LOU REED’S BERLIN

Directed By Julian Schnabel

Review By Tiffany Cooper

Julian Schnabel opens Pandora’s box by revisiting Lou Reed’s rebuked album ‘Berlin’ released in 1973 to an unimpressed public. Fortunately, for Lou Reed, Julian rediscovered Berlin, making it his passion to bring it to the stage at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York, to introduce a concert 33 years in the making. Lou Reed’s ‘Berlin’, played live for the first time.

This uneventful and less then stellar documentary is filmed over the course of Reed’s five-night stand at St. Ann’s Warehouse. It opens with a way-too-long band scene that shows the public nothing about how magical and gifted they are. I thought the documentary could have taken a different approach by starting with the failed release of ‘Berlin’ in 1973 and how it crushed him artistically  and emotionally. Also what his life was like from 1973 until the revisited ‘Berlin’ in 2006 and how he regained the courage to try it once again on stage. I believe this approach would have been a little more interesting to swallow.

None the less, I aplaud Julian’s artist efforts for resurrecting a work that should go back into Pandora’s box and never opened.