Promo video for Nico’s “Evening of Light” (actually the alternate version, as heard on the Frozen Borderline set) directed by François De Menil in 1969, but probably finished much later. There was a tantalizingly brief clip of this in the Nico: Icon documentary and ever since the invention of YouTube, I’ve been hoping to find the complete piece online.

The story is told in Richard Witts’ (fantastic) Nico biography, Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon, that De Menil, heir to the Schlumberger Limited oil-equipment fortune via his mother’s family, who knew Nico via Warhol associate Fred Hughes, had become besotted by the Teutonic ice queen and proposed making a film with her.

At this time Nico was having a brief affair with a then 21-year-old Iggy Pop, who she met through John Cale, then producing the first Stooges album in New York. (Iggy once revealed to a French interviewer that Nico taught him how to “eat pussy.”) Nico told De Menil that he had to follow them to Ann Arbor, Michigan if he wanted to do it. De Menil obliged, shooting the film behind the house where the band lived.

The way Witts tells the tale is that De Menil seemed to want to get revenge on Iggy because he was Nico’s boyfriend, making the Stooges singer wear white mime make-up and frolic around in a field to embarrass him, but to my mind, this film is absolutely stunning.

Turn it up loud for the full effect!