“On the eve of her 100th birthday, Lou sat down with his cousin Shirley for a tête-à-tête”. With that inscription starts an intimate portrait in which Lou Reed helps his cousin to tell all her own story, from Poland through World War One and World War Two, until her work as a seamstress in the union in New York City where she has been living for the past 70 years. In contrast, the music of Metal Machine Trio, Reed’s own band, who’s making his debut as a filmmaker. –Mar del Plata International Film Festival
Lewis Allan “Lou” Reed (born March 2, 1942) is an American rock musician best known as the guitarist, vocalist and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground as well as a successful solo artist whose career has spanned several decades. The Velvet Underground gained little mainstream attention during their career, but became one of the most influential bands of their era. As the Velvet Underground’s main songwriter, Reed wrote about subjects of personal experience that rarely had been examined so openly in rock and roll, including a variety of sexual topics and drug culture. As a guitarist, he was a pioneer of many guitar effects including distortion, high volume feedback, and nonstandard tunings.
Reed began a solo career in 1971. He had a hit the following year with “Walk on the Wild Side”, although for more than a decade he evaded the mainstream commercial success its chart status offered him. Reed’s work as a solo artist has frustrated critics wishing for a return of The… read more
