A Goldmine of Glam

The recent death of music legend David Bowie at the age of 69 signaled the end of an era; the loss of a great talent and one of the most influential pop culture icons of our time. Though he was 69, the youthful, impish Bowie appeared never to have grown old. To the end, he remained a music industry sex symbol, ever hip and au courant.

Bowie was the chief inspiration of master filmmaker Todd Haynes for his glam rock fantasia Velvet Goldmine (1998). Goldmine traces the life of a famously bisexual pop star as seen through the eyes of one of his fans, once a London mod rocker and now a tabloid writer in a grim, gray 1984 New York that is positively Orwellian in its dull conformity, devoid of color and imagination. But the joy and excitement of that glittering bygone era are eternally incandescent. 

David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust

Much of the film is gleaned from the story of a working class London lad who turned pop culture on its ear with his bold androgyny and visions of space-age grandeur. Haynes was largely inspired by David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust albums, relying upon many of Bowie’s songs and lyrics to tell the story in the first draft of his screenplay.

The character of Brian Slade aka Maxwell Demon is an obvious homage to the Ziggy Stardust alter ego of notorious showbiz chameleon Bowie. (Indeed, one of Maxwell Demon’s incarnations is a glitteringly reptilian sex symbol of a lizard.) Later, when it’s revealed that Slade has become the toothsome 1980s pop star Tommy Stone, we’re reminded of Bowie’s clean-cut, tuxedo-clad, commercially successful “Let’s Dance” career phase.  

Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Brian Slade

But David Bowie was of zero help to Haynes, refusing to allow the filmmaker to use any of his songs in the film and forcing Haynes and his the creative team to search frantically for music (both old and new) that would fulfill Haynes’s vision and aid the narrative.

The roadblock turned out to be a creative challenge that Haynes and company turned into a triumph. Musical contributors to the soundtrack included Lou Reed, Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry and members of The Stooges, Radiohead, Roxy Music and Sonic Youth. The songs used in Goldmine work perfectly in the scope of this epic film. That most are not so well known turns out to be a plus. 

"For once there was an unknown land, full of strange flowers and subtle perfumes, a land of which it is joy of all joys to dream, a land where all things are perfect and poisonous..."

The unfamiliarity of the songs allows the music itself to take a secondary role to the thrust of the narrative. The film’s rich imagery and spectacle, and most importantly, its multilayered storyline, complex characters and relationships (and unforgettable performances) take center stage. In Velvet Goldmine, Haynes strikes gold with his own inventive, exciting, touching and absorbing storytelling. (And ultimately, the movie soundtrack has proven to be musically memorable as well in the years since it was first released. )

Made in the U.K., Goldmine has the feel of an authentically British film of the early 1970s, springing from the mind of a very inventive American writer and director. An exhaustive researcher who immerses himself in his subject matter and excels at period pieces, Haynes helmed the brilliant miniseries of Mildred Pierce, and the Douglas Sirk homage Far From Heaven as well as the recently acclaimed 1950s lesbian drama Carol. 

Christian Bale as Arthur Stuart

In Goldmine, Haynes and his team accurately recreate mod London at the crux of the swinging sixties into the superstar seventies. Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell (Shakespeare in Love, The Aviator) and production designer Christopher Hobbs and art director Andrew Munro reveal their penchants for painstaking period detail, as well as a talent for wildly imaginative tableaux and scenarios for the dreamlike musical sequences.

Velvet Goldmine perfectly captures a particular moment in music history, but it is so much more--it’s a sprawling masterwork on the nature of art itself. Haynes, not content with capturing the glitter rock era alone, reaches all the way back to the legend of Oscar Wilde and the English music hall era for evidence of primitive precursors of “glam”, and propels us forward into outer space and other dimensions of reality to flesh out his themes on the origins of art, creativity and freedom of expression. It’s a visual, intellectual and musical feast. 

Toni Collette as Mandy Slade

There are too many dazzling and dizzying moments in Velvet Goldmine to describe them all, but a few of its more intimate moments reveal the film’s unique spirit and intentions. The glammed-up Ken dolls used to portray some of Curt and Brian’s intimate private moments (as imagined by their young fans) is storytelling innovation at its best, and a brief homage to Haynes’s own Karen Carpenter Story (in which he told the entire story of the bulimic singer’s tragic life using Barbie dolls). 

"The Ballad of Maxwell Demon" album

The sequence in which Arthur purchases the “Ballad of Maxwell Demon” record album and lay on the floor of his room with soda and chips to listen, flipping through a fan pop magazine, is particularly evocative of a long-ago 1970s teenage ritual. The album lays open on the floor beside him, the lush, erotic photography and music taking him on a romantic flight of fancy. Somehow, Haynes manages to capture the feel and even smell of the vinyl, and the once-familiar “pop” of needle hitting record as the music begins on the hi-fi.

Ewan McGregor as Curt Wild

The film owes as much to its wonderful cast as to its innovative production design and literate script. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, (just 23 when he undertook this career-making role) is chillingly effective as icy pop prince Brian Slade, who must fake his own death in order to rid himself of the Maxwell Demon persona. Indeed, Brian is ruthlessly ambitious and cold as ice as he drops his kindly first manager (Michael Feast) without a qualm in order to climb the ladder to legend and infamy. (Later, he’ll ditch his wife Mandy as well with the same calculated coldness.) But his moments of love and creative collaboration with troubled, talented Curt Wild, though all-too-brief, softens the hard-edged character somewhat.

Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, United States of Tara)  makes an indelible impression as the outrageous party girl Mandy, obviously based on Angela Bowie, who encourages Brian to push the envelope with a flamboyant and sexually fluid public image.

The character of Mandy was based upon Angela Bowie

Ewan McGregor is wonderfully vulnerable as the burnt-out, drug-addled Curt Wild (loosely based on Iggy Pop), and gives a surprisingly powerful musical performance as well. He enjoys great chemistry with Rhys Meyers. (The fictional coupling of Curt and Bryan is equally based upon the reported real-life hookup of Bowie with Mick Jagger.) 

Eddie Izzard as Jerry Devine

Eddie Izzard is perfectly cast as the slimy Jerry Devine, who capitalizes on the young musician’s androgyny to create the commodity known as Brian Slade aka Maxwell Demon.  

As Arthur Stuart, Christian Bale has one of his most affecting and down-to-earth roles, convincingly playing a gay character without a trace of cliché or mannerism. It is he who must retrace his own teenage years to uncover the secret of Brian Slade. From shy teenager who makes a brief connection with rock star Curt Wild after the historic “Death of Glitter” concert, to world-weary investigative reporter in a Brave New World, Bale’s everyman Arthur is the glue that holds the story together. 

The creation of a pop idol

This could actually be Todd Haynes’s most original and personal film, with profound truths lurking beneath the glitz and spectacle. He highlights the ruthlessness of talent, fame and performance; the necessary sacrifice of peace, serenity and normalcy, the need to continue to move on and reinvent yourself in order to survive in a tough, competitive, ever-changing world. Beauty is pain in the showbiz pantheon. But we cannot live without art and beauty. And Curt Wild and Arthur Stuart represent the eternal hope of the romantics, cherishing the quieter moments of intimacy and self-discovery...for there is magic there, too. 

"Come closer. Don’t be frightened. What’s your name? Your favourite colour? Song. Movie. Don’t be nervous."

Even without any of the rock star’s iconic music, this film will be forever linked with the legend of David Bowie, who almost singlehandedly exemplified the short interlude in music history known as glam rock. In later years, it’s said, David Bowie privately gave his stamp of approval to Velvet Goldmine, agreeing that it satisfactorily captured the creative vitality and poetic spirit of an era he was instrumental in creating. Director Todd Haynes must have beamed when he heard that. 

Christian Bale and Todd Haynes

Mildred à Deux

Strong woman. Single mother. Never having to depend on a man, enjoying the thrill of making it on her own, but willing to sacrifice it all for the sake of her beloved daughter. That’s Mildred Pierce in a nutshell. Both film versions of James M. Cain’s gritty 1941 novel—the 1945 Warner Brothers classic and the 2011 HBO miniseries—are masterful works in their own right, with very different approaches to the material, but both films make strong feminist statements that continue to resonate, and fascinate audiences.  

At its core, Mildred is a twisted mother-daughter love story; in both versions the men in Mildred’s life are mere supporting characters. The real drama centers around a mother pining for the approval of her cold fish daughter, attempting to buy her love, to no avail. Housewife Mildred dotes too much on her children and her unemployed husband finds solace in the arms of another woman. She kicks him out and finds a job as a waitress to support herself and her two daughters, eventually finding a way to open her own restaurant. When Mildred loses her youngest daughter to pneumonia, Mildred redoubles her efforts to make her new venture a success—to give her spoiled surviving daughter Veda the glamorous life she craves.

Joan Crawford as Mildred

The 1945 version is a film noir masterpiece, directed by the legendary Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) and photographed superbly and inventively by veteran cameraman Ernest Haller in moody black and white. For the film, Cain’s frank and hardboiled yarn had to be sanitized to pass the stringent Motion Picture Production Code. but screenwriter Ranald MacDougall manages to retain the tension and conflict in his tightly plotted script while skirting the novel’s racier passages. Curtiz and Haller elevate melodrama to an art form with the use of film noir techniques, using light and shadow to suggest and underline the more lurid story elements and character motivations.

Glamorous noir, with Blyth and Crawford

By contrast, Todd Haynes’s 2011 miniseries is far more faithful to its source material, gutsy, raw and real. Haynes, who had paid homage to Douglas Sirk with Far From Heaven (in which the production design unfortunately far exceeded its ho-hum storyline) recreates 1930s Depression-era Los Angeles in painstaking detail. And on HBO, there’s no need to shy away from the more explicit and adult angles to the story...Mildred and Veda’s numerous sexual entanglements and the clearly incestuous underpinnings of their fragile relationship are explored in unflinching detail. But in its way, Todd Haynes’s vision of Mildred is just as stylized as its classic counterpart, touching the subconscious with its vivid imagery...it is the director’s most inventive and magical work since his 1998 masterpiece Velvet Goldmine.

Kate Winslet as Mildred

Mildred Pierce marked a comeback for Joan Crawford, who had unceremoniously exited MGM after 17 years as one of its top stars, following a string of box office failures. The 1945 Warner Brothers film was originally planned as a vehicle for Bette Davis, who turned the role down upon learning she was to play mother to an adult actress. A desperate Joan Crawford said that she’d play Wally Beery’s grandmother if it was a good role, and campaigned actively for the part. Director Curtiz resisted working with Crawford and made her submit to a screen test before casting her in the title role.

For Crawford, Mildred turned out to be a career-redefining role.  It revitalized her image, won her her a Best Actress Academy Award and secured her career longevity for the next 20+ years. Crawford carries the picture on her capable shoulders; her performance is luminous and compelling. Haller’s haunting close-ups show a radiantly beautiful, maturing Crawford, whose famously large eyes had registered human emotion since the silent era. Her scenes with Ann Blyth as daughter Veda crackle with excitement and chemistry, as Crawford generously and wisely underplays as the long-suffering mother.

Kate Winslet is an altogether different brand of Mildred. Winslet, herself an iconic movie beauty, eschews the glamour angle to bring the “common frump” Veda calls her mother to vivid life. Winslet’s Mildred is more than a pound or two above her ideal weight, and her sometimes slovenly appearance illustrates the sweaty hard work of waitressing. (By contrast, the perfectly coiffed Crawford sports her trademark ankle-strap shoes and Adrian shoulder pads under her waitress uniform, creating a perfect movie star mannequin silhouette.) Moreover, Kate’s Mildred is a sensual and sexual animal, rolling into and out of bed with the men in her life with lusty abandon, often merely to achieve her aims. As Mildred, Winslet is electrifying and unforgettable.

Ann Blyth and Evan Rachel Wood as Veda

Pretty Ann Blyth (The Helen Morgan Story)  was never better than as the bitchy, self-centered Veda in the 1945 film. The promise she showed was never completely fulfilled (she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nod for her work), though she did make a series of light musicals over the next decade. The 2011 version features an equally remarkable performance by beautiful young Evan Rachel Wood (True Blood) as Veda, who gives Blyth a run for her money. (Morgan Turner, too, is very good as the younger Veda.)

Guy Pearce as Monty

Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential, Adventures of Priscilla) whose slim physique and chiseled face closely resemble the leading men of the 1930s and 40s, is perfectly cast as Monty in the 2011 film, lending a dangerous air of depravity and debauched sexuality to the character originally played by a smarmy and somewhat effete Zachary Scott. (We have to give props to Mr. Scott, too, in the sex appeal department, especially in the beach scenes where he rocks a black speedo paired with a polo sweater.)

Though both films are carried by the talents of their titular stars, it’s their fine supporting performances that give them depth and dimension and brand them as classics of their times. The 1945 version is leavened by the humor and energy of veteran supporting actors like Jack Carson, Eve Arden and Butterfly McQueen. The 2011 version is darker, deeper, and peopled with fine actors at every turn, including the wonderful Hope Davis and the underrated James LeGros and Brían F. O’Byrne.  

Eve Arden as Ida

The role of Mildred’s mentor and confidante Ida, played with trademark comic timing by the brilliant Eve Arden, is actually a composite of two rival characters in Cain’s novel, and Haynes’s version casts the versatile Mare Winningham as the no-nonsense waitress Ida, and Oscar winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter)  as Mildred’s best friend Lucy, who both vie for Mildred’s attentions. In Haynes’s film, in fact, all the womens’ relationships completely overshadow the male characters—obviously by design.

Mare Winningham as Ida

Melissa Leo as Lucy

Both these fierce Mildreds are “women’s pictures” but for different reasons. The 1945 film can be summarized as the story of a woman—Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce; while the 2011 version seems to be a story about all women, how they survived during the dark days of the depression, how they raised their children, where they succeeded and failed.  I treasure both of these fine films, which stand next to one another in my DVD cabinet to be enjoyed equally, year after year.