Lou Reed's Berlin

Dir. Julian Schnabel (2007)

Lou Reed recorded 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

Last night I attended the film Premier of Lou Reed's Berlin. Last night I saw one of the most awesome things I've ever seen. It took place at the Curzon cinema down in Mayfair and featured a Q&A session with Lou Reed after the screening.

I first discovered Berlin in 2001. I went to so many parties where people were playing the glorious popular cult classic Transformer. I went and looked for other Lou Reed albums; I found Berlin in the bargain bin. Whenever I asked people if they'd ever heard it I was met by absolute unfamiliarity, they hadn't heard it, they hadn't even had OF it. I plugged and plugged it to people and on my old blog... because of one thing I am convinced: Berlin is one of the true masterpieces of the 20th Century. Now, thanks to time passing and Lou revisiting it, it's being recognised more.

The art form of popular music, and of the album in particular, has rarely reached the remarkable depths Berlin reaches. It is a sequential narrative of the destruction of a relationship, of love turning bad. It is one of the darkest journeys documented by popular art. Agony, abuse, screaming children, suicide... and we are left on a tonic note that burns our throats as we drink it, 'I'm gonna stop wasting my time / Somebody else would have broken both of her arms.' Berlin stands with the great Picassos, Chaplins and Dylans - the masterworks of the 20th Century.

And so, all this time on and finally people are starting to more widely understand the significance and greatness of Berlin. Now we have been gifted a film that will stand as a great document to Lou Reed's greatest work.

One of the first notable things is that the quality of the film is stunning, digital finally achieving what it ought to. The sound quality was exceptional. And Schnabel's visuals and directing managed to compliment the performances extraordinarily well. Many of the images are projected on to the set behind the musicians, but we also have other layers of film that melt in over the top, and sometimes the performers melting back in over the top of those images. It all works, and adds to the texture of the performances. It is also filmed without any recognition of the audience being 'out there', and really manages to stay existing in a cinematic world. Great achievement.

The album affects me greatly as it is - but this was a new experience for me; to be sat in a cinema shivering all over with goosebumps for the entire duration of the performance. It appears that finally the cinema has managed to contain some of the special intensity that only music can achieve. In terms of artistic experience, this is undoubtedly the greatest live performance film I've seen.

There is one big flaw: They've added three encore songs AFTER Berlin concludes, I hope this is just because it would otherwise be deemed 'too short' for theatrical release and will be fixed into extras on the DVD. Three awesome performances, including the filthy as f*ck Rock Minuet (see below), but NO... you can't add them to end! But, judging it on what it is, Berlin - just freakin' sensational.

OK - the Q&A session. Following such an exhilarating experience came one of the most excruciating things I've ever had to sit through. The problem was not the unhelpful, bad tempered Lou Reed - you wouldn't want him to be otherwise - it was that the man chosen to ask the questions was Paul f*cking Morley. Morley conducted a car crash of an interview and asked a small handful of censored questions from the audience.

The only moments of interest were Lou telling someone who tried to interrupt a couple of times to 'Shut the f*ck up. Or get the f*ck out of here. Just shut the f*ck up, or why don't some people throw that guy the f*ck out of here?' - The man, with an absurd haircut, left at that moment.

But Morley seemed utterly incapable of saying anything that was not thackingly mundane. As the banalities and everyday questions kept coming I had a real urge to leap on stage and lunge at Paul Morley. When he mounts the stage he does so weighted down by his outrageous ego, then he's there in the spotlight... and nothing. Nothing. He's a complete void of charisma and he doesn't even have anything to say. Worst of all was that he was repeating his banal questions after they'd already been answered previously! And if Lou Reed did try and make a reference that wasn't an everyday banality Paul Morley would sit and stare at him silently for a few seconds then ask another banal question, completely failing to follow Lou Reed down a single interesting alleyway. If I'd been somebody else I'd have broken both his arms.

An amazing film. An amazing album. Lou Reed's performance is for real, he's no has-been. Paul Morley, a never-was-been.