Velvet Goldmine

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For the song, see Velvet Goldmine (song).
Velvet Goldmine
Directed byTodd Haynes
Written byJames Lyons
Todd Haynes
Produced byChristine Vachon
StarringEwan McGregor
Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Christian Bale
Toni Collette
Eddie Izzard
Edited byJames Lyons
Music byCarter Burwell
Distributed byMiramax
Release dates
May 21, 1998 (Cannes Film Festival, France); August 16, 1998 (General UK release)
Running time
124 min.
LanguageEnglish

Velvet Goldmine is a 1998 film directed and co-written by Todd Haynes. The film tells the story of a pop star based mainly on David Bowie's 'Ziggy Stardust' character and is set in Britain during the days of glam rock in the early 1970s.

About the film

The film centers on Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a bisexual glitter icon patterned after David Bowie and, to a lesser extent, Marc Bolan and Brian Eno. Ewan McGregor co-stars in the role of Curt Wild, a glam-rock performer who doesn't back down from sex, nudity or drugs on or off stage, and whom many consider to be loosely based on Iggy Pop, with a dash of Lou Reed, Mick Ronson and Alice Cooper. Also featured are Christian Bale as a young gay glam rock fan and reporter, Arthur Stuart, Toni Collette as Slade's wife, Mandy, and Eddie Izzard as his manager, Jerry Devine.

The tale strongly parallels Bowie and Pop's relationship in the 1970s and 1980s, with parallel stages in both stories including "folk singer takes illegal substances" and "open-minded glam rocker becomes bland straight guy." Brian Slade's gradually overwhelming on-stage persona of "Maxwell Demon" and his backing band, "Venus in Furs", likewise bear a resemblance to Bowie's similar persona and backing band, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The film is also strongly influenced by the ideas and life of Oscar Wilde (seen here as a progenitor of glam rock), with a dash of Jean Genet influence.

The narrative structure of the film is modeled on that of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, in that reporter Bale tries to solve a mystery about Slade, traveling around to interview Slade's lovers and colleagues, whose recollections are shown in 1950s, 1960s and 1970s flashback sequences.[1]

Synopsis

The story follows a British journalist, Arthur Stewart (Christian Bale), who has to search his own past when writing an article about the mysterious disappearance of a former glam-rock star, Brian Slade, for an American periodical. The film turns Slade's paranoia of being murdered during a concert (a paranoia that Bowie incorporated into the Ziggy Stardust story in the climax of the Ziggy Stardust album) into a career-ending publicity stunt by Slade, after which he gradually disappears from the public view entirely. As Stewart locates and talks with people connected to Slade, trying to find out what happened, he revisits the glam-rock scene of the 70s in a series of vignettes, which recreate the stories of Slade, Wild, and others involved in their lives.

Connections to other works

  • The title of the movie takes its name from the song "Velvet Goldmine", written by David Bowie.
  • The name of the lead character, Brian Slade, is an allusion to the 1970s glam band Slade. The name of Slade's persona "Maxwell Demon" was named after Brian Eno's first band, which in itself was influenced by James Clerk Maxwell's thought experiment character, "Maxwell's demon".
  • Curt Wild's backing band, The Rats, shares its name with one of Mick Ronson's earliest groups.[2] It also alludes to Iggy Pop's band, The Stooges in that the names of both words share a similar meaning ("rat" and "stooge" both being terms for someone who is an informer).
  • "Venus in Furs" is a reference to a Velvet Underground song of the same name, whose title and lyrics in turn reference a novel of that name by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. "Flaming Creatures" is also the name of Jack Smith's seminal piece of gay cinema.
  • Much of the script consists of quotes from various works of Oscar Wilde, and several of the scenes involving the character Jack Fairy reference the novels of Jean Genet.
  • The bleak, dystopian feel of the action taking place in 1984 alludes to the novel 1984 by George Orwell and also Bowie's own dystopian song of the same name.
  • The cover art for the Maxwell Demon album is based on an album cover by Jobriath.
  • The "pantomime dame" from the vaudeville troupe is played by influential dancer Lindsay Kemp, a former teacher of Bowie's who collaborated with him on several music videos, including "John, I'm Only Dancing".

Locations

The exterior shot meant to be New York City in 1984 is actually Wellesley Road in Croydon, looking north. One telltale sign that the setting isn't really the United States is that the cars are driving on the left side of the road.

Reception

The film wasn't successful at the box office, making just $1.5m on a budget of $9m, according to Christine Vachon's 2006 account of independent film producing, A Killer Life.

Costume designer Sandy Powell was nominated for an Academy Award for her work in the film, and won the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts).[3]

Awards

1998 Cannes Film Festival - Best Artistic Contribution - Todd Haynes; nominated for Golden Palm

1999 Academy Awards - nominated for Best Costume Design (Sandy Powell)

1999 BAFTA Awards - Best Costume Design - Sandy Powell; nominated for Best Make Up/Hair (Peter King)

1999 Independent Spirit Awards - Best Cinematography - Maryse Alberti; nominated for Best Director (Todd Haynes) and Best Feature

1998 Edinburgh International Film Festival - Channel 4 Director's Award - Todd Haynes

1999 GLAAD Media Awards - Outstanding Film (Limited Release)

1999 MOVIELINE Young Hollywood Award - Best Song in a Motion Picture - Hot One - Nathan Larson

Soundtrack and musicians

Although the character of Brian Slade is heavily based on David Bowie, Bowie himself disliked the script[citation needed] and vetoed the proposal that his songs appear in the film.[4]

The finished soundtrack includes songs by glam rock and glam-influenced bands, past and present.

The English musicians who played under the name The Venus in Furs on the soundtrack were Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, David Gray, Suede's Bernard Butler, and Roxy Music's Andy Mackay. The American musicians who played as Curt Wild's Wylde Ratttz on the soundtrack were The Stooges' Ron Asheton, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley, Minutemen's Mike Watt, Gumball's Don Fleming, and Mark Arm of Mudhoney.

The soundtrack features new songs written for the film by Pulp, Shudder To Think and Grant Lee Buffalo,[5] as well as many early glam rock compositions, both covers and original versions. The Venus in Furs covers several Roxy Music songs with Thom Yorke channeling Bryan Ferry on vocals,[5] Placebo covers T.Rex's "20th Century Boy," Wylde Ratttz and Ewan McGregor cover The Stooges' "T.V. Eye", and Teenage Fanclub and Donna Matthews cover The New York Dolls' "Personality Crisis." Lou Reed, Brian Eno, T.Rex, and Steve Harley songs from the period are also included. The album is rounded out by a piece of Carter Burwell's film score.

All three members of the band Placebo also appeared in the film, with Brian Molko and Steve Hewitt playing members of the Flaming Creatures (Malcolm and Billy respectively) and Stefan Olsdal playing Polly Small's bassist.

Tracklisting

Untitled
  1. Brian Eno: "Needle In The Camel's Eye" (Brian Eno/Phil Manzanera) – 3:09
  2. Shudder To Think: "Hot One" (Nathan Larson/Shudder To Think) – 3:04
  3. Placebo: "20th Century Boy" (Marc Bolan) – 3:42
  4. Venus in Furs (vocals by Thom Yorke): "2HB" (Bryan Ferry) – 5:39
  5. Wylde Ratttz (vocals by Ewan McGregor): "T.V. Eye" (Dave Alexander/Scott Asheton/Ron Asheton/James Osterberg, Jr.) – 5:24
  6. Shudder To Think: "Ballad of Maxwell Demon" (Craig Wedren/Shudder to Think) – 4:47
  7. Grant Lee Buffalo: "The Whole Shebang" (Grant-Lee Phillips) – 4:11
  8. Venus in Furs (vocals by Thom Yorke): "Ladytron" (Bryan Ferry) – 4:26
  9. Pulp: "We Are The Boys" (Cocker/Banks/Doyle/Mackay/Webber) – 3:13
  10. Roxy Music: "Virginia Plain" (Bryan Ferry) – 3:00
  11. Teenage Fanclub & Donna Matthews: "Personality Crisis" (David Johansen/Johnny Thunders) – 3:49
  12. Lou Reed: "Satellite Of Love" (Lou Reed) – 3:41
  13. T.Rex: "Diamond Meadows" (Marc Bolan) – 2:00
  14. Paul Kimble & Andy Mackay: "Bitter's End" (Bryan Ferry) – 2:13
  15. Venus in Furs (vocals by Jonathan Rhys Meyers): "Baby's On Fire" (Brian Eno) – 3:19
  16. Venus in Furs (vocals by Thom Yorke): "Bitter-Sweet" (Andy Mackay/Bryan Ferry) – 4:55
  17. Carter Burwell: "Velvet Spacetime" (Carter Burwell) – 4:10
  18. Venus in Furs (vocals by Jonathan Rhys Meyers): "Tumbling Down" (Steve Harley) – 3:28
  19. Steve Harley: "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)" (Steve Harley) – 3:59

References

  1. ^ Ashare, Matt (9). "'Velvet Goldmine' stirs up the glam past". Boston Phoenix. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  2. ^ Velvet Goldmine: The Movie - The Ziggy Stardust Companion
  3. ^ Awards for Velvet Goldmine, IMDb.
  4. ^ Guthmann, Edward (November 6, 1998), "The Glitter of Glam Rock Doesn't Look Like Much Fun", San Francisco Chronicle, pp. C-1{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  5. ^ a b Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Velvet Goldmine: Review", AllMusic.com.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Velvet Goldmine.

Template:Todd Haynes' films

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