A FIERCE CONCERT FILM BY JULIAN SCHNABEL! The film's collision of two downtown art sensibilities results in EUPHORIA... Makes most other concert films look wimpy and nonessential. (An) urban psychodrama ... swaddled in drug-laced lyrics. One of the most fascinating performances of the year."
– Time Out New York
"RENDERED FEROCIOUSLY! The quieter, sadder second half takes on a MESMERIZING spiritual quality... For Reed fans -- for rock fans -- the movie is AN ESSENTIAL DOCUMENT."
– Noel Murray, The Onion
"A MASTERPIECE. Yes, this may be Lou Reed's BERLIN, but it's more a bygone New York experience... It rewrites cultural history."
– Camille Dodero, Village Voice
“Schnabel reaped accolades for last year’s THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, but this concert film…
is arguably superior. The film’s collision of two downtown art sensibilities results in euphoria. Wear black.”
– Time Out New York
"An exceptionally strong performance… (Lou Reed's) assured,
emotionally steady delivery sounds like that of a man who has had three decades to sing these songs to himself."
– John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
"(Berlin) retains its icy fascination in concert...a devastating reminder of what rock can be."
– Nick Hasted, The Independent (UK)
"Berlin places Reed's natural austerity in a setting that blazes with musical excess and invention."
– Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, Financial Times
“Lou Reed records the album Berlin in 1973. It was a commercial failure. Over the next 33 years,
he never performed the album live.
For five nights in December 2006 at St. Ann’s Warehouse Brooklyn,
Lou Reed performed his masterwork about love’s dark sisters:
jealousy, rage and loss.”
– Julian Schnabel
Lou Reed's BERLIN, directed by Julian Schnabel, captures the first-ever performance of Reed's legendary rock opera, filmed at Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Warehouse. A Brechtian tale of junkies in love, Berlin was a commercial failure when it was first released in 1973; Reed did not perform it again for 33 years. Here he is backed up by a 35-piece ensemble that includes guitarist Steve Hunter, who performed on the original album, and vocalist Antony, front man for Antony and the Johnsons, who sings a sublime version of “Candy Says,” one of three non-Berlin songs in the film.
Schnabel calls Berlin Reed’s “masterwork about love’s dark sisters: jealousy, rage and loss.” The acclaimed painter-filmmaker sets this live performance against stage sets of his own design and complements Reed’s romantic, doom-laden lyrics with dreamy, evocative filmed visuals by his daughter Lola Schnabel, starring French actress Emmanuelle Seigner as the songs’ heroine, Caroline. Veteran cinematographer Ellen Kuras gives the film a gritty, intimate look that matches Reed’s in-your-face persona and hard-as-nails voice. Lou Reed, seen here performing in a T-shirt the color of clotted blood, is a familiar presence to anyone who has followed the New York rock scene since the ‘60s when he became famous as the leader of Andy Warhol’s Velvet Underground.
Official film site
USA • 2007 • 85 MINUTES • THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY |
