In stereo versions of the Velvet Underground’s 1968 song “The Gift”, Cale’s spoken word vocals are separated from the rest of the band across the two speakers, leaving headphone-users with a choice on where to direct their attention. Though its story may be several decades old, the film itself is an immediate shock to the senses, whether it’s immersing viewers in the grainy, monochrome archives of the 1960s New York art scene at its scuzziest, or emerging from the murk for vibrant bursts of colour. They were outside of pop culture yet very much a part of it – more so in retrospect, given their mere one degree of separation from David Bowie and Iggy Pop among others, not to mention the band’s immeasurable influence on the last half-century of music.Ī similar kind of electricity runs through Haynes’ rapturously edited documentary, which pulls from a vast and eclectic range of footage to create a richly textured whole that feels both warmly familiar and thrillingly new.
They conjured film star glamour via songs of junkies and prostitutes. Like their onetime producer Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground was a point of both tension and synergy between the avant-garde and the mainstream. As the future Velvets member meekly answers the questions of irreverent host Garry Moore, Cale strikes an unusual and awkward presence amidst the frivolity of 1960s primetime TV, yet just a few years later, Cale’s seminal band would achieve mythic status through a similar meeting of worlds. In it a young Welsh composer-musician by the name of John Cale discusses a recent concert that consisted of him performing the same piece for 18 hours straight.
Todd Haynes’ The Velvet Underground opens with a 1963 clip from the US gameshow I’ve Got a Secret.
0 kommentar(er)
