NYFF 2021: The Velvet Underground & the New York Avant-Garde, ft. Todd Haynes, Amy Taubin, & others

Two films in this year’s NYFF lineup take us back to the ‘60s heyday of the New York avant-garde: in the Main Slate, Todd Haynes’s The Velvet Underground offers a revelatory portrait of the milieu that gave rise to the eponymous band and its boundary-pushing music, while in Revivals, Ed Lachman’s Songs for Drella captures Lou Reed and John Cale in concert, paying tribute to the late Andy Warhol with riveting intimacy. On Sunday, October 3, Film Comment editor Devika Girish and Clinton Krute joined Haynes, Lachman, critic Amy Taubin, and the editors of The Velvet Underground, Affonso Gonçalvez and Adam Kurnitz, for a roundtable talk. In our wide-ranging conversation on the stage of Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center. We touched on the making of the two films, as well as the enduring legacy of the historic moment of artistic innovation they so vividly evoke. Stay tuned to filmcomment.com for more coverage of this year’s New York Film Festival, both on the podcast, and in the Film Comment Letter.