A searing song cycle about two lovers going to pieces in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, Lou Reed’s Berlin was greeted by a chorus of rebuke upon its release in 1973. Crushed, Reed and his producer, Bob Ezrin, left the record to gather dust in the archives. But it was recently rediscovered and anointed a misunderstood masterpiece. In 2006, artist and filmmaker Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) took to the stage at St Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, to introduce a concert 33 years in the making: Lou Reed’s Berlin, played live for the first time. Filmed over the course of Reed’s five-night stand at St Ann’s, Lou Reed’s Berlin revels in the hypnotic majesty of these dark, orchestral songs.
