The Velvet Underground

Todd Haynes's first documentary, and it deliberately refuses the standard music-doc template. There is no narration. There are almost no talking heads of the usual kind, because Haynes set a rule that he would only interview people who had actually been there, which rules out the parade of famous admirers who discovered the band decades later. The practical problem was that virtually no performance footage of the group survives. Haynes fills the gap with material from Warhol's Factory circle and the downtown experimental cinema of the period. Each principal is introduced against one of Warhol's flickering black-and-white Screen Tests. The frame splits constantly, running two images at once and leaving the viewer to choose. It is dedicated to Jonas Mekas, the experimental filmmaker who gave an interview before his death in 2019. It premiered at Cannes and streams on Apple TV+. Who it is for: viewers interested in the avant-garde roots behind John Cale and Lou Reed, and in the texture of 1960s downtown New York. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a straightforward record-by-record band history. This builds atmosphere more than it delivers information.