So after much anticipation we finally saw “Lou Reed’s Berlin” at the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend. Yes, we mostly dogged the festival this year (cause it was kinda meh), but we did catch a few things, first of which was the aforementioned concert film by insufferable and lovable artiste, Julian Schnabel.
Some things to keep in mind about ‘Berlin’ the movie are this (sacrilegious sacred cow alert!): If you don’t love Berlin the album (like know it front to back), this movie might not be for you, unless you’re a huge Lou Reed fan (we basically qualify here). The film has been touted as being the film that rediscovers – or at least shines a new light – on the Berlin album for a mainstream audience – the backstory being that at the time of its 1973 release Berlin was reviled and so poorly received that Reed and producer Bob Ezrin would never play it live (until it was finally performed and shot by Schnabel at St. Anne’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York in December 2006).
Now the album has been rechristened as an undiscovered masterpiece, but this movie basically reminds us that this claim is overstated no matter what revisionist greatest album lists have been written. First off “Caroline Says,” while a great song is nothing but a sub-par (when compared to) re-write of “Stephanie Says” by the Velvet Underground. Lou rejacks the same lyrics! (maybe cause the VU song was never officially released at the time so he felt it was ok to cannibalize his own work).
The film starts out intercut with a lot of dreamy and stylized footage (shot by daughter Lola Schnabel) of Roman Polanski’s wife, the gorgeous French model/actress Emmanuelle Seigner (who also starred in Schnab’s ‘The Diving Bell & The Butterfly” and is in the band Orange who sang one of the tracks on the film’s soundtrack) interspersed throughout the concert. She’s acting as a surrogate stand-in for the album’s downtrodden protagonist Caroline, and the peppering of this allegorical footage on the live perf works quite well actually (Schnabel Sr. just directed the concert itself).
But after a bold opening (first 15-20 minutes or so), the Schnab dispenses with the artful trick and the film devolves into your standard rock-concert doc that lives and dies by the material and how it’s performed. This is where it gets kind of tricky. For one, see above, some of Berlin’s material is overwrought and always has been (sorry, olds at Rolling Stone) and some of it is beautiful and mournful. That latter material, “Sad Song,” “Caroline Says,” and “The Kids” is wisely saved for the end, but at times, it because a rather difficult mid-section to bear. It doesn’t help that Reed was never the best singer in the world, fine. But then he deviates from the original melodies and talk/sings even more and lazier than he did originally (it really kills the mood of some songs that needs some emoting, i.e. melody). PS The fabled story behind the making of “The Kids” and the children crying at the end of the song is one of the great deplorable/awesome rock legends/myths and worth reading about.
And lastly, it is rather telling that the film’s most potent moment – the Velvets track “Candy Says” as sung by the tumescent transgendered angel Antony from Antony & The Johnsons – is not even a track from the re-heralded album.
“Lou Reed’s Berlin” is by no means terrible and is definitely engrossing at times, but world’s most under-appreciated album for concert film? Mmmm…not so much. A greatest hits concert film might have worked a little better, we must sadly admit. [-B]
From playing the trivia challenge awhile back I recall that Emmanuelle is Polanski’s wife, not Schnabel. But regardless of the husband, any footage of her is welcome (and hopefully more in this vein: http://youtube.com/watch?v=f7oMqpjIYLk).