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A striking and harrowing documentary about fame, drugs, pop culture, and celebrity, Nico Icon casts a harsh light on the underground world of pop art and music in the 1960s and 1970s through the prism of a girl who lived too hard and died too young. The German-born Nico is presented as someone who never fit in, no matter what she was doing, from her career as a fashion model in the 1950s (including an appearance in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita) to her tenure in the 1960s as one of the cast of characters in artist Andy Warhol's "Factory" to her stint as a backup singer for Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. Most of the film concentrates on her sordid relationship with her son with French actor Alain Delon and her decline into heroin addiction and obscurity. This visually innovative and challenging documentary doesn't judge her but uses her life to illustrate the excesses of the world around her. Nico Icon will be a revelation for those interested in the world it depicts. --Robert Lane ... Read more

Reviews (13)

revealing insights into nico's life
Icon no, iconoclast yes. Inside joke no, inside brilliance that self-destructed yes. Failure no, otherwise why are we talking about her today. Now that we've got that settled, the DVD is a little short on biographical information, and sometimes the background music drowns out the dialogue a bit. But overall very artistically put together. Some really good interviews, like with with the German aunt who raised her, which was quite moving. Coverage of her years as a model was excellent. Coverage of her time in Andy Warhol's Factory and in the following few years through Marble Index and Desert Shore could have been a bit more detailed, but there were some really interesting vignettes of the era. One assertion stated, by whom I forget, is, I believe, a bit off-base. I don't believe she started her son on heroin, eventhough she did use it with him. Parenthetically, I find it interesting that we don't forgive Nico for the same excesses as her male counterparts. I'm no women's liber, but I agree with the reviewer from Seattle who hit that issue dead on. A really good DVD for Nico fans; her music is brilliant and that's what it's all about. She might have had a moment's more happiness if she had known how well she actually did succeed in the long run. The fact that her music is enjoying a rebirth, as for example in the soundtrack for the "The Royal Tenenbaums," makes this DVD topical to say the least.

Brilliant Documentary
Nico Icon was a great documentary. It was really haunting, and a bit sad to see some of the scenes.

This video tells all of Nico's life, from her childhood, to her becoming a model and actress(with great footage and photos) to her son Ari, her times in the Velvet Underground, her relashionship with Lou Reed and Jim Morrison, her solo album Career, her heroin addiction, and her final end, when she died in 1988. Interviews were done with Paul Morisey, Viva, and other people who knew Nico.

Fascinating glimpse into Nico¿s life
This documentary was filmed a few years after her death. Several people who knew her well are interviewed -- members of her band (both Velvet Underground and musicians who toured with her in the 1970s and 1980s), friends, her only child, Ari, and an aunt who helped raise her. "Unconventional" seems to be an understatement of her persona. One man who is described as a bohemian who apparently knew her before her Velvet Underground days, says that no one liked Nico and Nico liked no one. I'm don't think that's true, but the appearance is that she really didn't like herself, and that may be manifested in her habitual drug abuse and addiction. In the film, we learn that she introduced her young son to heroin, which resulted in his falling in a coma. When she visited him in the hospital, she brought a tape recorder and recorded the sound of his life support machine so she could use it on her next album. Nico's aunt from Germany, who helped raise her, gave some information on her early life. Nico was born in the 1930s and it sounds like she had to grow up in a hurry during WW II and even afterwards. There are film footage and stills from Nico's modeling days in the late 50s and early 60s. In her later days, one guy who toured with her said that she drew a knife and threatened to kill the driver of the band's van. I think it was the same guy who said that after being primarily noted for her physical beauty in her younger life, she was now proud of her rotting teeth and bad skin. She was clearly a troubled woman yet there is undoubtedly something mysterious about her that drew people to her.

Some of the information in the film is very touching about Nico. But when we learn that she was irresponsible with raising her young son and other disturbing incidents, it's difficult to not to get angry with her actions. Nevertheless, it is heartwarming to hear her son (now in his late 30s) very proudly exclaim, "My mother was an artist." It's clear that he loved her. When asked, in a later interview, what her one regret in life was, Nico replied that she wish she had been born a man instead of a woman.

This documentary touches on many aspects of Nico's life, and love it or hate it, I do think it's an excellent video for anyone even mildly interested in the dark German chanteuse. I also think that it's important to remember that people's opinions and perceptions of Nico are only that and not hard, cold facts. To think otherwise would be injustice to someone who can no longer speak for herself.

oh so amazing...
this film was amazing/sad/moody/difficult/lovely/harsh, a lot like nico herself seemed to be. they portrayed her really fairly and evenly, i thought, showing how she was this amazing intellegent beautiful talented artistic woman who wanted ohsomuch more than to be just a model, but that she also was a unrelenting junky by middle age who also got her teenage son addicted to heroin. yeah.

it was so hard to watch her in the interviews from the '80s, how different she seemed. but then you'd hear some of the interviewees say that she had always craved that aesthetic, that she never liked being so conventionally beautiful, that she felt like it prevented people from taking her art and her self seriously, that she loved it when she "lost her looks," when her heroin habit made her skin and hair and teeth really bad. she did seem pretty happy in the '80s, but also seemed like if an interviewer had brought up something important/emotional to her, like her son, she would have turned on a dime and started to rage or cry.

her relationship with lou reed fascinates me, her interactions with the velvet underground seemed really lovely at first, but then apparently lou started to tire of her, and john cale claims lou had "both personal and musical reasons." hmm. they don't elaborate much on that, and lou wouldn't be interviewed for the film. andy warhol loved nico, but i'm always a bit suspicious of andy. on one hand, i love the factory and the ideas that he tried to bring to the art world, and his "traveling circus" of sorts. but, he also bugs me a lot, strikes me as being just self-serving and self-promoting in a way that could never be justified by claims of living a life of art or anything... john cale is lovely and seemed to have truly loved nico.

she had so many men... the one quote that struck me, though, was "no one ever loved nico, and nico never loved anyone" by an old man french friend of hers. and it seemed so true. she apparently spread the word around the '60s nyc art world that she was a lesbian, mostly just so men would leave her alone. she was so attractive, she was so mad at her beauty for drawing me to her. she seemed to so much want real love with someone, but could never find it, although she tried a lot. she also craved beauty, sophistication, art, etc., and seemed to have had a chance at first (right after she arrived in the u.s. from europe) to be a mainstream pop star of sorts (although she was so different from most of the girls of the time), but she said that she had no interest in anyone who wasn't underground. i loved that.

i spent most of my high school life obssessed with nico and the velvet underground. i spent ohsomany hours crying and being consoled by nico's voice on "i'll be your mirror," "all tomorrow's parties," etc. nico was my icon of beauty and grace and class and sophistication and everything else that i felt was lacking in my high school and in my city, etc. i have always craved knowing more about her, more than the images i got from the cds or the andy warhol bio i read back then, etc. and although the film is hard to watch in parts, it's also so beautiful and so authentic and so so so real. you can't have the young happy beautiful nico without the older wiser aged crusty nico, and that's the main lesson of her life, it seems.

so, if you have any interest in nico, check this out. it's definitely worth it!

i really want to read a book on her life now...

Nice one, Nico!
"Nico Icon" is a powerful documentary which illuminates some of the excesses and indulgences of the clique which emerged from Andy Warhol's Factory in the '60s and '70s and included the group, Velvet Underground. Nico's descent from beautiful bimbo to middle-aged junkie is traced through her relationships with men such as Alain Delon (the father of her son, Ari) and Jim Morrison. The most memorable feature of Nico's otherwise somewhat dubious talent is the performance of her haunting songs. John Cale's song (with his extraordinary piano accompaniment), "Frozen Boundaries" that concludes the video is also worthy of mention. If you have followed the life and career of Marianne Faithfull, you'll understand and love Nico. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Lets go to Moscow
This documentary on the making of Words for the Dying is fascinating, not least because it is a bit unconventional. I saw this on the big screen immediately after one of JC's performances at the London ICA a couple of years back - during the performance he and a DJ radically reworked his 'classic' songbook, forcing you to reapproach the songs afresh. Similarly, watch this and you'll find new things to appreciate in the album whose making it documents.

There's a remarkable humour to this film. Eno refuses to be filmed, so the crew smuggle in hidden cameras to the sound booth - you really feel as if you're eavesdropping. Sometimes, the scenes are not directly relevant - JC checking out a local band, a virtuosic double bass warming up - but all blend to create an atmosphere of the process of making the album. Amid it all, you sense the drive to create something meaningful and special. In my opinion, the film is better than the recording it documents.

Perhaps not to everybody's taste (out of maybe 300 at the concert, only five stayed for the screening!), but an engaging curiosity.

Well, I Like It
I've bought a couple other John Cale albums, and I like this one the best. It might help if you like Gavin Bryars or Philip Glass or other contemporary composers: this isn't the simple songs of 'Paris 1919' - it's Dylan Thomas poetry set to orchestral music and a choir. I love the way Cale's voice contrasts with the orchestra and choir - very moving. The two "Songs Without Words" are excellent pieces in their own right, as is "The Soul of Carmen Miranda".

MAGNIFICENT CARMEN
I agree with the current reviews. So why bother? I need to say that The Soul Of Carmen Miranda is one of Cale's most magnificent, moving songs. If not here, get it on Seducing Down The Door.

Cale Alone In Left Field Again
Hard to believe no one else has reviewed this one yet. The Amazon review is pretty accurate I'd say--brave, but flawed. I'm on the fence between two and three stars for this one.

The orchestral "score" to the Falklands Suite is surprisingly good neo-classical, but the accompanying poetry reading (aided in places by the Llandaff Cathedral Choir) is quite awkward for the most part. The suite could have functioned nicely as a mood piece, but there are portions of the reading that are positively jarring, so I'm not sure when you'd really want to play it.

The piano pieces are both pleasant enough (but very brief). Then comes "The Soul of Carmen Miranda", the only "conventional" rock song here. It's a moody techno-pop collaboration with Brian Eno that points the way directly to "Wrong Way Up", a great album that you should buy immediately. As for "Words For The Dying", it's interesting, but hardly essential. "Carmen Miranda" appears on "Seducing Down The Door" and a portion of "Falklands" is on "Fragments of a Rainy Season", so you can probably live without this one.

For Fans of Cale or Eno, it's Worth a Few Bucks
Even though the self-absorbed filmakers think we want to see as much of them as we do of Eno or Cale, there are still some interesting scenes of the two working on recording tracks from the album. We even get to see Cale lose his temper and shout a four-letter expletive at the boys' choir. What makes the video worth the purchase are the moments where the camera sits still long enough to let you see Cale and Eno interact while in the studio. Unfortnately there are far less of these moments then there are of pretentious camera-jiggling around Moscow at night, but if you are a fan and it is worth it to you to see this rather rare footage of these guys at work, I'm afraid it's a necessary purchase. ... Read more

Description

An incredible retracing of the evolution of Reed's remarkable career over three decades. Filled with interviews with Reed, his friends and some of the major artists influenced by Reed including David Bowie, David Byrne, Patti Smith, Suzanne Vega, Dave Stewart, Philip Glass and more. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Lou the Artist
This PBS video makes the case that Lou Reed is not just a guy who makes thrilling rock music. He is an Artist (with a capitol A) in the great modernist tradition who experiments with his life in order to test the limits. This sounds forbidding, but this documentary is fun and unpretentious and exhilarating.

should have concentrated on his early career
Lou Reed, like many artists, peaked early. He put out a few interesting solo albums, but by the mid seventies, his creativity had dried up. It would have been better to have spent more time on the early Velvet years, and skimmed over the years following 1975. It's amazing, though, to see that the film makers could line people up to heap praise on Reed's arid, barren pieces of his later period. Just shows how bogus the art and music world is. The filmmakers should have sought out impartial commentators, at least that would have rung true.

The Icon In Context
The strong use of vintage footage, and interviews of contemporaries places Lou Reed in his proper cultural context.

Iconic Isolation

Lou Reed's lack of need to fit himself into a readily commercially exploitable groove, and stay there for more than a minute, his keeping away from a recognizable group aside from the Velvet Underground places him in niche by himself. The information provided about Reed, his music and the influences on him removes him from that isolation.

Interesting On Many Levels

This video is intellectualy, musically and photographically interesting.

Intellectual and Artistic Roots

The examination of Reed's poetic roots dating back to Reed's time at Syracuse helps to explain the literacy of his lyrics. The material covering his interaction with the Warhol Factory also gives some depth to what Reed was doing with the Velvet Underground. How he fit into the New York art scene, and how he didn't fit into the San Francsico art scene, provides some insight into his personality.

Musical Development

The roots of Reed's music, its development, its changes are fairly well covered. This video is somewhat lacking in covering the period after "Rock and Roll Animal" and before "New York". This is one of it's few failings.

Eye Candy +

The videographers made excellent use of the vintage footage available. What they did on their own is also quite interesting. Although some might see it as a gimmick the use of a dissolve from a older portrait to a contemporary video still of the interviewee was effective. It helped to reinforce in the viewer's mind just who was being interviewed.

A must see!
'Rock n' Roll Heart' captures everything that is magical about Lou Reed both as a musician and an icon. The documentary charts his career from the Velvet Underground to his current position as an elder statesman of the rock scene. There are key interviews with John Cale, David Bowie, Patti Smith, David Byrne and Thurston Moore, illustrating how Reed's influence has remained strong through time. The director also focuses on the main influences on Reed which range from Delmore Schwartz to Andy Warhol. Overall, an excellent film.

Great documentary on an American Classic
This is an oustanding documentary on Lou Reed. Although I would have liked to see a little more about the Velvet Underground, especially their break up. ... Read more

Description

Campbell's soup cans, drug addicts-turned-celebritiesand a Day-Glo Marilyn Monroe: these are some of the groundbreakingimages from Andy Warhol's artistic vision.

This program offers the definitive look at the life and creative world of a revolutionary who influenced the 20th century in everything from painting to film to music.Capturing the essence of Warhol's strobe-lit, amphetamine- fueled 60s "scene" are rare audiotapes and films from the Warhol Foundation Archives and recollections of friends and colleagues like Debbie Harry and Dennis Hopper.

Enter Warhol's fabulous inner circle, where both high and lowbrow converge beneath the banner of celebrity and everyone gets to be famous for fifteen minutes. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Interesting but disappointing
This production has all the flavor of a bland, picky, British critic, which is the voice you'll strain to decipher as you watch it. It was interesting, mainly because Warhol was an entertaining and outrageous character, but when it was over, I felt like it missed the significant essence of the man. My major criticism is that the film spent more time on his kinky lifestyle than on his true legacy -- his art. I would have preferred a film that focused more on his artistic contribution, and less on whether he was bisexual and lived with his mother all his life. So when it was over, I wished I had selected one of the other Warhol DVDs.

Informative but Generally Goofy
Although the film is really informative and offers a great anectdote about Warhol's supposed asexuality, the film has a cheesy PBS documentary feel to it. It's high art approach to Warhol's life and art seem opposed to his own intentions in his work. There's still some amazingly funny moments, all unintentional.

Finally a new DVD on Warhol
I was excited to see a new DVD was to be released about Andy Warhol a month ago. I bought this right away when it was finally released only to find out it is a documentary that was created in Canada that was broadcast on US television about 8 months ago. I had taped this when it aired so I was a bit disappointed to learn they are one in the same although it's nice to have it on DVD instead of tape. This is a great DVD and covers some new angles and material not found in 'Portrait of an Artist' or 'Superstar'. It's interesting to see some new interviews with members of the Warhola family. To see how they have aged since 'Portrait of an Artist' just proves it's about time something new was released. I highly recommend this DVD if you did not already watch it on television or if you are an avid fan of Andy like myself. Well worth the price of admission alone:-) Enjoy! ... Read more