Director: Julian Schnabel, 12, 2008

Stars: Reed, Emmanuelle Seigner, Antony Hegarty

Retail DVD

Famously panned on its 1973 release, Lou Reed’s doomy art-rock opera completed its rehabilitation with a 2006 run at St Ann’s warehouse in Brookyln. Schnabel, the artist-turned-director whose films include The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, does not meddle too much, occasionally intercutting the music with video images of the album’s tragic heroine Caroline, as played by Seigner.

At its best the film has a raw emotional intensity, but perhaps Schnabel should have meddled more: a guest appearance by the celestial Hegarty emphasises the fact that Reed has never been the most enthralling of singers. It’s his lined face rather than his low-key vocals that now draw the attention.

DVD extras

Biographies of Reed and Schnabel, trailer

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