Edward Lachman presents: Songs For Drella (1990) + Report From Hollywood (1985)

Among the most gifted American cinematographers working today, Edward Lachman’s career draws a direct line from the international cinema boom of the 1980s to some of the most essential independent films of the 1990s and 2000s, working with directors including Todd Haynes (for whom he received Oscar nominations for Carol and Far From Heaven), Sofia Coppola, Ulrich Seidl, Paul Schrader, Todd Solondz and others. Less known is Lachman’s solo practice as a nonfiction filmmaker over the last 40 years, documenting some of the most enduring artists of his time with intimate access. Mezzanine is thrilled to present two rarely screened nonfiction films directed by Lachman, both L.A. premieres of new restorations supervised by the filmmaker, followed by an in-person conversation with Lachman.

This program is presented with generous support from MUBI, a global curated streaming service.

Songs For Drella

Edward Lachman, 1990, 55m

Commissioned for British television, Lachman’s concert film—shot over three nights at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1990—captures Lou Reed and John Cale performing together on stage for the first time since 1968, on occasion of the passing of their friend and collaborator Andy Warhol (or “Drella”, his nickname, a portmanteau of Dracula and Cinderella) three years earlier. In this haunting, elegiac set of 15 songs, the two artists trade musings about Warhol’s upbringing (“Small Town”), customs (“Open House”), industrious work ethic (“Work”), art-world savvy (“Style It Takes”) and the fallout from Valerie Solanas’s murder attempt (“Nobody But You”). Reed and Cale would go on to record the album in the ensuing months after this performance, which until now has only been available on VHS and laserdisc.

L.A. premiere of a brand new 4K restoration

Official Selection: New York Film Festival, 2021

“A ravishingly beautiful, sometimes thrilling audiovisual recording…The result is an extraordinary intimacy with both Reed and Cale—the lenses bring viewers closer to each of them than they actually were to each other…Both are at the height of their powers.” -Amy Taubin, Filmmaker Magazine

followed by:

Report From Hollywood

Edward Lachman, 1985, 47m

“It may be worse than Portugal,” observes cinematographer Henri Alekan about Los Angeles film labs while on the set of Wim Wenders’ The State of Things (1984), a legendary production and a transitional work for the New German Cinema director as his work became increasingly intercontinental. Wenders set out to make a film about filmmaking while funding stalled on the American production of Hammett, dramatizing the complicated co-dependence of European and American film industries through his protagonist (Patrick Bauchau)—enlisting Lachman, then an LA resident, to document the proceedings. Made for German television, completed in 1985 and unseen since its Vienna premiere, Lachman’s portrait of Wenders at work features striking color location photography of Los Angeles in the 1980s, and serves as a candid glimpse into European encounters with American culture at the time. Featuring interviews with Samuel Fuller, Allen Garfield and others.

U.S. premiere, and world premiere of a brand new 4K restoration

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