The series A posteriori le cinéma is intended to be an opportunity to celebrate the 7the art by revisiting flagship titles that celebrate important anniversaries.
With Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie created one of the most memorable, transgressive and influential stage personas ever. The chameleon singer did not invent glam rock, but was certainly its figurehead. A fascinating approach that is his. In 2020, the very bad biographical drama Stardust failed to tell it in the cinema. If the subsequent Moonage Daydream achieved this in documentary, it remains that in fiction, the underestimated Velvet Goldmine (Velvet Rock) had already done a fabulous job years before. Loosely inspired by Bowie’s multiple lives, Todd Haynes’ ambitious opus has gone from flop to cult film since its release 25 years ago, in November 1998.
In a 2011 interview with the director of Far from Heaven (Far from paradise), of Carol and of May Decemberjournalist Todd Gilchrist summarizes in IndieWire : “Based on the evolution of David Bowie and other key figures of the rock and roll scene of the 1960s and 1970s, Velvet Goldmine required intense and in-depth research, for a detailed combination of facts and myths. »
Todd Haynes immediately specifies: “Everything in Velvet Goldmine comes from something historical, or from the writings or imagination of these iconic figures, musical artists, or their poetic predecessors. »
The action begins in London, in 1984. Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale), a journalist, is tasked with investigating Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, as “bowiesque” as you like), a once-adulted singer now living in seclusion. This, after trying to fake his own death.
Except that for Arthur, this report takes on a personal, intimate dimension…
A dozen years earlier, Arthur was a fervent admirer of the androgynous Brian Slade and the equally flamboyant singer Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor, à la Iggy Pop), another star of the glam rock scene. While he interviews those close to the elusive Slade, the journalist remembers his own adolescence made of musical and sexual revelations.
Openly modeled on the construction of Citizen Kanewith the inquisitive character of Bale as the equivalent of that immortalized by Joseph Cotten in Orson Welles, the narrative structure of Velvet Goldmine alternates present time, reminiscences of Arthur, and flashbacks where the testimonies of the people interviewed come to life. One of them, Mandy Slade (Toni Collette, à la Angela Bowie), ex-wife of the star, is rightly bitter and has a lot to say… and keep quiet.
More current than ever
One of the many fascinating aspects of the film is that the more Brian Slade establishes himself as a being of artificial mystery, the more Arthur Stuart reveals himself in all his authentic sincerity. Moreover, the character of Slade, as charismatic and gifted as he is, is not presented as a sympathetic guy, but rather manipulative and narcissistic.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons for David Bowie’s refusal to allow the production to use his music?
The homage to Bowie the artist is no less real than felt. However, this is only one of the components of the film. Indeed, Velvet Goldmine more broadly praises a historical period, a culture, and an openness both in relation to sexual fluidity and in relation to gender representation. On this front, Velvet Goldmine remains more current than ever, since we are currently witnessing the same backlash observed in the Thatcherite present of the film.
In a reassessment written for the British Film Institute (BFI) in 2018, Stephen Dalton recalls: “ Velvet Goldmine was an orgiastic celebration of high-level affectation and fluid sexuality. Filled with decadent dandies, dazzling fabrics and daring fabrications, [le film] arrived preceded by unsustainable hype, confounded critics, and crashed at the box office. »
Describing the film as “cult”, with historical hindsight helping, Dalton continues: “Haynes has constructed a knowingly counter-factual chronicle of the glam rock boom in London in the early 1970s, with a strong emphasis on polymorphous perversity and calculated artifices. “It is when he speaks in his own name that Man is least himself,” Oscar Wilde famously said. “Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.” »
The allusion to Wilde is important in this case, since Haynes used this “poetic predecessor” as a reference in the “making” that is Brian Slade.
A deeper truth
As for the crush at the box office, for several years, the reputation of Velvet Goldmine has grown, in both film-loving and academic circles, particularly in the field of gay and lesbian studies and queer theory.
In his essay for the BFI, Stephen Dalton notes: “Of course, Velvet Goldmine will never be the last word when it comes to Bowie or glam rock in general. But the film nevertheless remains a gloriously ambitious response to both; a formidable web of lies that reveals a deeper truth. »
This “deeper truth” is, we believe, that of Arthur. Arthur who, thanks to his pure love for Brian Slade and Curt Wild, once found the strength to declare, assume, then live, his homosexuality.
When the film was released in France, Gérard Lefort wrote in this regard in Release : “The most beautiful scene of Velvet Goldmine is a secret ceremony where a teenager locks himself in his room to listen to the record of his beloved idol. Can we imagine more withdrawn, more closed? And yet, it is soon a formidable contamination that straightens him out: the lives of others as if they were his own, the contagion of otherness […]. To become what we are, to crown ourselves king (or queen) in the kingdom of loving signs that reach out to us…”
Spotlight on Arthur
Lefort’s criticism is one of the few positive ones of the time. In fact, despite a Special Prize for best artistic contribution received at Cannes, Velvet Goldmine was warmly received upon its release. The reaction of the popular Roger Ebert is representative: “ Velvet Goldmine is a film made of beginnings, endings and new beginnings. There’s not enough in between. The film aims to be in search of a truth, but it is rather a film in search of itself. »
To this, we respectfully object that such a reading only applies if we consider that the very showy Brian Slade is the hero of the film. However, it is not. It is the very self-effacing Arthur Stuart who is the hero of the film.
Despite appearances, one of the main themes of the film, Velvet Goldmine is not an enigma story, but an initiatory story, of which Arthur is the protagonist (the influence of Citizen Kane is transcended: here, no “Rosebud”).
A revealing confession from Todd Haynes about Christian Bale and his character goes in this direction. In a 2012 interview with Julia Leyda for the publication Bright Lights Film Journalthe filmmaker relates: “ [Christian] did such a beautiful job. Truly, he was so invested and so deeply in this boy. I remember when we finished [le tournage] and hung up Arthur’s clothes, he came back and said to me, “I just put Arthur’s clothes away and I cried a little.” And I don’t remember if I cried, but I felt like I could have. I think, despite all the handsome, sophisticated guys that were in this movie, my heart belonged to Arthur. »
Without taking anything away from Brian Slade and company, ours too.
The film Velvet Goldmine is available on VOD on most platforms.