November 5–12, 1998

movie shorts

Velvet Goldmine

by a.d. amorosi

Written and directed by Todd Haynes
A Miramax Films release

recommended

Once upon a time, say, in the early 1970s, there was a land. Call it England. There reigned an unimaginably magical klatsch of image-mongering young men and women content to rule the world through androgyny, bisexuality, pithy sayings and kissable lipsticks. They had funny made-up names like Bowie and Iggy. They wore smashing gender-bent clothes with sparkles and feathers. They pulled birds and blokes and flaunted convention. And they played dazzlingly catchy lit-based pop more like cabaret than rock.

Then one day, in a poof of smoke, it was gone. And life was left where it had been before them: a dull mass of denim-colored dreams and phony earnestness. At least this is how director Todd Haynes sees the relationship (here fictionalized, but not much) between David Bowie—the mod turned languorous folkie who gets glitzed, becomes Ziggy Stardust, then ends glam by offing Ziggy—and Iggy Pop/Lou Reed, the wild-eyed American originals who inspired him. In recounting these hazy characters' troubled pasts, Velvet Goldmine is quite literally a real-life fairy tale. But there is so much more to this ever-after than meets the eye.

For what Haynes and his stars have done—at maximum volume—is turn reality into myth by tossing halos around it, wowing us with an epoch that seems so very far away. Starting in 1854 with the birth of Oscar Wilde, Velvet follows its muse in the guise of a gaudy emerald brocade, tracking its silly (spaceship-dropped!!) lineage by aping not only Citizen Kane's newsreel feel but Bob Fosse films like Star 80 and Cabaret, where every loving stare is back-lit. Equal parts mockumentary, music vid and frilly period drama, Velvet delves into the staged death in 1974 of Maxwell Demon, the mega-monstrous creation of glam rocker Brian Slade (poutily played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers). Ten years later, in the charcoal confines of a world gone corporate, Brit reporter Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale) is sent off to find out whatever happened to Slade, who mysteriously disappeared after he slew his own beast in a silvery hail of bullets, blood and slow-flying feathers. But Stuart must face his own youthful dalliances with shagged hair, stacked heels and men, and his subsequent fall into dull reality.

For Haynes, Slade/Demon's simulated death meant a passing of all that was decadent and risky in life, art and entertainment. A director whose films Poison and Safe I hated for their futile abstraction, he catches the innocence and the calculatedness of entertainment-turned-tribal-excess by moving Slade through a twisted, stunningly costumed history, as seen by the forgotten souls who once carried him on their shoulders—most importantly, his Angie Bowie-esque American wife, Mandy (Toni Colette), and Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the unholy combination of Bowie acolytes Iggy, Lou and guitarist Mick Ronson. McGregor seems to flounder about as the drugged-up, dick-pulling American at first, lost in Slade's shadow. But by film's end—the Death Of Glam party in '74 and the backstage passage (and mystery solver) in '84—McGregor gives Wild a corny elder statesmanism, a sexy big brother brio that's gooey and corny and even a little tearful.

The music here is a huge factor. For the first time in recent memory the soundtrack is actually an integral part of the film. Haynes and film producer Michael Stipe enlisted mod rock types Placebo, Pulp, Shudder To Think and members of Radiohead and Sonic Youth to ape the tart cabaret rock of yore as well as cover that period's classics like T. Rex's "20th Century Boy" and Roxy Music's "Ladytron." The result (often masquerading as Slade's band The Venus In Furs or Wild's Ratzz) is furry and furious, campy and wonderfully incisive.

We watch the joy of getting into a newfound, almost secret music scene, one whose bizarre sexuality must be kept under constant wraps until it becomes a mainstream sensation. We see, too, the secret machinations of the scene's creation. How Slade would be pumped up, made to believe in his unique vision. How that unique vision would be streamlined by watching a woolly Wild act out rage and ire and sexual fire within a rock song's three-minute glare. How Slade would make it theatrical and tart. How flashy cigar-chomping manager Jerry Divine—played quite devilishly by comic Eddie Izzard—would package the story and make it unravel like an onion.

Slade is attracted to Wild's fire and the two become a transcontinental item, a Sonny and Cher of glitter rock. But Slade usurps his new protégé in every way: style, music, hitmaking largesse. As with everyone else in his life (except those who can keep making him money), Slade discards him with a kiss. This futility—that Wild is simply not half the "star" that Slade is -upends all possibilities of romance. Even Slade can't keep up, which is why he sends Demon off to the gallows. What Slade wants—and Rhys-Meyers plays up every pucker and preening pout with snotty gusto—is to be left alone, Garbo-like.

That Haynes actually gives his characters closure, even smiling relief, is part of the movie's charm. For in the end he theorizes that stardom, the great gift of a spotlit existence, never really leaves those who most deserve it, whether for good or for bad. Those who are born stars will die stars.

As for Haynes, he has fashioned what may be not only the finest rock movie of all time—deliciously dedicated to detail without losing dramatic structure and a sense of humor—but also the film that most revels in the glory and emotional grunge of the '70s. More so than the tedious Boogie Nights and the listlessly glossy 54, Haynes shows off the end of an era of hedonism and decay as if through a prism, radiating all of its colors, showing off all of its flaws.