Jonathan Richman from the Modern Lovers (and There’s Something About Mary) appears as a talking head - but only because, as a teenager, he saw the band perform roughly seventy times. His one unusual mandate was excluding any interviewee who hadn’t actually been part of or witnessed the band in action, so we’re spared the blathering commentary of, say, Justin Bieber or Lin-Manuel Miranda or some other dubious entertainment industry personality going on about what a supposed big-wow influence the band was on them. Haynes admits quite frankly in interviews that he began with the traditional documentary talking-head format and built from there. Though full of formalist bravado, this is really a fairly conventional documentary, tracing the nine-year life of the band in a perfectly comprehensible and viewer-friendly manner. There is very little performance footage… The Velvet Underground is a transmission sent from inside the group’s orbit, and those not already tuned to its frequency won’t get the message. There are no outside voices to give context. There are also warnings to the merely Velvet-curious not to even try to take on such a challenging viewing experience: Scott’s: “It’s… a jagged and powerful work of art in its own right, one that turns archeology into prophecy.” But it’s indicator number five million that we are living through such a timid, backward, sad-sack era of cinema that an entirely appropriate but not at all revolutionary strategy should get such awed, rave-review commentary from critics, such as A. It’s a smart way to kick off the film: it mirrors aspects of the music they’ll wind up making together, with the more Reed-driven, dark, agitated sounds and lyrics resting on Cale’s steady “drone” - the sonic, industrial landscape of what he called “the sound of Western civilisation”. There are moments in The Velvet Undergroundwhen this approach works beautifully - such as Mekas saying, “New York became a place where artists escape,” while the black-and-white tortured-youth imagery representing Lou Reed’s and John Cale’s lonely childhoods on Long Island and in Wales, respectively, suddenly leaps into vivid color and faster tempo. Haynes dedicated the documentary, streaming now on Apple TV+, to avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas, because, as Haynes puts it, he wanted it “to feel like the images and the music were leading your experience as a viewer, and that the oral history… would have to play just behind all of that.” There is lots of gorgeous split-screen work, for example, mostly creating a diptych effect but sometimes adding screens for triptych, quadriptych, or even a full mosaic effect of a dozen images. Format DVD.There’s a lot of critical oohing and aahing over the fact that, for his first documentary, director Todd Haynes ( Dark Waters, Carol, Safe) gets a bit adventurous in depicting the meteoric rise and fall of the legendary 1960s New York band the Velvet Underground. Participant Commentary: Nayland Blake, Ira Cohen, Tony Conrad, Richard Foreman, Helen Gee, Robet Heide, Gary Indiana, Ken Jacobs, Mike Kelley, George Kuchar, Sylvere Lotringer, Agosto Machado, Judith Malina, Taylor Mead, Jonas Mekas, Mario Montez, Billy Name, Lawrence Rinder, Andrew Sarris, Jerry Tartaglia, Ronald Tavel, John Waters, Holly Woodlawn, Mary Woronov, Nick Zedd, John Zorn. Production credits Cinematography, Mary Jordan. Publication date 2008 Note Special features: Glitter Agosto Machado with Mario Montez on Jack the master Lawrence Rinder on Jack's photography Ken Jacobs on Jack's life as theater Jack's loft Mario Montez on being Mario Montez Nayland Blake on the art world Holly Woodlawn on Jack and Andy George Kuchar on Jack and the creatures Colette and Vivienne Dick on Jack at the Cologne Art Fair Ronald Tavel on modeling for Jack Judith Malina on art and capitalism Sylvere Lotringer on Jack vs.
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