Todd Haynes' The Velvet Underground at the New York Film Festival: Homage to a Bygone Era

Film at Lincoln Center had a grand plan for Todd Haynes’ new film, The Velvet Underground. They would bring extant founding members of the band John Cale, Maureen (Mo) Tucker, for a performance at the movie’s New York Film Festival opening. That, sadly, was not to be. The premiere, though, with a posh party at Jazz at Lincoln Center, celebrated the city’s creative energy from which the New York Film Festival emerged, and the music that influenced generations of artists to come.

A vivid portrait of the band, yes, The Velvet Underground is a deep dive into the historic artistic period of New York in the ‘60’s, especially showcasing the avant-garde filmmakers who shot evocative footage: Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas. The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh is a treasure trove of this rare material. The great Ed Lachman shot the interviews in 2018: Mekas at 96 was first.

The film is an homage to these underground filmmakers as well as to Lou Reed, whose teen years on Long Island, complicated sexuality and drug use provide the backstory for his artistic development. Studying poetry with Delmore Schwartz, Reed read Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Hubert Selby, Jr., and Arthur Rimbaud. Early on, he proclaimed he would be a rock star.

When Welshman and Velvet classically trained musician John Cale first came to NYC, he gasped at the filth. In 1965, he formed the Velvet Underground with Reed. Performing at Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable multi-media events, the Velvets were soon were managed and produced by Warhol, who also created the iconic banana album cover. Haynes said, the film, performances featuring the elusive, beautiful Nico, was given to him. But add to that Lachman’s richly shot interviews, inspired by Warhol’s portraits.

How different were they? The story of a trip to Los Angeles where the Mamas & the Papas sing “Monday, Monday” makes that point. The Velvet Underground’s songs, mostly Reed compositions, speak about human frailty: “I’m Waiting for the Man,” “Heroin,” and a personal favorite, “All Tomorrow’s Parties.” The film reinforces their efforts at resistance, so lacking in today’s youth, said Haynes.

Todd Haynes has many fans, and so does Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground: Downtown artists, producer Christine Vachon, fellow filmmakers Jim Jarmusch, Sara Driver, Alex Gibney, Lee Ranaldo, Bob Gruen, Lou Reed’s sister and her family, and loyal friends such as Julianne Moore, unforgettable in Haynes’ movie Safe, a perfect film for the pandemic moment. A lovely black & white photo of Reed and widow Laurie Anderson appears at film’s end, but otherwise, she is absent. Lou Reed’s ex-wife Sylvia wanted to know whether the filmmakers were good to Lou. They were reverential.