VELVET GOLDMINE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Miramax Films Director: Todd Haynes Writer: Todd Haynes Cast: Ewan McGregor, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Toni Collette, Christian Bale, Eddie Izzard, Emily Woof, Michael Feast, Janet McTeer
"We set out to change the world," laments Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor) to New York Herald journalist Christian Bale (Arthur Stuart), "and ended up changing only ourselves." "What's wrong with that?" the reporter responds understandably. "Nothing...if you don't look at the world." At that point, toward the conclusion of the strikingly colorful and often surreal "Velvet Goldmine," cinematographer Maryse Alberti (who has the most enviable job on the filmmaking team) spins the camera to look at the seedy bar in which Bale finds the wrecked, former rock star. Staring back is a defeated-looking band of losers surrounding by the bleak, somber tones of the run-down establishment. The date is 1984, and Todd Haynes--who wrote and directed the panoramic meditation on the birth and death of a musical era--portrays a civilization that has become an Orwellian bad dream.
Using a Citizen-Kane format, Haynes deals with the circumscribed number of years from 1969 to 1974 that witnessed the phenomenon of glam rock, a London-based sensation driven by the musicial artistry of personalities like David Bowie and Iggy Pop. His work captures the atmosphere of the era in its days of consequence, lamenting the passing of glam rock in far more colorful way than Whit Stillman laid out the last days of disco in his own 1998 film.
The story opens with the birth of Oscar Wilde in 1854, a man who might have predicted during his lifetime that the glittering age of rock would come to fruition. In the season of his youth he was asked by his teacher what he wanted to be. Young Oscar knew even then that he was not destined to become a truck driver or a physician like his classmates but rather "a pop idol." Wilde was said to have favored a society that would kick conventionality in the butt, so it's no wonder that Haynes chose to honor the memory of that great literary figure by calling one of his two principals Curt Wild. Wild, together with glam-rock artist Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys- Meyers), are the stand-ins for Bowie, Iggy Pop and others that made the early seventies one of the most exciting times for a young person with the slightest sense of rhythm, rebelliousness and optimism.
Christian Bale is assigned by the editor of the New York Herald to write a rock feature for a weekend edition of the choosing him because Bale was a frequent member of the glam-rock audience some ten years earlier. He proceeds not only to interview people who were close to Slade and Wild: he envisages himself as an active, swinging participant in the festivities-- in effect giving director Haynes the green light to capture the atmosphere of the era as no filmmaker had done before him. (Strangely enough to this day there are no definitive books about the period.) We discover that the glam- rock stars and their groupies had contempt for the music favored by the hippies, indulging instead in extravagant costumes and riotous makeup, while still gratifying themselves with an excess of sex. Bisexuality was not only tolerated; it was the "in" thing to be, or at least to declare yourself to be. As Brian Slade announces that he's interested in the human body--male or female it makes no difference--his wife Mandy (Toni Collette) stands by him, feigning a smile, an American who had become a London party girl and is determined to fit into the mold of total liberation.
As Haynes takes us through an almost predictable chain of events--Slade is discovered by a promoter who is soon displaced by the more media-savvy Jerry Divine (Eddie Izzard), becomes obsessed and sexually involved with the more flamboyant American Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), becomes involved with cocaine and, desiring ultimately to drop out and renege on his contract, he falls victim of a false assassination which is considered a publicity stunt and disappears from the scene. He leaves behind a broken- spirited wife and a horde of disappointed fans.
A movie about the nature of pop-star idol-worship, reminiscence, and sentiment, "Velvet Goldmine" is stunningly acted in an over-the-top fashion by the wonderful Ewan McGregor as the more dashing Curt Wild, leading Jonathan Rhys Meyers' performance as Slade to appear almost restrained by contrast. Haynes flashes back and forth from 1984 to 1974 as though to reinforce Brian's dictum that we all have "freedom...freedom that you could allow yourself or not."
"Velvet Goldmine" is in a way the opposite of Haynes' eccentric movie "Safe," about a woman who is so repressed that she is virtually allergic to life itself, and seeks help in a Western ashram presided over by a would-be guru. Yet the two films share the director's interest in extremes, in living on the edge: "Safe" could be almost a caricature of modern, antiseptic, contained society while "Velvet Goldmine" portrays a world order of a wholly antithetical kind, the sort of orb that Oscar Wilde would have imagined and loved. "We were living in a dream and it went away," bemoans Slade's wife, who is a burnt-out case ten years after the end of this era. While the challenging "Velvet Goldmine" is not for every taste, the film-- which was the most discussed and anticipated offering at the recent Cannes festival--is itself a dream. See it before it goes away.
Rated R. Running Time: 117 minutes.(C) 1998 Harvey Karten
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