Review: Velvet Goldmine

Image was everything. During glam rock's four-year reign (1969-1973) in England, its leading figures -- Roxy Music, led by Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno, Marc Bolan's T-Rex and David Bowie -- revolutionized the music scene. More than ever, the idea of a stage persona, such as Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, was crucial, and members of glam flaunted and broke through gender and sexual stereotypes. It was all about freedom, baby. Freedom and discovery and the truth but, more importantly, it was about the presentation.

Of course, the whole notion of celebrity and image is not an original concept. Nor is the burden of that very image. Glam rock was comprised of a handful of rebellions: it was anti-Establishment, anti-upper class and anti-realist. When I say anti-realist, I mean in the sense that they didn't reveal truths about homosexuality -- or sexuality in general for that matter -- or the hierarchical society with stark truths. Rather, they dressed it up and hit home with the artificiality. They paraded about in all their pomp and circumstance like royalty; the irony, of course, is that they weren't. Bowie, who highlighted the era with his declaration of "I'm gay and always have been" (He later explained, "It was probably the most provocative thing one could say in 1972. Drug talk was positively establishment, and it sort of felt like the era of self-invention [was] coming up."), was only able to move on after effectively killing his Ziggy persona.

So, too, does Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine, a giddy, psychedelic epic that attempts, quite successfully, to cram the history of glam in a narrative that runs a little over two hours. Slade is meant to be a composite of many glam rock figures but he is mainly and clearly Bowie-like. Mirroring Bowie's many ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, Slade first appears as a pinstriped Mod dandy then a long-haired, dress-wearing effeminate before settling into the spandex-clad, glitter-caked rock alien named Maxwell Deacon. Married to the American-born, self-invented London party girl Mandy (Toni Collette), he becomes infatuated with American singer Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), who echoes both Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. Beset with the pressures of fame and the crumbling of his own identity, Slade stages a fake assassination. When the hoax is revealed, his fans turn on him and he disappears into obscurity. The film begins on the 10th anniversary of Slade's stunt with Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale), a devout Slade disciple, assigned by his editor to write a piece about Slade and the period during which he reigned supreme.

Haynes made little secret of his employ of the Citizen Kane structure; the film's Rosebud is an emerald brooch belonging to Oscar Wilde, who is hailed as the godfather of glam rock and first seen being left by an alien ship on a random English doorstep. Unlike Orson Welles' structured narrative, Haynes' Velvet Goldmine is like a fractured fairy tale or a fever dream coming at you in giant streams of consciousness. The real and unreal, the stark and the stylized, the image and the reality -- they all meld together in this dazzling yet intimate extravaganza.

As to be expected, style and music propel this film. R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe served as executive producer while Randall Poster supervised the film's music, which is a melange of original recordings, covers, and songs specifically written for the film. Rhys Meyers and McGregor perform their own vocals; Shudder to Think, Pulp and Grant Lee Buffalo contributed original songs; covers were performed by the likes of Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley. The costumes by Sandy Powell and Christopher Hobbs' art direction span the range of outrageous.

Haynes is as original -- and cheeky -- as ever. In a nod to his own Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, a controversial work in which he depicted the life of the anorexic singer via Barbie dolls, Haynes charts the romantic developments between Brian and Curt by using Ken dolls in one scene. Other powerful images include a photo shoot in which Slade's face is cut by flashbulbs.

Micko Westmoreland, as the Marc Bolanish Jack Fairy, cuts a glamorously gaunt figure; he resembled some druggie from a Berlin cabaret. Amidst all the beautiful boys, Collette manages to make a strong impression, especially in Mandy's later years when all the good times have soured into bitter memories. Bale tackles the difficult role of listener with aplomb. His character exists to serve the others but, by the same token, the characters of Curt and especially Brian exist only through Arthur's eyes.

McGregor's role requires intense physicality. Onstage, Curt is primal, an animal in heat. He writhes on the floor, his hands linger on his bare stomach, his body can't contain his energy -- his arms flail, his head shakes, he goes where his senses take him. McGregor, grandly sluttish, sports messily blond hair, smudged eyes and fingernails coated in peeled polish and spends much of the film in and out of skintight leather pants; he delivers a fierce, reckless, uninhibited portrayal.

Rhys Meyers wisely plays the attitude rather than the character who is but an endless poser anyway. He wears the clothes well, strikes all the right poses and stares ever so mesmerizingly with those eyes and then there is that pouty mouth. It is he who waves the flag in Haynes' star spangled salute to glam rock.

Velvet Goldmine

Directed by: Todd Haynes

Written by: Todd Haynes

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Christian Bale, Toni Collette, Eddie Izzard, Emily Woof, Janet McTeer