The Velvet Underground

(US / 2021 / Directed by Todd Haynes)

October 20 - 21
Wed - Thur 4:15

This music doc sits at the top end of the genre. Hypnotic, seductive, and simply very cool, it’s not an overstatement to say that it’s everything you might hope for a documentary about the influential 1960s New York avant garde rock group.

Between the music, the drugs, and the arguments, The Velvet Underground is a slippery band to pin down. But Todd Haynes, whose 1988 Velvet Goldmine skirted around some of these characters in a fictional way, does the art, the time, the people, and the places immersive justice. Navigating through a treasure trove of performances, interviews, and experimental films, he tells a more or less chronological story about the band and its individual members, along with the cast of characters they interacted with at Andy Warhol’s Factory. However what emerges is something more, an experience that taps into what John Cale describes as the band’s creative ethos: “How to be elegant and how to be brutal.” Putting music on screen in a way that allows you to experience the moment it came from, this is a dark and glorious film about a dark and glorious band.

R / 1 hour 50 mins.