Velvet goldmine [DVD]

Though loosely based on the lives and careers of David Bowie and Iggy Pop, “Velvet Goldmine” is as much an examination of the fan’s relationship to celebrity and popular music as it is a biography of “glam rock”. Christian Bale plays a young journalist in the Reagan-era 1980s who is asked to write a profile of one of glam rock’s leading stars who disappeared at the height of his celebrity. The journalist’s research leads him to reminisce about his own past and the pivotal role played by music in his sexual and cultural identity. Visually beautiful and featuring an authentically seventies soundtrack, “Velvet Goldmine” celebrates the history of camp identity while also posing fascinating questions about the compromises and betrayals that are the inevitable part of commercial success. The spectre of Oscar Wilde literally shadows the events in this film; his ghostly presence asks us to question the supposed benefits of sexual liberation as much as the visuals demand us to acknowledge the revolutionary impact of camp glam aesthetics. Haynes utilises a flashback narrative that is a tribute to Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” and like that landmark film, “Velvet Goldmine” also asks us to examine how much we ourselves are seduced by the artifice of celebrity, as well as revealing the damaging consequences of stardom for those who surround the “greats”. With Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the mercurial superstar and Ewan McGregor as the “punk star”. Cast also includes Toni Collette and Eddie Izzard.