Telluride and After

FQ editor-in-chief B. Ruby Rich reports from the 48th edition of the Telluride Film Festival. Unlike most of its peer festivals, Telluride opted not to hold a virtual edition in 2020, a decision entirely in keeping with its emphasis on the tactile and experiential aspects of cinema, and which made its return in 2021 all the more giddy for first-time attendees and long-term devotees alike. Rich reviews the many festival highlights, from Jane Campion’s reinvention of the Western in The Power of the Dog to Todd Haynes’ archival documentary The Velvet Underground. Childhood takes center stage in new films from Céline Sciamma and Kenneth Branagh while misunderstood masculinity emerges as a theme in Michael Pearce’s Encounter, Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero, and Mike Mills’s C’mon C’mon. Including a coda on the New York Film Festival, Rich concludes that the masterful riches of the two festivals augur well for the fall 2021 season.

Do rock como materialidade alternativa para acessar “estruturas de sentimento”

Partindo da hipótese de que o rock pode constituir uma forma de materialidade alternativa para acesso à cultura de um período, o álbum White Light/White Heat da banda Velvet Underground (1968) é abordado considerando um dos contextos observáveis nos últimos anos da década de 1960. A formação acadêmica dos membros da banda, a Pop Art proposta por Andy Warhol e seu modo de vida no estúdio Factory são analisados enquanto partes que contribuem para constituir uma “estrutura de sentimento”. A hipótese é reforçada por uma breve comparação entre White Light/White Heat e o White Album dos Beatles, apresentando a possibilidade de acesso a culturas distintas de um mesmo período a partir do rock.

Lou Reed: “In the Beginning Was the Word”

This chapter analyzes the ways in which Lou Reed’s vision of himself as a writer informed his music and lyrics for the Velvet Underground and his solo career. I track how Reed’s engagement with Andy Warhol and the New York School of poets complicated and troubled his otherwise relatively traditional views of the Poet as oracular figure. The chapter pays special attention to Reed’s stories and poems published in his collegiate-era mimeographed journal Lonely Woman Quarterly, analyzing how these works ultimately fed into Reed’s music and lyrics in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Mixing a world-weary, vernacular tone with bursts of inspired disjunction, or interrupting a straightforward narrative with Joycean free-association, Reed used the journal to sketch the personae that were to prove obstinate presences throughout his career. Reed’s porn-freaks, alcoholics, suburbanite wannabees, drag queens, hustlers, and junkies all got their start at Syracuse University, accompanying Reed on his journey from Lewis to Louis to Luis and, ultimately, Lou.