Todd Haynes has had a long running interest in the world of music and the personalities that populate it. The director’s early short film “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story” made him one to watch, he explored the ’70s glam scene with “Velvet Goldmine,” and tried to capture the enigmatic Bob Dylan with “I’m Not There.” All of these projects were cinematic visions of their subject, but now Haynes is taking a more straight-ahead approach to one of rock ‘n roll’s most influential acts.
The director is taking a walk on the wild side with a documentary about The Velvet Underground. The project is in pretty early stages, but Haynes says it will “rely certainly on [Andy] Warhol films but also a rich culture of experimental film, a vernacular we have lost and we don’t have, we increasingly get further removed from.” Extensive research is being planned along with interviews with the surviving members, but the absence of frontman Lou Reed, who passed away in 2013, will certainly be a big hurdle to overcome.
READ MORE: First Trailer For Todd Haynes’ ‘Wonderstruck’ Starring Julianne Moore
Meanwhile, Haynes is putting another pot on the stove, and heading back to TV with a new project at Amazon. The filmmaker would only reveal that the brewing series will “re-examine a figure who maybe we forget how radical they were in their thinking because they were so incorporated into our culture and outlook as a modern society.”
Could this be The Source Family project that was announced a couple of years back? It seems to fit, given that they promoted natural health, vegetarian diets and more in the 1970s, when those ideas were a bit more outside of the mainstream. Guess we’ll have to wait and see, but the last time Haynes went to the small screen, with HBO‘s “Mildred Pierce,” he knocked it out of the park, so we’re pretty excited to see what he does here.
Certainly, some fascinating stuff on the horizon from Haynes, but first up will be the release of his new film, “Wonderstruck,” on October 20th. [Variety]