The screen always features two (or more) pictures or bits of footage at once, each divided into uneven rectangles, with one usually overpowering the others and anchoring the visual narrative (for instance, the aforementioned close up of Cale). However, one of his sunset-tinted canvases lingers on screen, as if to invite deeper and more complex readings of the film’s own segmented appearance. Rothko’s work - instantly recognizable for its warm, segmented rectangles - makes an appearance early on, while various talking heads are setting the stage. His work was a vital part of the New York arts scene that would eventually pave the way for The Velvet Underground, but it also forms the visual inspiration for the documentary itself. While the film eventually goes on to chronicle the group’s involvement with various artistic innovators (chief among them, Andy Warhol), the first artist it evokes isn’t generally considered one of their contemporaries: Latvian abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko. A high-contrast close up of a young John Cale ends up being put to particularly good use the shadow enveloping half his face feels like it extends to other parts of the screen once the accompanying images fade to black, as if the darker elements of his past were consuming his entire story. Black-and-white close ups of band members, both living and dead, play on loop in slow motion on one unevenly divided side of the screen, while photographs, concert footage, and other relevant images appear alongside each face in impressionistic patterns. While there may not be enough of this footage to cut together an entire movie, Haynes and his editors, Affonso Gonçalves and Adam Kurnitz, make ingenious use of what they have at their disposal.

Much of the story is told through old film reels shot contemporaneously, which provide an intimate first-hand look at where the band came to be (fittingly, New York’s underground music scene, which was then in its infancy), along with occasional context for how it came to be as well.

However, this is less a matter of intentional exclusion, and more because of its stylistic approach it isn’t as concerned with illuminating facts as it is with orienting you within a specific time and place, even though it sometimes struggles to follow through on this idea.ĭirected by Todd Haynes (Carol and I’m Not There), the film is functionally a retrospective featuring the band’s surviving members, but its interview segments are often treated as window dressing to help set the mood - at least at first.

While it strings together a narrative about the band’s history, its story is largely impenetrable to anyone not already familiar with the group. A documentary that’s as off-beat and avant-garde as its subjects, The Velvet Underground is rife with jagged, experimental sounds, archival footage, and dreamlike imagery.

New the velvet underground movie