A British journalist (Christian Bale) tries to find out what happened to an early 1970s glam rock star (Jonathan Rhys Myers) who disappeared from sight after his on-stage death was revealed to be a hoax. Written and directed by Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven) and co-starring Ewan McGregor and Toni Collette, Velvet Goldmine is a flawed masterpiece: a dizzying, garishly colorful, joyfully impudent, marvelously styled but structurally wobbly pastiche of the era. Pious disciples of the Church of the Three-Act Structure won’t like it, but it takes the viewer on a ride and challenges its perceptions in the most outlandishly flamboyant way possible. The Blu-Ray contains an exhaustively detailed commentary by its director and represents its visuals and soundtrack admirably. Recommended.
Velvet Goldmine (1998)
Studio: Miramax (distributed by Lionsgate)
Year: 1998
Rated: R
Length: 119 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Resolution: 1080p
Languages: English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish
MSRP: $19.99
Film Release Date: November 6, 1998
Disc Release Date: December 13, 2011
Review Date: January 22, 2012
“What is true about music is true about life: that beauty reveals everything because it expresses nothing.”
The Movie:
4/5
After hippies but before punk, there was glam rock. Consisting of such acts as T. Rex, David Bowie, Gary Glitter, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Slade, Mott the Hoople, Sweet, Roxy Music, and a host of others, it was a musical scene where anything could happen as long as it was theatrical, outrageous, flamboyant and shocking to the middle class. One of its most distinguishing characteristics was its subversion of gender roles; makeup, glitter, and tight-fitting costumes were never in short supply. In the UK, it was a full-fledged phenomenon, but its impact on the US music scene was not quite as big in its brief heyday, 1971 to around 1976, as it was on subsequent subgenres of rock and pop music. It also happened to come around at the same time when the gay rights movement hit its stride after the Stonewall riots of June 1969.
In 1984, British journalist Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale) tries to solve the mystery of the 1974 disappearance of Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a bisexual glam-rock star who faked an on-stage murder that was proven to be a hoax; he vanished without a trace after that. A huge fan of Slade, Arthur tracks down people connected with him to learn the truth. The story unfolds through vignettes that bounce back and forth through time, revealing the relationship between Brian’s collaborator and lover Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), his ex-wife Mandy (Toni Collette), the emotional strain caused by Brian’s ambiguous sexuality and infidelity, and the real reason for Arthur’s interest in Brian’s fate.
If the structure of the film reminds you of Citizen Kane, it should. Haynes deliberately modeled the film’s loose structure after Orson Welles’ 1941 magnum opus while modeling its ideas after those of Oscar Wilde (coincidentally, Wilde, starring Stephen Fry as the legendary author, came out that same year). Todd Haynes has essentially tried to create a gay, sexually charged Citizen Kane with David Bowie standing in for William Randolph Hearst with elements of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed’s respective lives mixed in as well. However, the film fails to match Kane’s brilliance because its screenplay lacks the taut construction and stinging parody of Herman Mankiewicz’s Oscar-winning script. But somehow the often infuriatingly scattershot presentation of its ideas is appropriate to the type of film Haynes was trying to make. On the surface, it may seem unfair to compare it to an untouchable masterpiece like Citizen Kane, but even Haynes admits in his commentary that everything in the film is lifted directly from another source. He wasn’t trying to slavishly copy Kane—other cinematic allusions run the gamut from A Clockwork Orange to Mary Poppins to one of the director’s earlier films—or produce a faithful biopic of David Bowie but to pay homage to the spirit and aesthetic of a music scene that challenged traditional mores of human sexuality. In glam rock, the style was very much the substance and the conventional and traditional were outré, making the film’s narrative shortcomings seem like virtues when set against the stunning visuals and fine attention to detail. Rather than create yet another painfully earnest, well-intentioned yet tiresome screed against paper tiger bigots who will inevitably be vanquished by the last reel, Haynes creates a dizzying, colorful, joyfully garish, starkly erotic whirlwind of a movie that makes its own rules. It’s only partially successful, but when it works, it works like gangbusters. What also works is Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ performance as Brian Slade. Underneath his flamboyant on-stage persona, Myers brings out Brian’s genuine longing for love and a pain when he doesn’t get it. Ultimately, much of the film is about his quest for love and self-identity.
Also unlike Kane, where the reporter is nothing more than a device to dispassionately discover who Charles Foster Kane was, Arthur Stuart is very much a character in the film and has a personal interest in finding Brian Slade’s real fate. Christian Bale does an admirable job with the role, as do Ewan McGregor and Toni Collette with theirs. Collette is appropriately over-the-top in a role based on David Bowie’s former wife, Angela, who was said to be very theatrical and emotional.
The film's sexual overtones are overtly gay rather than bisexual; the scenes of opposite-sex activity display less erotic intensity and passion than any of the copious same-sex activity, covert or overt. None of it crosses the line into NC-17 territory; in fact, in one scene Haynes cleverly uses Ken dolls instead of actors (an allusion to his infamous 1987 short Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, in which Barbie and Ken dolls reenacted the life and death of the beloved 1970s pop star) as Brian and Curt first begin making love. As for its attempts to connect glam rock to Oscar Wilde and thus to gay rights, it is a very loose connection at best. Although it undoubtedly contributed something to a climate where gays could find self-acceptance more easily, glam rock was much too gleeful in its intent to shock mainstream audiences to be a potent political movement.
As for the music, the film could not get the rights to any of David Bowie’s recordings, so it uses a mix of new songs, covers, and other songs of the era. Unfortunately, they don’t match the pizzazz of the visuals, but Haynes exuded more effort in his music choices than the endless post-Forrest Gump period films that lazily cram in the most played oldies radio staples for lack of any desire to dig beneath the surface of the most diverse musical era in history. Some of them actually have something to do with the story.
In its original release, the film divided critics and alienated audiences, costing $9,000,000 and not even able to make $2,000,000. However, it won a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival while Sandy Powell received an Oscar nomination for her costume design; she lost to herself for Shakespeare in Love. Somewhere along the way it developed a minor cult following of fans that obsessively documented all the film’s allusions and posted them on the Internet.
The Video:
3.5/5
The film was 1.85:1 originally, but this Blu-Ray presents it as 1.78:1; the credits are inexplicably windowboxed. The picture is not very bright, but it displays a vivid and diverse color palette with fairly strong saturation, reasonable sharpness and good detail in the shadows. Grain is relatively low except in scenes where it is used as an artistic effect.
The Audio:
4.5/5
The film’s soundtrack is presented in a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track that comes alive with a good range of frequencies and dynamics and a strong surround presence.
The Extras:
2/5
The only extras are an SD theatrical trailer running 1:43 and an audio commentary by Todd Haynes and his producer, Christine Vachon. But where the extras are lacking in quantity, the illuminating commentary more than makes up for it. So much time has passed and there’s so much going on in every scene that Haynes had to go to fan sites to jog his memory about some of it, but he goes on in great detail about the film’s themes, allusions and production. It alone is worth the cost of the disc.
Final Score:
3.5/5
It would be an understatement to say it was an understatement that Velvet Goldmine is not for everyone. A visually breathtaking, erotic, dizzying pastiche of Oscar Wilde, glam rock, gay liberation and Citizen Kane, Todd Haynes’ third feature film is a masterpiece of style, performance and technical finesse that tells traditional story structure to take a hike. The Blu-Ray’s main feature is its exhaustively detailed director’s commentary, but its picture and sound quality are nothing to sneeze at either. Recommended.
Studio: Miramax (distributed by Lionsgate)
Year: 1998
Rated: R
Length: 119 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Resolution: 1080p
Languages: English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish
MSRP: $19.99
Film Release Date: November 6, 1998
Disc Release Date: December 13, 2011
Review Date: January 22, 2012
“What is true about music is true about life: that beauty reveals everything because it expresses nothing.”
The Movie:
4/5
After hippies but before punk, there was glam rock. Consisting of such acts as T. Rex, David Bowie, Gary Glitter, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Slade, Mott the Hoople, Sweet, Roxy Music, and a host of others, it was a musical scene where anything could happen as long as it was theatrical, outrageous, flamboyant and shocking to the middle class. One of its most distinguishing characteristics was its subversion of gender roles; makeup, glitter, and tight-fitting costumes were never in short supply. In the UK, it was a full-fledged phenomenon, but its impact on the US music scene was not quite as big in its brief heyday, 1971 to around 1976, as it was on subsequent subgenres of rock and pop music. It also happened to come around at the same time when the gay rights movement hit its stride after the Stonewall riots of June 1969.
In 1984, British journalist Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale) tries to solve the mystery of the 1974 disappearance of Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a bisexual glam-rock star who faked an on-stage murder that was proven to be a hoax; he vanished without a trace after that. A huge fan of Slade, Arthur tracks down people connected with him to learn the truth. The story unfolds through vignettes that bounce back and forth through time, revealing the relationship between Brian’s collaborator and lover Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), his ex-wife Mandy (Toni Collette), the emotional strain caused by Brian’s ambiguous sexuality and infidelity, and the real reason for Arthur’s interest in Brian’s fate.
If the structure of the film reminds you of Citizen Kane, it should. Haynes deliberately modeled the film’s loose structure after Orson Welles’ 1941 magnum opus while modeling its ideas after those of Oscar Wilde (coincidentally, Wilde, starring Stephen Fry as the legendary author, came out that same year). Todd Haynes has essentially tried to create a gay, sexually charged Citizen Kane with David Bowie standing in for William Randolph Hearst with elements of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed’s respective lives mixed in as well. However, the film fails to match Kane’s brilliance because its screenplay lacks the taut construction and stinging parody of Herman Mankiewicz’s Oscar-winning script. But somehow the often infuriatingly scattershot presentation of its ideas is appropriate to the type of film Haynes was trying to make. On the surface, it may seem unfair to compare it to an untouchable masterpiece like Citizen Kane, but even Haynes admits in his commentary that everything in the film is lifted directly from another source. He wasn’t trying to slavishly copy Kane—other cinematic allusions run the gamut from A Clockwork Orange to Mary Poppins to one of the director’s earlier films—or produce a faithful biopic of David Bowie but to pay homage to the spirit and aesthetic of a music scene that challenged traditional mores of human sexuality. In glam rock, the style was very much the substance and the conventional and traditional were outré, making the film’s narrative shortcomings seem like virtues when set against the stunning visuals and fine attention to detail. Rather than create yet another painfully earnest, well-intentioned yet tiresome screed against paper tiger bigots who will inevitably be vanquished by the last reel, Haynes creates a dizzying, colorful, joyfully garish, starkly erotic whirlwind of a movie that makes its own rules. It’s only partially successful, but when it works, it works like gangbusters. What also works is Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ performance as Brian Slade. Underneath his flamboyant on-stage persona, Myers brings out Brian’s genuine longing for love and a pain when he doesn’t get it. Ultimately, much of the film is about his quest for love and self-identity.
Also unlike Kane, where the reporter is nothing more than a device to dispassionately discover who Charles Foster Kane was, Arthur Stuart is very much a character in the film and has a personal interest in finding Brian Slade’s real fate. Christian Bale does an admirable job with the role, as do Ewan McGregor and Toni Collette with theirs. Collette is appropriately over-the-top in a role based on David Bowie’s former wife, Angela, who was said to be very theatrical and emotional.
The film's sexual overtones are overtly gay rather than bisexual; the scenes of opposite-sex activity display less erotic intensity and passion than any of the copious same-sex activity, covert or overt. None of it crosses the line into NC-17 territory; in fact, in one scene Haynes cleverly uses Ken dolls instead of actors (an allusion to his infamous 1987 short Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, in which Barbie and Ken dolls reenacted the life and death of the beloved 1970s pop star) as Brian and Curt first begin making love. As for its attempts to connect glam rock to Oscar Wilde and thus to gay rights, it is a very loose connection at best. Although it undoubtedly contributed something to a climate where gays could find self-acceptance more easily, glam rock was much too gleeful in its intent to shock mainstream audiences to be a potent political movement.
As for the music, the film could not get the rights to any of David Bowie’s recordings, so it uses a mix of new songs, covers, and other songs of the era. Unfortunately, they don’t match the pizzazz of the visuals, but Haynes exuded more effort in his music choices than the endless post-Forrest Gump period films that lazily cram in the most played oldies radio staples for lack of any desire to dig beneath the surface of the most diverse musical era in history. Some of them actually have something to do with the story.
In its original release, the film divided critics and alienated audiences, costing $9,000,000 and not even able to make $2,000,000. However, it won a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival while Sandy Powell received an Oscar nomination for her costume design; she lost to herself for Shakespeare in Love. Somewhere along the way it developed a minor cult following of fans that obsessively documented all the film’s allusions and posted them on the Internet.
The Video:
3.5/5
The film was 1.85:1 originally, but this Blu-Ray presents it as 1.78:1; the credits are inexplicably windowboxed. The picture is not very bright, but it displays a vivid and diverse color palette with fairly strong saturation, reasonable sharpness and good detail in the shadows. Grain is relatively low except in scenes where it is used as an artistic effect.
The Audio:
4.5/5
The film’s soundtrack is presented in a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track that comes alive with a good range of frequencies and dynamics and a strong surround presence.
The Extras:
2/5
The only extras are an SD theatrical trailer running 1:43 and an audio commentary by Todd Haynes and his producer, Christine Vachon. But where the extras are lacking in quantity, the illuminating commentary more than makes up for it. So much time has passed and there’s so much going on in every scene that Haynes had to go to fan sites to jog his memory about some of it, but he goes on in great detail about the film’s themes, allusions and production. It alone is worth the cost of the disc.
Final Score:
3.5/5
It would be an understatement to say it was an understatement that Velvet Goldmine is not for everyone. A visually breathtaking, erotic, dizzying pastiche of Oscar Wilde, glam rock, gay liberation and Citizen Kane, Todd Haynes’ third feature film is a masterpiece of style, performance and technical finesse that tells traditional story structure to take a hike. The Blu-Ray’s main feature is its exhaustively detailed director’s commentary, but its picture and sound quality are nothing to sneeze at either. Recommended.
