VELVET GOLDMINE (1998)
December 21st, 2008 by desya-hyde666Special Prize Winner
Cannes Film Festival 1998
Velvet Goldmine
a film by Todd Hayes
Starring
Ewan McGregor as Curt Wild
Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Brian Slade
Christian Bale as Arthur Stuart
Tony Collette as Mandy Slade
MAIN STORY
Brian Slade, a big star of glam rock, was shot to death on stage when he was on the peak of his career. Who did it and why?
A journalist -an ex-glam rock fan- was about to figure out the mistery behind the assasination. He then was linked to Brian Slade’s past life, and the secrets behind the closed doors…
NEW YORK, 1984
“Suddenly I was being paid to remember all the things that money, the future and a serious life made so certain I’d forget. And for what? Some meaningless prank a decade old. Why was it suddenly up to me to figure it out when clearly there was something, something from the past, spooking me back? I didn’t realize at the time that it was you.” - Arthur Stuart, a journalist.
WHY MUST WATCH?
* Setting is in London, 1970s when glam rock shocked the city and men wearing skirts, gown, platform boots, mascara, glitter, hair lacquer, lipstick, attractive-coloured eye-shadow weren’t awkward. But the strangest is, that it was OK [for the fandom of that] for being a bisexual.
* Jonathan Rhys Meyers [Brian Slade : a Birmingham, Great Britain boy, bisexual, beautiful man, famous glam rock star] and Ewan McGregor [a Michigan, USA boy, drug addict, lead singer and founder of a garage band, The Rats. Used to wearing black nail polish, ever underwent electric shock treatment at 13. Favourite word : fuck you!] really sang in this movie!
* For HYDEist, if you want to see a cute, girly Jonathan Rhys Meyers clad in a frock and singing rock songs [like of that Hyde's style around early 1990s with curls and long gown]. Go check out that part when he met Curt Wild for the first time in Credence Clearwater’s small concert and mesmerized by his on-stage wildness!
* If you are Ewan McGregor’s huge fans and you want to know his size…? Because if you’re as lucky as I am that you get the uncensored one, you’ll be able to find it out… *pervert smile*
Clue : in the part when he was on stage with his band, The Rats. He poured honey on his bare chest [he was wearing only a leather pants] and he got glitter afterwards and… somehow he was jerking off so the audience started calling him a wanker. Aaaand…. he showed his “little brother”!!!
* 20th Century Boy by Placebo, the song which also inspired the birth of 20th Century Boys manga by Urasawa Naoki, was performed in this film by Jack Fairy during the farewell concert for glam rock, Death of Glitter, dedicated to Brian Slade and Curt wild.
* I love the songs~~~!!!!!!!! [and the yaoi matters...]
THE YAOI MATTERS
* The way Brian looked at Curt when they first met was… filled with affection!!!! *yaoi grin*
“Heroine is my main man. But now I’m on methadone and I’m getting my act together and you come here and say you wanna help and I say, ‘Hey, far out.’ You could be my main man,” Curt said to Brian, and then it was so funny seeing Brian’s pupils turn into pink heart shapes!!
* Their kiss? Alright, the kiss was when they dressed up like princes of Victorian era! “The world is changed ’cause you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history,” Curt said before the kiss.
But I love their photographed and published kiss better [Brian in his short chopped blonde; Curt in his semi-long blonde locks. It's very cute and fluffy, their facial expression! Theeennnn... during Baby's on Fire song, Brian and Curt did a fanservice in which Brian kneeling before Curt who was playing guitar. Brian then strummed the guitar, still kneeling, with his tongue while clutching at Curt's pants! As a note, Arthur Stuart was somehow aroused by the pictures of those and...
* It's funny how beautiful people look when they're walking out the door." - Mandy Slade -Brian's American wife on Brian's decision to follow Curt into a bedroom, sequestered from orgy orgasm, and discovered naked in the bed the following morning...
* "Now, just because people see, you know, two naked people asleep in bed together, it doesn't necessarily prove sex was involved. It does, however, make for a very strong case."
Brian and Curt lay naked in bed in the morning [OK, tell you, you can see their curves, their backsides...].
Brian lay on his stomach; Curt behind him, placing a hand on Brian’s left shoulderblade and the other on the back of his blonde head, on wrinkled white sheets.
When they realised they’d already been witnessed, they left a note that Mandy read afterwards saying, “A sudden change in plans. A brief holiday — much needed. Back by Hammersmith. B.”
* “Somewhere along the way, Brian seemed to get lost in a lie.”
Brian and Curt had a quarrel after Curt made every one from Brian’s management waste their time in the studio during his recording. Clearly, that moment, Brian could stand him, but the rest couldn’t.
“Piss off! Go on, then! Back to your wolves! Your junky twerps! Your bloody shock treatment! And fuck you too!” Brian shouted at Curt from the window on the second floor, eyes watering.
The next morning, Curt came back with a cab, waiting outside Brian’s flat. Brian stared through his window then he backed off. It was over. [BGM : Bitter-Sweets]
* Curt went to Germany. He met Jack Fairy there, became good bandmates and finished a recording. Brian’s America Tour was off and he started using drugs. His wife divorced him.
* Brian came to Curt’s gig in London, Goodbye to Glitter [in which someone -not sure who- dressed up like Hyde in L'Anniversary 15th, but with heavy make-up and he sang "20th Century Boy!!!], but no one noticed him in his get up, watching Curt from afar. [Brian looked like Hyde, anyway, under his hat. And oh, I forgot. I saw a cameo here, Arthur's friend, and his body reminded me to that of Gackt, slim and slender!].
But you know what? Something happened between Curt and… [find out yourself!] after the concert, on the rooftop. It was romantic, if I have to say. The voice-over was, “It’s only now, looking back, that I see how you patched through my walls and entered my life in waves. He was waiting for me. I followed his signals and slipped away. And now, suddenly– ”
“Make a wish, and see yourself on stage, inside-out, tangled garlands in your hair. Of course you are pleasantly surprised.”
“Softly, he said, I will mangle your mind.”
* “He called it a freedom. A freedom you can allow yourself. Or not.”
THE QUOTES
* “I knew I should create a sensation.”
“I just happen to like boys as much as I like girls.”
“Nothing makes one so bold as being told one is a sinner.”
“Rock ‘n roll is a prostitute. It should be tarted up, performed. The music is the mask, while I, in my chiffon and taff… well, varda the message.” - Brian Slade
* “The secret of becoming a star is knowing how to behave like one.”
* Brian Slade = a pop star. Maxwell Demon = space-age superstar, Brian Slade’s alter ego.
Thomas Brian Stoningham Slade/Birmingham, 02-01-1948
* “You just can’t fake being gay, you know? If you’re gonna claim that you’re gay, you’re gonna have to make love in gay style. That line, “Everyone’s bisexual,” is a popular thing to say right now. Personally, I think it’s meaningless.”
“A real artsit creates beautiful things and puts nothing of his own life into them.
We set out to change the world. Ended up just changing ourselves. Nothing’s wrong with that if you don’t look at the world. Well, I guess in the end he got what he wanted.” - Curt Wild
* Brian gave Curt an Oscar Wilde’s pin [he'd stolen it from Jack Fairy while they were kissing] back then saying, “Curt, a man’s life is his image.”
* “Until one mysterious day, when Jack would discover that somewhere there were others quite like him, singled out for a great gift. And one day, the whole stinking world would be theirs.”
* “Long time since we are together. Now I hope it’s forever. Your memory stays. It lingers ever, will fade away never.”
* Sexual liberation of the flower power set. The long hair and love beads have given way to glitter makeup, platform shoes adn a whole new taste for glamour, nostalgia and just plain outrageousness.”
