One named singer with the velvet underground in the 1960s

#ONE NAMED SINGER WITH THE VELVET UNDERGROUND IN THE 1960S MOVIE#

The variousВ materials are arranged in split-screen compositions that evoke Warhol's ' Chelsea Girls,' a quasi-documentary 'experience' ideally presented in a theater where two 16mm film projectors run simultaneously, castingВ images side-by-side as soundtracks overlap to create aВ dissonant soup of dialogue, music,В and noise. TheВ style feels both classical and fresh, subtly channeling footage taken by Warhol and other Factory-adjacent filmmakers at the time, some of which is featured here as well. There's another thing happening here, involving overlapping dialogue and music cues and split-screen images, and it's just as fascinating: Haynes seems to be trying to find a streaming-era equivalent to the multimedia sound-and-light shows that Warhol and his friends and 'discoveries' used to stage around New York in the '60s - the music/dance/poetry/cinema 'happenings' comprised of the Velvets performing a song, films being projected on the musicians, selected audience members operating spotlights, and so on.В Haynes and cinematographer Ed Lachman shoot present-day interviews in the manner of Warhol's 'close-up' films, with even-toned lighting and a solid-colored background, in an old-fashioned 'academy ratio' image that's closer to a square than a rectangle. It's a feedback loop of information, creating a cinematic equivalent of that hypnotic drone that flows beneath so many of the Velvet Underground's songs, and that Cale insightfully tells us was modeled on the '60-cycle hum' of appliances and machines from that period in history, the sonic undercurrent of modern life.

The effect is less like sitting in a classroom and having facts laid out for you than listening to a semi-improvisedВ Velvet Underground jam while perusing coffee table books or pictorial websites about the band, and pondering connections between the music that the band was making and the events that were unfolding in the world around them. Woronov hilariously contrasts the acidic, bleakВ 1960sВ New York version of theВ counterculture with its California equivalent, ridiculing peace, love, and flower power as political cop-outs.В Taubin critiquesВ the sexism of the Factory, where women, including lead singer Nico, were prized for their looks over all else. Singer songwriter Jonathan Richman dissects the bandвЂ™sВ musical choices, imitating both ReedвЂ™s vocals and CaleвЂ™s background drones,В blending the enthusiasm ofВ a fan with the rigor of a working musician.

Under Haynes' supervision, cutters AffonsoВ GonГ§alves and Adam Kurnitz let the material flow and change direction, twist back, feed on itself recursively, digress, then return to the main point. Every few minutes, theВ editing shifts emphasis so that you're not just switching musical tracks but intellectualВ tracks: as in railroads, as in 'one-track mind,' or 'train of thought.'

#ONE NAMED SINGER WITH THE VELVET UNDERGROUND IN THE 1960S MOVIE#

Like another great 2021 music documentary, Questlove's 'Summer of Soul,' this movie appears to deliberately adopt the structureВ of a mid-twentieth century vinyl album-the kind with songs arranged in tracks that are meant to be experienced in a linear way, first Side A and then Side B, straight through, without stopping. Interview subjects who were present at the time-including Velvet co-founder Cale, a Welsh classical musician Mo Tucker, their signature drummer В actress and painter Woronov my colleagueВ Amy Taubin, a veteran film critic and the late Anthology Film Archives co-founder Jonas Mekas, who died not long after his interview-offer commentary and insight, alternating between taking a detached 'long view' of things and plunging us into the middle of it all.

One named singer with the velvet underground in the 1960s