Official Satellite of Love Velvet Goldmine Thread!
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Velvet Goldmine is a 1998 film directed and co-written by Todd Haynes. The film tells the story of a popstar based mainly on David Bowie's 'Ziggy Stardust' character and is set in Britain during the days of glam rock in the early 1970s.
The film centers on Brian Slade, a bisexual folk minstrel-c**-glitter icon patterned after David Bowie and to a lesser extent, Marc Bolan and Brian Eno, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, in a career breakout performance. 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 and Alice Cooper but also evoking grunge legend Kurt Cobain with his stringy blond hair and air of tragic inevitability. Also featured are Toni Collette as Slade's wife, and Eddie Izzard as his manager. 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.
The film centers on Brian Slade, a bisexual folk minstrel-c**-glitter icon patterned after David Bowie and to a lesser extent, Marc Bolan and Brian Eno, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, in a career breakout performance. 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 and Alice Cooper but also evoking grunge legend Kurt Cobain with his stringy blond hair and air of tragic inevitability. Also featured are Toni Collette as Slade's wife, and Eddie Izzard as his manager. 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.
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