I downloaded the movie Velvet Goldmine (Velvet Gold Mine or Velvet Mines) back in 2015 due to the presence of T.Rex songs, all this time it was lying on my old hard drive and only 6 years later I watched it in the best company. This movie, which is too incorrect even for modern times, was shot in 1998 by director Todd Haynes, who made a cuming-out. There are too many scenes of male same-sex love, golimy yaoi. Which is very obscene, but how else to show those facts from the biography of queer glam rock stars that once took place.
Thank God that at least these moments of the script were added not for the sake of political correctness and not in order to respect the opinion of some minorities. There are no Asians, but Negroes are present – especially pleased with the pretty girl’s black ass, with which the main character sniffs a pinch of tooth powder in moments of mental suffering. In addition to these components, there are also certain allusions to “1984” and “Citizen Kane” in the film.
I remember Jonathan Rhys Myers in the movie “Elvis. Young years”, his version of the King was not so unambiguous. When he freaked out in one episode so much that he broke one guy’s arm, you really start to dislike him, so Myers did it! Brian Slade is obviously David Bowie, as well as his unloved copycat Jobrayat, and maybe even Freddie Mercury. The prototype of Mandy is Bowie’s wife Angie. Slade’s band is called Venus In Furs, and Slade is the name of the glam rock band of the same name, music lovers know. Instead of Ziggy Stardust, Maxwell the Demon is here.
Imitation of oral sex on a guitar, but not on Moonage Daydream – but on Baby’s On Fire, where instead of Mick Ronson is Kurt Wilde (Ian McGregor), a rock and roll animal. The tender friendship and musical collaboration of Slade and Wilde. Producing the Transformer album. Just an Anglo-American dream team. Kurt Wilde is a collective image: Iggy Pop and Lou Reed are in it, and even Kurt Cobain is somewhere, it’s not for nothing that Courtney Love, after seeing the rough cut, refused to embellish the film with her cameo.
Arthur Stewart (Christian Bale) is a fan of glam rockers and he likes painted guys. He spends his time looking at clippings from newspapers and magazines with our gay icon and a blue light flares up in him. Then we see Stuart 10 years later, he has already left-he has forgotten his former self, lives the life of an ordinary guy, an ordinary journalist from the Herald. But he wants to know what happened to Brian Slade, and begins to ask people who were once close to him. At the end, he recalls the scene of free love between him and Wilde on the roof of Brownstone. (To prepare for the role, Bale needed to get a little sleep and he ran around before breakfast, but it didn’t really work. Then his mom suggested: son, try the diet of rock stars – sex, drugs, rock and roll! Everyone would like such sensitive moms!)
This is what Queen’s biography might look like. It’s curious that no one says that Queen is glam rock, although it is. And then two bandmates made up a biopic, decided to tell their version of events, but they are very much in doubt about the truthfulness. And these guys in Rhapsody look too infallible. Freddie himself said that for some reason everyone thinks that I’m the most jerk, but I can tell you such stories about Brian May… And if they had shot something more or less honest, it would have been more like Velvet Goldmine. Ian McGregor recalled that when the orgy scenes were filmed, the participants used real props, light drugs and champagne naked, he never saw this happen on the set again.
The soundtrack is simply gorgeous, songs by Roxy Music, Brian Eno and Marc Bolan. A small cameo by Brian Molko with 20th Century Boy live. Molko once said that there are 50/50 straight and gay people in his group. If you consider that Placebo is a trio, then it’s obvious who is the most half-hearted there. When I first saw the Pure Morning clip on MTV, I couldn’t immediately figure out which gender the soloist was. But the song hooked, that’s for sure. A lot of cool videos then in the late 90s could be seen on our MTV: both Cranberries and David Bowie of his brutal infernal period like Earthling and Tin Machine.
About Iggy, by the way, Jim Jarmusch shot a good rokumentory. It turned out to be a little boring, and while the film went through all the circles of pre- and post-production and was released, almost all of Iggy’s bandmates died. Alas and ah.
As for the Golden Velvet Vein, you decide for yourself whether to watch this movie or not. Still, this is primarily a musical art house, and as for the gay agenda, you can just laugh heartily at it.
