Velvet Goldmine **** (1998, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Ewan McGregor, Eddie Izzard, Christian Bale) – Classic Movie Review 1529

Rhys-Meyers and Ewan McGregor strut their flamboyant stuff in writer-director Todd Haynes’s gay-friendly, Citizen Kane-style exposé of 1970s glam rock.

In truth, the immensely ambitious 1998 drama Velvet Goldmine is a part failure, but it is still hugely attractive, intelligent, appealing and entertaining.

Though, alas, David Bowie would not allow his songs to be used, despite giving the project his blessing, there is still a great glam rock soundtrack, so the movie sounds fabulous as well as looking a treat too in a costly, imaginative production.

All the performances are enormous fun, with the players giving their all. Rhys-Meyers and McGregor are spot on as 1970s glam superstar Brian Slade, the David Bowie character, and as hard-living, rebellious American singer Curt Wild, the Iggy Pop character, while Eddie Izzard is amusing as the band manager, Jerry Devine. Christian Bale tries hard and is good, but he has the dull, rotten end of things as Arthur Stuart, the English boy, lured by the glam, who becomes a reporter investigating the eventual disappearance of the Bowie character in 1984.

It was meant to be the big British movie of its year, but, alas, somehow that did not quite happen. Nevertheless, this must not put us off a special film. Sandy Powell’s eye-catching costumes won a Bafta award and were Oscar nominated.

Toni Collette, Emily Woof, Michael Feast, Janet McTeer, Mairead McKinley, Luke Morgan Oliver, Osheen Jones, Don Fellows, Emma Handy and Bowie’s muse Lindsay Kemp also appear.

Lindsay Kemp in 1969, photographed by Allan Warren.

Lindsay Kemp, dancer, actor, teacher, mime artist, choreographer and Bowie mentor, died at 80 on 25 August 2018.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1529

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