“Velvet Goldmine”: A love letter to all that is Glam

Oscar Wilde’s tombstone, covered with bright lipstick marks and messages of adoration in many languages, is a love letter to Wilde, the over-the-top, and art itself. Todd Haynes’ potent 1998 film “Velvet Goldmine” has the same function. The beautiful, the sublime, and the decorative are abstract topics, but the film embraces them through intense artifice in the performers’ elaborate costumes and makeup, the baroque interiors of their hotel rooms, and the stylized nature of the film itself from its acting to its camera techniques. “Velvet Underground” is also a love letter: to Oscar Wilde, Glam-rock, the taboo, and above all, art. As yet another musically driven pseudo-historical re-imagination of an epic epoch in music history, “Velvet Goldmine” is a richly textured, glittering, brazen film that succeeds in all aspects.

Considering the film has the fundamental concept of art at its core, it is not surprising that director Todd Haynes received the “Artistic Achievement” award at Cannes for “Velvet Goldmine”. Though it is not his most well known work, Haynes, who is openly gay, tackled the subject with passion and verve. Sexuality is addressed throughout; the “effeminate” rules in Haynes’ world. Art and artifice, as well as sexuality, are crucial to Haynes’ vision.

The effects, camera work, and set design were thoughtfully selected to make the viewer hyper-aware of the film’s existence of a piece of art. The careful stylistic choices are perfectly appropriate to the ideas of aestheticism and presentation that the film presents: to emphasize intense moments the camera zooms in tighter to pounding music, and cheesy newspaper and tabloid covers are flashed on the screen for the viewer to see. These effects give the effect of celebrity, media, and artifice—the film’s core ideas. Use of fade-ins, fade-outs, and other less-common (nowadays) film effects add to its artifice and take the viewer back to an earlier time. In creating a world where appearances are crucial, the camera work, effects, and set are flawless. The stylized world that these elements work together to create reflects the ideals of aestheticism and beauty crucial to Oscar Wilde.

The costumes were beautifully done- the most memorable is Brian Slade’s last outfit: he takes a gunshot with swan-like grace, literally. His white, feathered, over-the-top number makes him appropriately Glam-rock but also refers to the higher nature of his sexuality; and Oscar Wilde’s belief in the pure nature of “love that dares not speak its name”. Slade is adorned with symbols of innocence, yet the viewer knows he is anything but. In a world where appearances are (almost) everything, the wardrobe of characters like Slade looks really good.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers couldn’t be better for the flamboyant role of Brian Slade: a Dubliner by birth, fraught with personal issues that appear to have been beautifully channeled into Slade’s salacious and excessive lifestyle, Rhys Meyers’ Slade serves as a true Dorian Gray figure. His character’s vanity, obsession and lack of Victorian moral structure as well as obvious femininity and sexuality are appropriately portrayed by a languid and sexual Rhys Meyers. The musical Rhys-Meyers performed two tracks for the film: “Baby’s on Fire” and “Tumbling Down” are standout tracks in a strong lineup.

A slightly pudgy Christian Bale portrayed the rather confused Arthur Stuart to a tee. Scenes of him as a teen, listening to Brian Slade in his bedroom alone while his parents condemn his effeminate behavior, captures aspects of teenage angst, identity, and sexual confusion to a tee. He is perfect in the role; unsure, lost, and still searching for something, even in his more tame adulthood. While he tries to find out what happened to his idol Brian Slade, the audience believes him and the story of his past.

Ewan MacGregor’s Iggy-Pop-esque Curt Wild is highly effective; he successfully portrays the Rock-and-Roll lifestyle in his base physicality, attitude, and also manages to pull off a strange turn in sexuality: he and the others stand out in the sexual roles that were required of them in the film.

The female characters also succeed in the film, but by far the most believable is Toni Collette, whose Mandy Slade is alternately woeful, angry, and full of memory.

“Velvet Goldmine” is also a love letter to music history. The whole thing a tribute to seventies rockers, featuring their music, but newer stars were also included in the project. Modern-day rockers Thom Yorke, Johnny Greenwood, David Gray, Bernard Butler, Andy Mackay, Ron Asheton, Thurston Moore, Steve Shelley, and more. British and American musicians are represented here; Rock and Roll’s crossing of the Atlantic is crucial to the film. The soundtrack is poignant and appropriate, creating a seamless adventure through time and a particular time in music history.

“Velvet Goldmine” doesn’t apologize for itself. It is shamelessly self-promoting and unselfconscious in its self-consciousness. Presentation and appearance is everything: beauty is created even amidst the background of the characters’ personal lives. It deals with issues of sexuality and gender amidst the shimmering, pulsating backdrop of the glam rock movement of the 1970s. “Velvet Goldmine” closely examines the idea of celebrity and sexuality, and owes its debt to the high concepts of art and beauty, not to mention the taboo. Oscar Wilde never would have expected this kind of tribute, but he would have loved it.