Velvet Goldmine
Short description
Velvet Goldmine follows Arthur Stuart, a British journalist working in New York, who is assigned to investigate what became of Brian Slade, a glam-rock star who staged a fake assassination on stage at the height of his fame and then vanished. Roughly a decade after that disappearance, Arthur traces the singer's rise, his marriage to Mandy Slade and his involvement with American rock performer Curt Wild, while also revisiting his own adolescence in Manchester, where Slade had been his idol.
Todd Haynes directed and wrote the film, which sits between Safe and Far from Heaven in the run of features he has directed. Christine Vachon produced, and the cast includes Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Slade, Ewan McGregor as Wild, Toni Collette as Mandy, Christian Bale as Arthur and Eddie Izzard as Jerry Devine, among 63 credited cast members and 75 credited crew.
Released in 1998 and running 123 minutes, the film was made for about 9 million USD and took roughly 4 million USD worldwide. On IMDb it holds a 6.5/10 critics' rating from 50 reviews, while on TMDB it has a 6.9/10 from 557 votes, so audiences there rate it slightly higher than the critics' average.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initially, the film was going to be titled “Glitter Kids,” then — “Glam!”
- Many actresses auditioned for the role of Brian Slade's wife, Mandy; Toni Collette received the role just before filming began. Todd Haynes agreed to cast Collette after she sent him a fax stating: “I am Mandy Slade!” Haynes believed that Mandy would have done exactly that.
- Courtney Love had planned to participate in recording the film's soundtrack, but after watching a rough cut, she decided that the character of Kurt Wilde was too similar to her late husband, Kurt Cobain – both in appearance and character. Director Todd Haynes and Ewan McGregor assured her that the resemblance was unintentional, and that they had primarily based the character on Iggy Pop, from whom Cobain had borrowed many stylistic elements of his work. But Courtney Love remained firm.
- After completing the filming of the sex scene between Arthur Stuart and Kurt Wild (played by Christian Bale and Ewan McGregor), director Todd Haynes didn’t say “Cut!” so the actors continued to simulate the act for several minutes, until they finally realized they were being laughed at.
- The film's title comes from David Bowie's 1971 song of the same name, 'Velvet Goldmine,' which has rather ambiguous lyrics.
- Initially, it was planned to include several compositions by David Bowie (born David Robert Jones, (1947-2016), hence the title, taken from one of his songs). When Bowie learned that the film would be partially based on his unofficial biographies, he threatened the filmmakers with a lawsuit. His songs were removed from the script, and the script itself was rewritten to place less emphasis on the similarities between Bowie and the main character.
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