Velvet Goldmine
Overview
Velvet Goldmine is a 1998 British/American drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed and co-written by Todd Haynes
Todd Haynes
Todd Haynes is an American independent film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his feature films Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Poison, Velvet Goldmine, Safe, and the Academy Award-nominated Far from Heaven and I'm Not There.- Style and themes :The writes that "Haynes is...

. The film tells the story of a pop star based mainly on David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

's 'Ziggy Stardust' character and is set in Britain during the days of glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...

 in the early 1970s.

Sandy Powell
Sandy Powell (costume designer)
Sandy Powell OBE is a British costume designer who has been nominated nine times for the Academy Award . She won the Oscar in 1999 for the film Shakespeare in Love, in 2005 for The Aviator, and in 2010 for The Young Victoria. She has received nine BAFTA nominations, winning in 1999 for Velvet...

 received another Academy Award for Best Costume Design nomination for the film. However, Powell did win the award for another film, Shakespeare in Love
Shakespeare in Love
Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 British-American comedy film directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard....

.
The story follows a British journalist, Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale
Christian Bale
Christian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. Best known for his roles in American films, Bale has starred in both big budget Hollywood films and the smaller projects from independent producers and art houses....

), who has to search his own past when writing an article about the mysterious disappearance of a former glam-rock star, Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), for an American periodical.
Quotations

I knew I should create a sensation, gasped the Rocket, and he went out. (Oscar Wilde - from the Remarkable Rocket)

Everyone’s into this scene because it’s supposedly the thing to do right now. But you just can’t fake being gay. You know, if you’re gonna claim that you’re gay you’re gonna have to make love in gay style, and most of these kids... just aren’t going to make it. That line, ‘Everybody’s bisexual’, that’s a very popular thing to say right now. Personally, I think it’s meaningless.

He thought he fucking was Maxwell Demon in the end – you know? And Maxwell Demon...he thought he was God.

The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history. (Oscar Wilde - from the Picture of Dorian Gray)

See yourself on stage, inside-out. Tangled garlands in your hair. Of course, you are pleasantly surprised.

(Said to Brian) You could be my main man.

You all know me – subtlety’s my middle name. It’s as subtle as the piece of skin between my vagina and my anus – ooh la! la! Now what’s that called, I can never quite remember...No man’s land? Oh gosh – my guiche, dah-ling!

It's funny how beautiful people look when they're walking out the door.

I knew it was over. I just didn't know it was up to me to make it stop.

Time, places, people,... they're all speeding up. So, to cope with this evolutionary paranoia, strange people are chosen who, through their art, can move progress more quickly.

 
x
OK