Nico interviewed on French television’s Pop 2 program in 1972. She performs solo versions of “Janitor Of Lunacy” and “You Forgot To Answer” accompanying herself on her harmonium. The Pop 2 show also presented the famous VU “reunion” concert at the Le Bataclan nightclub that same year with Nico, John Cale and Lou Reed.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The Velvet Underground Live: ‘Symphony in Sound’

Nico: Remembering the Icon

‘The Inner Scar’: Obscure and Pretentious French Art Film Starring Nico (1972)

VU Reunion: Lou Reed, John Cale, Nico on French TV, 1972

 
Yesterday was the anniversary of Nico’s death at 49 (October 16 1938 – July 18 1988) and I had planned to commemorate it in some way last night, but it took me awhile to find this documentary. Thanks to Jonathan Sprig, my search ended this afternoon.

Nico Icon directed by Susanne Ofteringer is a compelling, intimate, often sad, but never judgmental, look at the life of the mysterious, seductive and self-destructive pop icon who kept the world at a distance while drawing us into her alluring web.
 

 
The complete and original Andy Warhol footage of The Velvet Underground and Nico from 1966. Richard Metzger posted a shorter version of this last year, and wrote an insightful piece about it, check it out here.

 
More clips of Warhol’s The Velvet Underground & Nico after the jump…
 

 
Nuff said. Get yours at The Nuns Are On The Sea Wall

 
The career of Nico, née Christa Päffgen, and what happened to her after she crossed paths with Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground, has certainly been well-documented (see at the bottom, Nico: Icon).  Less well-documented, though, are Nico’s “model” years, starting out in Berlin when she was all of 14.  The accompanying photos are just a few selected from the fine—and generous—set found here.
 

 
Ranging in date from ‘52-‘67, these shots certainly capture a more innocent time in Nico’s life.  I particularly like the ones below where Nico looks like she just stepped into a Godard film.  It’s somewhat incredible to think that the face in the above black-and-whites would later go on to sing this, and this, and especially this!
 

 

It used to pain me to think that the only footage in existence of the Velvet Underground performing was silent. Think about it: Have you ever seen any sync-sound film of the Velvets in any of the various documentaries made about them, Lou Reed, Nico, John Cale or Andy Warhol for that matter? I didn’t think so, but thanks to the rather enterprising employee of either the Museum of Modern Art or else the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh who liberated Symphony in Sound you can now see the Velvets in action and actually hear them too! That’s the good part.

The bad part is that this film, made to be screened behind the band onstage during The Exploding Plastic Inevitable “happenings” is pretty boring. It goes on for a LONG time with not much happening besides a drony primitive jam and a frenetic camera zooming in and out. Nico is there (with her young son Ari) but she’s not singing, just hitting a tambourine. Lou doesn’t sing either. At one point the camera droops on its tripod and no one readjusts it for a while. So it’s boring, most Warhol films were boring—Warhol himself always said his movies were better discussed than actually seen—but it is the freaking Velvet Underground playing live on camera for what is probably the ONLY time during their original incarnation, so it’s worth looking at for that reason alone. If you can get over how dull it is, it’s actually pretty cool. There are several versions of this online, this one, from Google Video is merely the longest. I don’t know if this is the whole thing but in the later moments of the bootleg DVD I have, it gets better when the cops show up due to a noise complaint and Warhol has to deal with them himself.