VELVET UNDERGROUND CRITERION COLLECTION

Director Todd Haynes

I loved this documentary and want to say to you, if you love art, cinema, experiment or The Velvet Underground, watch. I wanted to focus in this review on what the Criterion collection has to offer.

VELVET UNDERGROUND, the documentary film from TODD HAYNES (Velvet Goldmine) deserves applause for ambitiously charting the story of New York’s 1960s underground cultural behomoth band. Increidble also that Haynes uses often two rolling screens (I did much the same for my Keaton film). He goes a step further and adds experimentation footage, Experimental film, visual arts and performance artistry to capture the times and spaces of these pioneers of rock and roll. Broadly speaking this is a narrative journey through the vessal of inspiration of creative youths LOU REED and JOHN CALE. Spending time, hearing voice over talking about their home lives and how they felt little about setting the world and our screen alight. Access is given to us, by the extras however that ignite the subject far being the 2 hour bounds given by Apple to Haynes for him to make art and them to flog the back catalogue.

First. Yes the 4K looks good. Too good in my opinion, to warrent over analysis. Coming from 2021 digital master, it should be. I know you will say this is all a moot point but. However it is the functionality of the extra content, in particular the cataloguing of the footage. This is done as footnotes and then ramped up with an excerpts feature that lets the viewer wander through the shorts. These are some great shorts indeed. At this point, listening to Haynes and editors Affonso Gonçalves and Adam Kurnitz commentary, reveals the influences of Jonas Mekas say, on their own structure selection. ANDY WARHOL’s fabled Factory comes up time and again. Pop and avant-garde drove much creative things. Never-before-seen performances add event retrospective and prove a few things about the brilliant Mary Woronov. The interviews are candid, sprinkled with an occasional lack of bewilderment at what these people were apart of.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital master, approved by director Todd Haynes and cinematographer Ed Lachman, with Dolby Atmos soundtrack
• Audio commentary featuring Haynes and editors Affonso Gonçalves and Adam Kurnitz
• Outtakes of interviews shot for the film with musicians Jonathan Richman, filmmaker Jonas Mekas and actor Mary Woronov
• Haynes and musicians John Cale and Maureen Tucker in conversation with writer Jenn Pelly in 2021.
• Complete versions of some of the avant-garde films excerpted in the movie
• Teaser
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: A 2021 essay by critic Greil Marcus