Velvet Goldmine

So, if you thought I was just going to talk about cats on this blog, well, then you think I'm out of my mind. And maybe I am, but anyways....

One of my favorite movies of all time is Velvet Goldmine. Now, what makes this different than other movies I like is that I found this one all by myself, thoroughly enjoy it all by myself, and no one's told me that they like it. Most people haven't seen it. So I know my opinion of this film is not biased by wanting to align my feelings with anyone else's opinions.

So, why do I like it so much?

Well, to start, I've always wanted to like David Bowie. Since I was a kid and watched Labyrinth, I've been intrigued as to how a man can look so fanciful in eyeshadow. I have no idea how he pulled it off, but I could look at him and not think, "This guy's a raging fairy." It was intriguing, without being freaky. But, I could never get into his music. Ziggy Stardust was just a name of an album that I never listened to.

Now, this film isn't about David Bowie, but is rumored to be loosely based on his story. But that's only a little, tiny, tiny bit of why I like this movie. It was my introduction to understanding what "Glam Rock" was. It's not disco, it's not metal, and it's, well, on a varying scale of gayness. This movie helped me understand the spirit that Ziggy Stardust can be interpreted into, making the music much more enjoyable - I like a little back story, even if it's fiction.

And, I'm a sucker for a movie with great dialogue. Take, for instance, this entire argument when the wife of the main character files for divorce. She confronts her "husband" while he's sitting in bed, snorting coke off the rear end of one of his groupies (yes, that image in itself is slightly disturbing, but plays well into this movie in showing how far the star has fallen:)

MANDY
Your problem is: ‘You get what you want and do what you will.’

BRIAN
‘Worlds,’ Mandy, ‘are built out of suffering. There is suffering at the birth of a child as at the birth of a star.’

MANDY
‘You live in terror of not being misunderstood.’

BRIAN
‘Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders.’

MANDY
(more to herself)
‘I lost my girlhood, true. But it was for you.’

Now, these quotes are not original - by that, I mean not written by the screenwriters themselves. But how you take these quotes and make dialogue for a few short minutes to make the audience feel the ending of the relationship is genius.

Another one of my favorite scenes is towards the end, when another one of the main characters is looking back on the wild relationship he had:

CURT
Listen – a real artist creates beautiful things and...puts nothing of his won life into them. Okay?

ARTHUR
Is that what you did?

CURT
No.
We set out to change the world and ended up...just changing ourselves.

ARTHUR
What’s wrong with that?

CURT
Nothing.
If you don’t look at the world.

I guess, when you look at it, it's a story that's been done before - a star rises, a star falls in love, a star falls. Except the star falls in love with another male star. It's not Brokeback - it's better. None of the uncomfortable scenes with the indication of what's going on - you know, but you don't have to watch it. And none of the guys cry.

But I guess this narration at the beginning sums up the feeling of the whole movie:

"For once there was an unknown land, full of strange flowers and subtle perfumes, a land of which it is joy of all joys to dream, a land where all things are perfect and poisonous..."

Perfect and poisonous. It's fun to live vicariously through others for a couple of hours, seeing as I'm a conservative white female from Utah who will never be a male bisexual rock star. And I'm completely OK with that - but the costumes were fabulous!