Review of Velvet Goldmine (1998) by Jennifer U — 11 Oct 2008

This movie really misses the point of glam rock, and I'm deciding more and more that I really don't like it. I don't get it, and that's a lot to say from someone who LOVES glam rock (so much so that her band is, in fact, called "Nouveau Glam"). I love the first five or ten minutes of it - the implication that Oscar Wilde was an alien? Inherited this green pin from an alien? Was destined for supernatural greatness? And that some way somehow it was passed on to Jack Fairy. From there, I don't know what happens. Jack Fairy - one of the most interesting characters in the film, I think - hardly shows up, comments, talks at all, there's little development for his character.

It splits off into an accurate description of the transition between hippie rock and glam rock, but then tumbles into some wandering, misguided commentary on David Bowie's sexuality. And let's not even call him Brian Slade, because it's so obviously David Bowie that it's not worth pretending. It becomes a gay anthem for the majority of the rest of the film, and then...? I don't actually know. Roger Ebert was right in his review of the movie when he said that most people leaving the theatre probably couldn't pass a quiz on exactly what happened. I guess it becomes a story of Christian Bale's Arthur and his self-rediscovery.

There's no real conclusion, and there's a lot of plot holes in this movie. I would compare it to swiss cheese, but not only is that a cliche, it's not accurate enough. What has more holes than swiss cheese? A colander? A sieve? Socks? Air? You know what? That's it. This movie has so many holes that it's basically just air.

For one, why is it that Arthur's character has become so bland in the last ten years? Why aren't we given any hint whatsoever that he wasn't always boring, that he had an exciting life ten years ago, and why aren't we given any reason that he changed into a normal average guy? I mean, the kid lived with T-Rex.

For another, why does he ask some of the questions he does about Curt Wild? He's shown as being present in a lot of Mandy Slade's flashbacks, so why would he need to ask about these concerts and evenings? You'd think he'd remember the concert preceding the night when he got boofed by Iggy Pop (essentially).

Which begs the question - are these dream scenes? Fantasies? It seems so improbable that he would forget these things that they almost have to be either dream scenes or fantasies of him being in Brian Slade's shoes.

I don't know. This review is probably almost as disjointed as the movie. It tries to embrace too much, it tries to go in too many different directions, it leaves a lot of threads hanging, and I don't think that's intentional.

From my standpoint as a musician of sorts, this is insulting because I love David Bowie and see him as one of my heroes as music goes. Glam rock wasn't about being gay or bisexual or WHATEVER. It wasn't about doing drugs. It was about the freedom and righteousness of being a kid, really, and I present to you as evidence of that the record The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars. That's why I love the first five minutes, and if they had gone on that path, this movie would have been a legendary tome to the greatness of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, T-Rex, Sweet and their colleagues. But it ends up being a character assassination of David Bowie. I don't blame him for keeping his songs out of the movie. It's a shame because the direction was good, the actors are phenomenal, wardrobe and sets were dead on, and even the writing was fantastic (of course, they borrowed several lines from Oscar Wilde), but the story was just so disjointed and inaccurate that it just turned into a waste of time.