Velvet Goldmine

I saw Goldmine years ago and it remains one of my favorites. Everything about this movie is amazing- from the music, to the costume and the actors.

Here we get a young Christian Bale as a struggling kid trying to grow up in the age of glam rock. The confusion of trying to be who you are and the confusion of trying to figure out who that person is, something that is understandable to anyone who has ever been a teenager. Like so many, he finds himself in music- that of Brian Slade. Meyers is outstanding as a lowly boy who makes it with the big boys. He plays the climb to fame brilliantly and the demise of glam rock with emotion. Toni Collette adds the flare that is necessary and shows the true strength in what a woman will do/put up with for love. She is a delight and she plays well with Meyers. Ewan McGregor is also terrific as Curt Wild, the perfect half to Slade's glam.

The music is what Goldmine is really all about. Meyers and McGregor sing some of the tunes themselves, but the addition of Radiohead's Thom Yorke to the mix as well as the boys from Placebo are an excellent addition to an already great soundtrack. Adding Lou Reed seems like over kill, but I'll take it- if there is anything that I learned from watching Goldmine many times- is that the bigger the better.

This is a great coming of age movie- it is a bit adult. There are heavy issues here such as drug abuse, alcoholism, adultery, homosexuality, orgies...be aware-

Slash Fanfiction is when a person writes a story involving two (usually) males characters from a television show or movie in a homoerotic romantic relationship. And this is what Velvet Goldmine is. A visually stunning, incredibly tasty piece of slash fanfiction. But instead of Kirk & Spock or Mulder & Krycek, it's someone who's a lot like David Bowie and someone who's a lot like Iggy Pop. Perhaps that appeals to you. Perhaps it doesn't. But despite its fanfiction feeling, this movie is absolutely visually stunning. The imagery will last with you long after you leave the movie, your eyes blinking as you adjust to a rather grey drab world. The movie isn't about substance, it's about style; about creating and rearranging yourself to fit the time, to fit the world around you. It's about fluidity, fluidity of gender, personality, ideas, and romance. Because, like all Slash fanfiction, above everything else, it's a love story.

I don't think I've ever seen a movie that has polarized people as much as this one, or at least very few. Some people have put down every single thing about it. As for me, when my roommate (who had already seen it) asked me what I'd thought of it I replied in all honesty, "I loved every single frame of it." She concurred, and we've both seen it again since. I plan to buy it as soon as I can find it for sale. It's heavy on metaphors, which seems to have annoyed a lot of people. As for it's structural resemblance to 'Citizen Kane', that was one of the points. Glam rock was in part about copying others for copying's sake, like Brian Slade copied from Curt Wild, and everyone copied from Jack Fairy. The performances are all great. Some may nitpick about how the characters were portrayed, but I think they were all apt. Ewan McGregor has gotten plenty of slobbering, ecstatic praise from me in the past, and this only encouraged the worship. Toni Collette, so mired in ugly duckling roles since 'Muriel's Wedding', is wonderful, as is Christian Bale's brittle, disillusioned reporter role. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is, as Brian Slade, a glittering void, as cloaked in mystery at the end as he was at the beginning. Some of have criticized his role, but I think he did it just right, with a grand coldness. One believes that only such a creature could be the idol of an era that was, in the end, about glittering emotional voids and icy hipness. Why did he do what he did? We never know. That's one of the best parts. (I must embarrass myself here by noting, also, that Rhys-Meyers is so shockingly beautiful it's disgusting, like eating too much honey. Kinda makes you wanna puke on his shoes, doesn't it?) I suppose that not everyone can be expected to love this movie as much as I did, but I'm still a little surprised at some of the venom that's been spit at it. Then again, it is a truly enigmatic film, delicious for those who can appreciate a glorious feast of sight and sound, but just plain confusing and annoying for those who lack the imagination to appreciate it.

Todd Haynes' fantasy rethinking of an era in rock history, as a David Bowie-like singer in the early '70s burns out and disappears, and one of his most ardent young fans--now a music journalist--interviews friends and colleagues hoping to get at the truth. Past-and-present collage isn't given a very pointed treatment (once the narrative has gone a certain distance, a flashback dating back even further in time drains the immediacy out of the proceedings), though the design of the picture and the personalities involved are very colorful, as is the soundtrack, a mix of newly written tunes and classics. The U.K. truly got a colorful slice of the glam-rock era (as opposed to the U.S., which pretty much missed the boat--and the musical point), and the film, mostly set in England, nails that distinctive time and place with embracing accuracy. Haynes is also shrewd enough to remember the particular talents impersonated here were not the originators of the scene--that all musical trends date back, and nothing is ever truly original or lasts forever. The cast is uniformly excellent: sexy, decadent, kinetic, nervy. Haynes isn't a master of the outré (like, say, Ken Russell), but neither is he a junky or disrespectful filmmaker, and even in the lowest moments of their lives, this crazy collection of hedonists still look and sound pretty great. **1/2 from ****

Even if I didn't think this movie was fantastic (which I do), I would have to be impressed with the incorporation of Oscar Wilde, his fascination with the decadence of pop culture, and his brilliant philosophies concerning art.

At the end of the film, when Arthur Stuart sits to have a drink with Curt Wylde (Oh look! A play on Oscar!, Wylde looks up and tells him that, "The true artist creates beautiful things, and puts none of his own life into them". This is one of the several scenes in which Oscar Wilde is referenced subtly, seamlessly and beautifully.

Curt is not simply Iggy Pop. He is Oscar Wilde. He is the true artist of the crowd, because he creates music without using the art as a form of autobiography.

Brian Slade is Dorian Gray. He invests all of his persona into the public, and into his songs, trapping himself in an expectation. The alter-ego Maxwell Demon is eternal youth. It is the embodiment of Slade in a single moment. Unfortunately, he traps himself, and leaves no room for growth. The shooting accomplishes two things. Slade arranging this pseudo-murder is Dorian gray destroying his portrait. At first Dorian was intrigued, even excited by the changes he saw in the painting. Then it began to wear on him. So with Slade/ Demon. The hoax liberates Slade the way death does Gray. Also, This secures Maxwell Demon a place in history. Brian Slade was a pop-star who was too controversial and too personally naked in his work to have any real longevity. The hype would have faded, and if he changed or grew as a person, that would have meant changing everything about his art (as they were so interlocked) and would have led to cries of "sell out". Either way, he would have faded out and been likely forgotten (the way Britney Spears will hopefully do one day). By enacting this faux death, Slade guarantees Maxwell Demon some form of eternal youth, trading in his career to do so (selling his soul).

There's more, as well. Jerry Devine, for instance, is Lord Henry. Mandy is Sybil Vane. They aren't exact, of course, and there are other veins running through them that make them unique, but one can see the influence.

Beautifully done, and a well paid tribute to the genius of Oscar Wilde!