Watch The Velvet Underground and Nico: A Symphony of Sound For Free

So much average

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I believe this film has some good things going for it, but within narrow parameters. So I will try to define those, as I see them, and you can decide to make the effort to see it yourself (or not).The screening I went to was greatly enhanced (in my opinion) by an introduction by Nico's biographer, who had also interviewed everybody appearing in the film. He explained that, when Warhol had been persuaded to take on the management of a nightclub – and a rock band (that band being the Velvet Underground), one of the first things he did was get Nico onboard as a lead singer. Another thing he did was decide to have some film projected behind the band as they were performing onstage. To that end, he filmed them jamming – vanilla footage of about seventy minutes. This is what this film was intended for.Now it will appeal to die-hard Velvet Underground fans cos if you are a fan you can never get enough of your favourite band. But casual listeners might not be quite so thrilled. You probably know a track called Sister Ray - this is a song by the band that has a few opening lyrics and then a long (instrumental) jam session. Well, if you were to cut out the lyrics and extended the jam for over an hour that's more or less what you've got here. No famous songs. No-one sings in it. But the Velvet Underground brand of jamming can get quite hypnotic. If you're in the mood (with or without drugs) you can probably dig it and really get into it.A second group it might appeal to is those people who are interested in film history – either professionally or from a deep interest in film. If you think of the original remit (a backing film for a live performance) and think how much money and techno-wizardry would probably be expended on that today, and then look at this . . . Well I think you might agree that it is very effective at very little cost. Watching it in the originally intended setting would be exceedingly cool. Much better than a film of them doing specific tracks (which might clash with the onstage stuff) or something technically complicated (which would possibly distract). It was a good idea that could perhaps usefully be employed by band promoters today. It gives a whole new dimension to the idea of a music video, and a very simple one at that.A third group it will appeal to is dedicated Warhol fans and historians. How often do you get a chance to glimpse inside one of his workplaces? This film is shot in his first 'Factory' and is a nice down-and-dirty view, complete with police walking in towards the end to get them to turn the noise down (following complaints from neighbours). You can have fun spotting the various personalities and also maybe (as I did) comparing the camera techniques with those used in Chelsea Girls.I don't see it really appealing to anyone else, but I may have missed something. At any rate, this is minimalist film at its best, exploring technique in the 60's when there was so much waiting to be explored and Warhol was determined to explore (and exploit) it. I admired and enjoyed it. A lot of people didn't.

I had access to a print of this back in highschool days, and would steal away with friends to screen it whenever possible.Great document.But it's not the only film on the subject that should be listed at IMDb.Someone's neglected to enter the 12-22 minute (depending on the version) "Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable with The Velvet Underground" mini-featurette ...if I've tagged it right! What I've recently seen is a fragment of live 'performance' footage... as in dancer-performers against lightshow and bits and pieces of Velvets' soundtrack further edited into stroboscopic oblivion. The "look" is that of the stills from the show reproduced on the band's first LP.It's very much a "Morrisey with Warhol" product of the times, a real film in itself, and explains a LOT about how the band worked as an extension of the Warhol Trip in the great man's own fantasizing Svengali imagination. Heard this way (which means heard only but seen 'enacted' with fractured clips of dancers and ecstatics whippers and whippees), the onslaught is a sensual barrage of drugged out cool, Heroin on Speed.Vocal roles go to Cale doing the one about "boots of shiny, shiny leather", Venus in Furs, and just possibly European Son (where was Lou that night?), and Nico in the middle on a snatch of It Was a Pleasure Then. Gerard and Inga fling themselves around with abandon. Great stuff!

I just recently saw a film print of this for the first time at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Warhol retrospective a few weeks ago and was floored. If you are an artist or a musician, or both, then this is a particularly important film to see. It exists as the perfect time-capsule of 1966 in the Warhol Factory and completely lacks pretension. Even though it's original intention was to be wall paper (un-edited, moving images of The Velvet Underground, projected onto themselves as they actually played live), it still managed to take me though just about my entire range of emotions. Throughout the course of the film I thought about life, death, art, love, sex, and nearly everything in between. If you are expecting a concert film, think again...If you are lucky enough to find it, watch it with an open mind.

wonderful meditative music (at the beginning a cloud of noise, after 20 minutes it gets you and suddenly(after 70 minutes) the film is stopped by the police and you don't want to leave the cinema, because you got to have more of it). a miracle has happened, you can be sure. every one in the band is sitting and playing his instrument (nico and ari play the tambourine) and seem stoic. you don't have to shake your hips like todays music industry owned clowns to capture the audience. the secret formula is in the music not in the faces or bodies. this is a movie as document, not as black and white visual masterpiece, but it works out in the best way you can imagine. try to see and hear it, as soon as you can. on all people that have got something to do with owning the rights to this movie (after the last cd-releases of early john cales dream syndicate stuff and velvet underground live-performances), please publish this on dvd and you will be honored ...