Posts
watched Velvet Goldmine (1998) by Todd Haynes last night. pretty amazing stuff. One of the best music movies I've ever seen. Delighted to hear lots of stuff from Brian Eno's first album Here Come the Warm Jets, and probably the only Roxy Music song I like. I knew Ewan MacGregor had some edge in his range (see Trainspotting) but holy shit, dude. He looks and moves very much like Iggy Pop in the early days and the rest of the film he looks exactly like Kurt Cobain. This was released 4 years after Kurt died, so no coincidence there.
The blurb on Criterion said it was the Citizen Kane of rock biopics (or something like that) and it follows the general structure of CK and a bunch of times it outright steals from it. There's a dissolving transition from the ex-wife telling Christian Bale's character about the old days, exactly like when Jedediah (?) talks about Kane's first wife. Total homage. That was the most obvious one to me at the time.
I think it quotes a lot of Oscar Wilde, especially his snappy, head spinning ripostes and gales of theatrical laughter during press conferences with our Foster Kane/David Bowie/Bob Dylan character.
I love how it's a biopic about a dozen or so glam rock superstars rolled into 3 or 4 characters. David Bowie foremost, but reaches into the 90s, showing how the spectre of sex, drugs and rock and roll persists through the decades.
I've been watching tons of films about the punk rock years (Alex Cox, et al) and this is the best one I've seen yet, partly bc of how raw it is for a fictional biopic.
I liked it from the first moment. Words appear on a black screen at the beginning to the effect of..
"Although what you are about to see is a work of fiction, it should nevertheless..."
[pause]
"... be played at maximum volume"
Then goes into a little vignette suggesting Oscar Wilde was from another planet, a la Bowie's Starman.
I'm definitely (re)watching Haynes' I'm Not There, more than a little bc Kate Blanchett (among others) plays Bob Dylan in it.
No comments:
Post a Comment