catspaw of the artist to investigate their position as outsiders who found themselves insiders trying to break out. Instead, Haynes marshals some choice talking heads – surviving members Cale and drummer Moe Tucker, and dancer Mary Woronov – and gorgeous, gorgeous footage, largely from the ever-spooling cameras of Warhol’s Factory.

There are no boring music historians here. Basically, no one gave a shit about the Velvet Underground. Unlike, say, the Beatles Anthology, there are no contemporary TV interviews, press conferences, airport arrivals. Supposedly, this is the first proper film ever about the VU, and thank God. His documentary is a lyrical and visual paean to the idea of what makes great art. Todd Haynes manages to do much more than tease that story out, though. That myth says that classically trained son of a Welsh miner John Cale met troubled Dylan wannabe Lou Reed in New York and formed the most influential/unsuccessful band of all time, under the dubious auspices of Andy Warhol. It’s a tough gig to tackle the myth of the Velvet Underground.

The velvet underground full movie 2021