Fifteen films are shortlisted for the Best Documentary Feature at the 2022 Academy Awards, including The Rescue, about the 2018 mission to save a junior football team trapped in a cave in Thailand, and Simple As Water, an intimate portrait of four Syrian families. The most experimental film on the list, however, is Todd Haynes’s The Velvet Underground, which has visual quirks and idiosyncrasies that chime perfectly with its subject matter.
It follows the career of the New York rock band of the same name, whose limited output (only four studio albums) had a wholly disproportionate influence on the history of rock music.
Formed in 1964 around the nucleus of irascible singer and guitarist Lou Reed and avant-garde musician John Cale, The Velvet Underground’s approach – both musical and aesthetic – would inspire countless artists, from David Bowie to REM, and Talking Heads to U2. Lester Bangs, the preeminent rock critic of the 1970s, pulled no punches when he said: “Modern music begins with the Velvets.” Haynes’s documentary attempts, with visual flair, to explain some of the reasons why.
“What's amazing about them is you have two of the most talented human beings of all time in the same band,” says Sasha Frere-Jones, music critic and self-confessed Velvet Underground obsessive. “You've got this incredible moment where Cale is using feedback and droning and amplification, along with Lou Reed, who's just one of the greatest songwriters ever. The confluence of elements that went into this band is… well, it’s not minor.”
The serendipitous collision of Cale and Reed in New York in the mid-1960s seems wholly unlikely. Cale, born in Wales in 1942, arrived in New York having graduated from the University of London and looking to continue his study of serious avant-garde composers of the time such as John Cage, Cornelius Cardew and La Monte Young. Reed’s ambitions, meanwhile, were more materialistic. In the documentary, Reed’s friend, Allan Hyman, recounts the tale of a record company executive who listened to some of Reed’s songs and asked him what his ambitions were. “I wanna be rich, and I wanna be a rock star,” he replied. “And I’m gonna be rich and I’m gonna be a rock star whether you handle my music or not.”
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Impeccable artistic integrity was where their interests overlapped. While Cale was pushing musical boundaries with sustained, hypnotic improvisations and considering how they might intersect with rock and roll, Reed was taking lyrical inspiration from writers such as Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs, and books such as Hubert Selby Jr’s Last Exit To Brooklyn. “That’s what I want to do, except with a drum and a guitar,” he recalled later.
Reed's often brutal imagery would be underpinned by Cale, Moe (Maureen) Tucker’s sparse drum patterns and Sterling Morrison’s percussive rhythm guitar. On their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, the four of them would explore new musical worlds. “The idea that you could combine RnB and Wagner was just around the corner,” recalls Cale in the film.
The material they would record may not have had a great commercial impact, but its influence was sustained and profound. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 1982, musician and producer Brian Eno said: “The first Velvet Underground record sold only 30,000 copies in its first five years. Yet, that was an enormously important record for so many people. I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.”
It was notionally produced by artist Andy Warhol, who essentially gave the band freedom to do what they wanted, but also brought in model and actress Nico to provide vocals and, dare it be said, some glamour. Given Warhol’s fame, and the strong links between the band and the vibrant New York art scene, the notion that the Velvets were wildly obscure is a misreading of history, according to Frere-Jones. “People knew them. A lot of people didn't like them because the music was discordant and weird. But people knew. And if you wanted to do something extreme, well, The Velvet Underground gave you permission.”
This “permission” was taken up enthusiastically by those who had musical ambitions but perhaps had minimal resources to work with. As one observer notes in the documentary: “[Reed] can’t sing, he can’t play, but everything he does resonates.” The Velvet Underground showed the world that you didn’t need to be musically accomplished to create great art.
“They were making really powerful music from the tiniest little scraps,” says Frere-Jones. More importantly, as is noted by musician Jonathan Richman in the film, they inspired the smashing of conventions. “You could put together any two elements that seemed as if they might be enough,” says Frere-Jones. “Before, you wouldn’t dare [produce something] that was, say, just feedback plus words. But all of a sudden you could.”
The Velvets also gave permission for bands to be antagonistic, difficult and awkward, and that may be the biggest reason why they have remained a reference point for so long. “I think there's a lot of violence in The Velvets and Lou in particular,” says Frere-Jones. “People generally want pleasant sounding music, and that’s not what they did, ever. If you're interested in music or art that embodies the word ‘No’, the Velvets are very interesting, just because they were so off-putting.”
The majority of artists like to think that they’re unique, sitting somewhere outside the mainstream. The Velvet Underground’s wilful disregard for musical and behavioural norms proved to subsequent generations of musicians that if you take risks, you can make your mark. You may not make much money – if any – but you’ll retain your artistic integrity, and perhaps create something that, as Richman says of the Velvet Underground, “helped me to understand life”.
