Page 2 October 21, 2021
Entertainment
Film Review
How The Velvet Underground Uses
Avant-Garde Filmmaking To Tell Its Story
By Ryan Rojas for Cinemacy
To say that The Velvet Underground was just
a rock band from the 60s would not be the full
picture. To know the legendary rockers–fronted
by songwriter Lou Reed–is to also know the
scene where they were birthed.
This was New York City in the 1960s. Poets,
painters, filmmakers and artists brought radical,
challenging visions of art to popular culture.
It led to a new movement in art and culture
called “avant-garde.” This new way of thinking
The Velvet Underground, courtesy Apple TV+.
produced work that defied convention and dared
to be dangerous–which The Velvet Underground
did as well. In the new documentary, The Velvet
Underground, now streaming on Apple TV+,
director Todd Haynes uses a variety of these
same experimental techniques from the avantgarde
to tell the story of this band.
Most conventional documentaries use a
standard formula. Digging up images and video
of the subject and simply placing over talking
heads interviews. But Todd Haynes isn’t here
to make a traditional documentary. In his first
doc feature, Haynes uses a variety of mixed
media to tell the story of The Velvets. Montages
of fragmented clips that loop in dizzying array
produce a whirlwind effect. Haynes does
use talking head interviews to tell the story,
but he uses a split-screen format to combine
interviewees with artfully edited mixed media,
making for a unique viewing experience.
One of the challenges that rock docs face
is needing to make the music shine in such
a way that shows how powerful it was, and
Haynes uses a variety of sonic techniques to
evoke the band’s presence. Of course we get
the hits like “Waiting For My Man” and “Venus
in Fur.” But Haynes also features a sound that
the Velvet Underground became so famous for:
a single droning, harmonic note.
John Cale discovered how using a viola to
sustain a single note over long periods of time
could produce a hypnotic effect. However, there
are also numerous moments where amplified
feedback is the center of attention. I saw the
film in theaters, and the heavy distortion caused
a lot of people to cover their ears.
Not everybody will take to this documentary,
since it is a fairly challenging watch. And that’s
why it’s perfect in form for its subject. All of
these choices make the documentary something
that you think could play in a gallery or museum.
It challenges you to stay with it. I don’t
believe that everyone will. And that is what
makes avant-garde artistry: challenging the norm,
to push people out of their comfort zones, to
be enlightened in a way that they otherwise
wouldn’t have. The Velvet Underground knew
this and Todd Haynes clearly does, as well. •
Ryan Rojas
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If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be…
Article and photos
by Ben & Glinda Shipley
Travel is expensive. And in the modern,
fractured, post-911, post-COVID era, wandering
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about can be complicated. It used to
be that travel agents took care of all that,
but they’ve been replaced by opinionated
strangers on social media and sales pitches
on government websites. You know you
don’t want to be led around by the nose on
some slick, superficial bus tour by a millennial
reciting a carefully programmed list
of forgettable sites and jokes. But to strike
out on your own, where do you start? How
about with…
A Plan:
It makes sense to carefully plan out any
complex activity that requires such an investment
of resources. Airfares, lodging, ground
transportation, and food can range into the
thousands for a long weekend in Charleston or
Mexico City. Triple everything for a week in
Barcelona or Copenhagen, and double down
again for a jaunt to Asia. If you’re going to
spend your hard-earned cash on travel instead
of a reasonably priced used car, you need to
know where to start. And we usually start,
even today, with the question…
Why?
Why are you travelling?
Are you looking to connect with your
ancestral roots? With long-lost family? Are
you looking to dip your toes into the same
surf where your great-great-great waited in
abject poverty (or religious indignation) for
a boat to his and your future?
Are you going on a pilgrimage, religious or
otherwise? Rome, Athens, or Constantinople
for the ancients? Lourdes, Jerusalem, or Benares
for the devout? Lidice and Auschwitz for
the gates of hell? Appomattox, Normandy,
or Vietnam for the heroics of your heritage?
Are you looking for the essence of some
favorite childhood story? We’re thinking
Sherwood Forest for Robin Hood, Tennessee
for Daniel Boone, Troy and Ithaca for
Ulysses, the Alamo for Travis and Crocket,
central Switzerland for Heidi.
Is there some theme from your education
that still puzzles your imagination? How the
entire continent of Europe could come to
blows in a world war that sacrificed millions
of lives without trading a postage stamp’s
worth of real estate? How one man could
bankrupt an entire country in Versailles to
build a monument to his personal power?
How another wealthy prince on the other
side of the world could erect the Taj Mahal
as a monument to eternal love?
Are you looking for a change from everyday
life? A place where no one looks, speaks,
or thinks like you? Where every word you
hear can be a learning experience? Where
the memorization of a few simple phrases
can help you cross a divide as eloquently as
Lincoln at Gettysburg?
Are you looking to win an argument? Are
the French really that rude? Did the Austrians
invent skiing? Is Indian cricket as boring as
it looks? Is it safe to cross a Paris street?
Does every Muslim on the face of the earth
love us or hate us (or even think about us
to begin with)?
Is there some question about life that you’ve
never fully resolved, that you can only approach
by planting your own two boots on
the ground? How Jesus, godly or not, could
summon the strength and courage to walk
up the stations of the cross to Calvary and
still forgive the rest of us? How the politest
people on earth, the Indians, could have
fallen into some of the nastiest arguments
in history? How innocent wives at Pearl
A first time for everything—blown away atop the Arc de Triomphe on her maiden voyage to Paris.
See Travel, page 8
Travel