In praise of Vel­vet Gold­mine – Todd Haynes’ gaudy love let­ter to glam rock

“Although what you are about to see is a work of fic­tion, it should nev­er­the­less be played at max­i­mum vol­ume.” And with that, Vel­vet Gold­mine sets out its stall before launch­ing into Bri­an Eno’s stomp­ing ​‘Nee­dle in the Camel’s Eye’. If you’re a rock ​’n’ roll fan, it’s hard not to be instant­ly hooked.

Fol­low­ing the rise and fall of glam rock icon Bri­an Slade, Todd Haynes’ third fea­ture blends fan­ta­sy and the fan­tas­tic from the off, nev­er­more so than when the open­ing frames imply that, as an infant, Oscar Wilde was dropped on a doorstep by a UFO. Strap in.

It’s all sex, drugs and rock ​’n’ roll until Slade (Jonathan Rhys Mey­ers) get shot mid-per­for­mance as part of a the­atri­cal stunt to kill off his Maxwell Demon per­sona. Ten years lat­er, it’s up to Arthur Stu­art (Chris­t­ian Bale) to embark on a Cit­i­zen Kane-esque inves­ti­ga­tion to find out what hap­pened to the singer, just as a mega-pop star is coin­ci­den­tal­ly prepar­ing for an his­toric sta­di­um show.

Tak­ing its title from a David Bowie B‑side, Vel­vet Gold­mine is Hayne’s dra­mat­ic love let­ter to glam rock, evolv­ing sex­u­al­i­ty and the weight that the past can bear. Thank­ful­ly, it’s also a whole heap of fun, espe­cial­ly for the music fan who knows their onions. The thin­ly-veiled approx­i­ma­tion of Bowie’s Zig­gy Star­dust years sees Slade’s tumul­tuous rela­tion­ship with Curt Wild’s Lou Reed/​Iggy Pop hybrid cre­ate a cul­tur­al move­ment while destroy­ing lives in its wake.

Haynes pep­pers the film with pop cul­ture East­er eggs: from Bowie’s provoca­tive ​‘Dia­mond Dogs’ album pose being recre­at­ed for Slade’s LP, to the bor­rowed Oscar Wilde lines which make up the dia­logue, to the fret­board fel­la­tio which mim­ics Bowie and Mick Ronson’s icon­ic onstage antics.

Buried beneath the feath­er boas and glit­ter are per­for­mances from more mod­ern mus­es, from indie rock out­fit Place­bo to Elastica’s Don­na Matthews and a cameo from influ­en­tial per­form­ing artist (and Bowie’s for­mer lover) Lind­say Kemp. And that’s not to men­tion the music itself.

Co-pro­duced by REM’s Michael Stipe, the buzz around the sound­track did much of the heavy lift­ing when it came to pro­mot­ing Vel­vet Gold­mine. Bowie infa­mous­ly refused to allow his music to be fea­tured in the film, which end­ed up work­ing out nice­ly for all involved. Along­side the sta­ple glam tracks, the Zig­gy-shaped hole was filled by two super­groups, com­prised of mem­bers of Suede, Radio­head, Roxy Music, Mud­honey, Son­ic Youth (for whom Haynes had pre­vi­ous­ly shot music videos) and The Stooges.

The film glee­ful­ly draws par­al­lels between the 1970s alt-rock scene and ​‘Cool Bri­tan­nia’. The pool of tal­ent assem­bled, whether grunge, prog, or Brit­pop, were heav­i­ly influ­enced by the sounds of the ​’70s, and Vel­vet Gold­mine arguably does as much for mod­ern music as it does for glam rock. Add to the mix Ewan McGre­gor, Chris­t­ian Bale and Eddie Izzard, and it plays like a showreel of ​’90s talent.

Some­what pushed to the side of the stage is Jonathan Rhys Mey­ers who, although a beau­ti­ful, beau­ti­ful boy, is blown away by McGregor’s Iggy Pop impres­sion – as EST-charged as the nar­ra­tive sug­gests (even Pop him­self claimed he was too fat). At the oppo­site end of the scale is Bale who depicts the naïve, sex­u­al­ly curi­ous and exper­i­ment­ing Glam fan with­out a shred of self-con­scious­ness (“Stop movin’ about! I’m doing me eyeliner!”).

Despite this, Vel­vet Gold­mine had some­thing of a tough gig in 1998, tak­ing just over $1 mil­lion at the domes­tic box office. A shame for a film that lit­er­al­ly has love hearts and dol­lar signs glint­ing in the char­ac­ters’ eyes. Yet the film has since gar­nered praise and a loy­al fan base. Under the ​’90s New Queer Cin­e­ma umbrel­la, Vel­vet Gold­mine doc­u­ments the fall­out from the expres­sion of sex­u­al­i­ty. Once the rela­tion­ship between Slade and Wild is con­sum­mat­ed – played out in a Scors­ese-style fall from grace sequence to the jar­ring sounds of ​‘Baby on Fire’ – it’s all down­hill from there.

Arthur Stuart’s own soft-focus sex scene with Wild seems an iso­lat­ed inci­dent and all the more pos­i­tive because of it, although his lat­ter-day per­sona seems to be liv­ing in denial of it ever occur­ring. While Slade’s mor­ph­ing into the Max Head­room-lite Tom­my Stone is an even more extreme dis­sen­sion from his past.
Could that be inter­pret­ed as Bowie’s aban­don­ment of the gay com­mu­ni­ty when he segued into his ​’80s ​‘Let’s Dance’ guise? Or did the ​’70s cap­i­talise upon sex­u­al exper­i­men­ta­tion before side-lin­ing it when the bouf­fant hair and shoul­der pads stepped in? Whichev­er way, Vel­vet Gold­mine is well worth an encore.