Velvet Goldmine
The Rise Of A Star… The Fall Of A Legend.
Ewan McGregor as Curt Wild
Directed by: Todd Haynes
Written by: James Lyons, Todd Haynes
Starring: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Christian Bale, Toni Collette
Released: 23 October 1998 [UK], 06 November 1998 [USA]
Genre: Drama / Music / Glam Rock
Filming Dates: March 1997 – May 1997
More Information: Internet Movie Database
Synopsis
Velvet Goldmine is a wild, glitter-laced trip through the 1970s era of glam rock. Fictional characters Brian Slade and Curt Wild are personifications of glam rock’s ideals — with the mysterious and androgynous Slade balanced by the intense, raucous Wild. When Slade disappears, the era itself seems to melt away, swallowed up by the slick 1980s. But Slade’s story, and the story of glam rock, is retold when journalist Arthur Stuart is assigned to discover what really happened to him. Through his own memories of the time, Arthur faces his childhood fears and fantasies.
Images
Trivia
Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Ewan McGregor sang their own songs in the movie.
Much of the dialog comes from Oscar Wilde’s writings.
During the festival sequence where Brian sees Curt perform for the first time, Ewan McGregor was only due to moon the disgruntled crowd. But inspired by the antics of Iggy Pop, he improvised, and ended up gesticulating wildly while flashing the audience, leaping about with his trousers around his ankles.
When Christian Bale and Ewan McGregor were filming their sex scene, the director cut without letting them know, so the two continued to simulate the act until they realized the trick that had been played on them.
Quotes
Curt Wild: The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.
Curt Wild: I will mangle your mind.
Curt Wild: We set out to change the world… ended up just changing ourselves.
Arthur Stuart: What’s wrong with that?
Curt Wild: Nothing, if you don’t look at the world.
Curt Wild: Listen, a real artist creates beautiful things and puts nothing of his own life into them, OK?
Curt Wild: Make a wish, and see yourself on stage, inside out. A tangle of garlands in your hair. Of course you are pleasantly surprised.
Curt Wild: Excuse me, fellas, while I raise my glass to the loveliest man in Europe.
Brian Slade: And they tell you it’s not natural.
Curt Wild: I dunno… I dunno. It got too big I guess. It got too schizold, you know? I mean he thought he was Maxwell Demon in the end, you know? And Maxwell Demon… he thought he was God.
Perfect Sense (2011)
Haywire (2011)
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011)
The Impossible (2011)
Jack the Giant Killer (2013)
