(Jonathan Richman on Velvet Underground): "For me, it was like being in the presence of Michelangelo!"
Now, let's not get too crazy here - Michelangelo never created anything as rad as "I'm Waiting for the Man" :p
This is the kind of documentary you can sink into, that moves from one part to the next seamlessly. And it made me realize that how they created those first songs and that first album is even more miraculous than I had thought before. It's like a really clear and inspirational look - and inspiration that comes from depicting life in an honesty and sadness that came from personal spots - also at how this group managed to synthesize art into many forms... because it wasn't "with it" (oh how they go after the hippies here, or at least Woronov who is a great interview). Real art actually pushes past what came before while embracing so many other kinds of art (from the most avant garde to the Everly Brothers in pop), and Haynes's doc does a superb job of revealing that.
Haynes did a q&a after the screening I went to (oh I'm so glad I got to see the title on a big screen if nothing else, but those Warhol Screen Tests really are more interesting in a theatrical setting, though it helps that there's split screen to juxtapose and so on that's so great, I digress but the editing is some of the most invigorating in a doc in years) - he called this kind of a Dreamscape of the 60s and New York, and it's a dream that vacillates in the joy and thrill of creating something new and the edge and uncanny and dark that comes with that. And the fact that the footage of the Underground largely rests in the Factory world makes it a story of that, too... up to a point.
But at the heart of it and what drives it to being so absorbing is Lou Reed. There's a mystery and sadness to him that the film can only scratch the surface to see, not because it doesn't mean to try but because it would be too disrespectful to try to make hypothetical things. He's just... Lou.
And lastly... I still don't get Warhol, either. Frankly, maybe I've just never been cool or hip enough for it. Vinyl (1965) is not bad, though. And I'm glad there was mention of (the Factory) being not all peaches and cream, especially for the women.
