Velvet Goldmine

Slade and Wild in two of their tamer costume choices.

A 1998 film about a bisexual pop star and his meteoric rise to fame during the Glam Rock movement of the 1970s. It's absolutely not about David Bowie. Despite main character Brian Slade singing a song about Ziggy Stardust Maxwell Demon, a character from outer space, or having a back-up band called The Spiders From Mars The Venus in Furs. Nope, he's absolutely not David Bowie. Oh sure, he reinvents himself as The Thin White Duke Tommy Stone.

Oh alright. The movie was supposed to be about Bowie explicitly, but the aging pop star supposedly pulled support when he found out the film centered around his bisexuality, instead of his life or music. Reportedly, he said jokingly to friends it seemed like the Ziggy Stardust-like character seemed to simply "spend his time administering blowjobs". So the film-makers changed some names and added in some allusions to Oscar Wilde and voila, no longer about Bowie.

The film centers around journalist Arthur Stewart researching the disappearance of Slade after a catastrophic failure of a publicity stunt at a concert. Apparently fans aren't forgiving if you fake your own death. So Slade fell into alcohol, drugs, and depression and dropped out of sight completely. Arthur starts by interviewing Slade's former friends and lovers. He also muses on his own youth and the impact of the glam rock scene on his life and sexual identity. The film is thus told in a series of flashbacks, mostly linearly, leading up to Slade's disappearance.

It also notably features expies of Iggy Pop and Brian Eno, plus numerous references to Oscar Wilde.

Tropes used in Velvet Goldmine include:
  • Abusive Parents: The only time anyone's parents get any lines in the movie, it's Arthur's father yelling at him (for being gay).
  • Acquired Situational Narcissism: Happens to Slade once he makes it big. And he can't let fame go even after his fans have turned on him, leading to some of the worst of his troubles.
  • Agent Peacock: Brian Slade.
  • All Guys Want Bad Boys: Slade's attraction to Wild.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Oscar Wilde was an orphan from the stars... right.
  • Bishonen: Brian Slade, who manages to be more delicately pretty that his own wife (who is not bad-looking or particularly butch).
    • Not to mention Brian Molko who is prettier than most women.
  • Cast Full of Gay: Or Bi, really.
  • Caught with Your Pants Down: And it is as far from funny as one of these moments is possible to be.
  • Closet Key: Slade's is Wild; Arthur's is Slade.
  • Costume Porn
  • Cure Your Gays: Poor Lou Reed Curt Wild.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The whole movie for David Bowie's career.
    • Also one scene in which Slade, while on stage, gets down on his knees and goes after a bandmate's guitar in a way simulating oral sex.
      • Which was something the real Bowie used to do onstage with Mick Ronson.
  • Dystopia: You can read the current time, from where the frame story takes place, as a super conservative dystopia front-headed by the mysterious President Reynolds. Certainly a great deal of the stranger scenes make sense with the dystopian backdrop.
    • The present day does take place in 1984.
  • Everybody Smokes
  • Everyone Is Bi: Or possibly gay. The movie's a little fuzzy on that point.
  • Everything's Better with Sparkles
  • Expy: Slade is Bowie, Curt Wild is Iggy Pop (with a dash of Lou Reed), Jack Fairy is Brian Eno, and The Venus in Furs are The Spiders From Mars.
    • I always saw Jack Fairy as more of a Marc Bolan.
  • Fake-Out Opening: A UFO? In a movie about glam rockers? Really (though considering the motif of aliens in actual glam rock, it's really not that surprising)?
  • Framing Device: Slade's life story is told though Arthur's interviews, in a manner reminiscent of Citizen Kane.
  • Gayngst: Arthur had some as a kid before coming out.
  • Hookers and Blow: When Slade's career is on the skids, he falls into total depravity, and we see him sprawled half-naked in bed with a mountain of cocaine beside him. Later, when Mandy is trying to get him to sign their divorce papers, we see Brian snorting a line of coke from the bare buttocks of a large, semi-conscious black man in a big white wig.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: Slade before he gets famous. When he sees Wild drop trout at a show and moon the crowd, he laments how he wished he'd thought of it first.
  • Impractically Fancy Outfit: All of Slade's costumes, especially his Maxwell Demon ones. Come on, 4" platform boots plus huge wings and you want this guy to sing and dance on stage?!? Really?
  • Lampshade Hanging: See below: Slade's immediate infatuation with Wild is accompanied with glowing hearts, but more to the point, his manager's acceptance of this unsigned ex-junkie is accompanied with glowing money signs. Oh, we get it! He can sell them in a two-pack! Moving on...
  • Love At First Sight: Both of Slade's serious relationships start this way.
  • Love Dodecahedron: Brian Slade is sort-of in love with Curt Wild, but married to Mandy. Wild definitely loves Slade, but feels jilted by him, so hooks up with other guys including fan Arthur Stuart. Stuart is/was a total fanboy for Slade. And that's just scratching the surface.
  • Make Up or Break Up: Wild/Slade, Slade/Mandy -- They break up.
  • Male Frontal Nudity: Thank you, Mr Wild (but not Mr Wilde).
  • Meaningful Name: Curt Wild. And the Rats. And it's Jack Fairy who begins the bisexual glam rock movement. And how the Maxwell Demon tour is Slade's demise. I mean, really, guys? Really?
    • And how everyone has a popstar name but Arthur and Mandy, essentially marking them out as Normal McNormalsons.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Just look at the stars...
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Though David Bowie disagrees.
  • Pretty in Mink: Notably, it's the guys wearing the furs most of the time.
  • Into Musical Theatre: Slade and Wild, along with Jack Fairy.
  • Pride Before a Fall: Happens to Slade, who thinks himself infallible.
  • Roman à Clef
  • Shout-Out: So. Many. Shout-outs.
    • The Venus in Furs, while sounding a lot like Bowie's band from his Ziggy days, is actually based on a song by Velvet Underground (which is in turn based on a novel of the same name).
    • Velvet Goldmine was a Bowie song.
    • Brian Slade is an allusion to the glam rock band Slade.
    • Brian Eno's first band was Maxwell Demon which in turn is a nod to Maxwell's Demon, a thought experiment.
    • The Rats, Wild's band, is a reference to Pop's The Stooges.
    • The way Mandy finds Slade and Wild in bed together is supposed to be a reference to Angela Bowie finding her husband and Mick Jagger together.
    • Half the quotes in the movie are directly from said people, e.g. what Mandy says re: Wild and Slade together in bed is a direct quote from Angie; Slade's first question to Mandy is something Bowie said; and everything that sounds just a little apropos of nothing is probably an Oscar Wilde quote or paraphrase.
    • The structure of the story, as well as some direct shots, are straight from Citizen Kane.
  • Sidelong Glance Biopic: Depending on how fictionalized you consider it to be.
  • Titled After the Song: A Bowie song, of course. They would have used the song, too, if Bowie had given permission.
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: The numerous Wilde quotes and dialogue.
    • Also notable: the fact that the "present day" is a dingy, 1984, and the numerous cinematographic shout-outs to Citizen Kane.
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