Lou Reed’s Berlin

Lou Reed’s Berlin

Directed by Julian Schnabel (PG-13)

Julian Schnabel brings Lou Reed’s forgotten masterpiece to the screen.

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Sadly, Lou Reed’s Berlin is just another “concert film,” said Bruce Bennett in The New York Sun. Despite director Julian Schnabel’s arty aspirations, you can’t help but wish you were in the audience rather than the movie theater. In 2006, Schnabel—a fan and friend of Reed—convinced the rock icon to perform his controversial 1973 concept album live for the first time. Berlin, a 10-song suite about a crumbling love affair between two junkies, had been a commercial flop when first released. But Schnabel was determined to construct a “cinematic monument” in its honor. Reed’s return to this old material was a “noteworthy event” for rock aficionados, said Noel Murray in The Onion. But Schnabel’s “pointless lo-fi re-creations” of the album’s imagery and other directorial touches don’t add much to the music. Backed by a 35-piece ensemble, including the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Reed nevertheless fills the performance with “personal and idiosyncratic” moments. The problem is that Berlin is “far from the lost masterpiece the movie wants it to be,” said Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly. Even giving the album the “classic-rock treatment” won’t convince most listeners that it stands among Reed’s best material.