"A Haunting Symbiosis": On Ed Lachman's Newly Restored Lou Reed & John Cale Concert Film, Songs for Drella

Not merely an addendum to Todd Haynes's The Velvet Underground, Ed Lachman's Songs For Drella is a ravishingly beautiful, sometimes thrilling audiovisual recording of a song cycle by Lou Reed and John Cale, the founders of the Velvet Underground. Cale and Reed's early musical collaboration as the VU was inspired but unlikely - they had diametrically opposed musical roots and passions. Short lived as the band was, it became the source for punk, glam, and whatever followed from those fundamentally...