Post Production Details

[vardathemessage]

Just to be thorough in our research, we must weigh in with Bowie's reaction to the film. It must be very difficult to have your life, even a fantasized and fictionalized version of it, appear before you on celluloid - and then be able to have any objectivity or admiration about it. However, Bowie has never shied away from writing about other artists in his work. The man who wrote Andy Warhol looks a scream and Oh, hear this robert zimmerman, I wrote a song for you, About a strange young man called dylan, With a voice like sand and glue can't be too thin skinned when it comes to turning the tables. If only he might have been as indulgent with that young whipper snapper Todd Haynes as he is with Placebo and, dammit, Marilyn Mason. For someone who loves to cut it up and paste it together in a new way he was dim to the fact that the film was about us and not him. Bowie vented in interviews and chats when answering the inevitable questions about the film.

First his friends weight in. From a Bowie Net Live Chat of 17/12/98 with Tony Visconti and Mick Rock

Mick and Tony: Tony: I think VG was grossly inaccurate about those times,
Mick and Tony: Tony: I think it was unfair to borrow from Bowie's life
Mick and Tony: Tony: and distort it so much, and create the illusion that it was Bowie, and not some fictional character
Mick and Tony: Tony: Basically, I thought it was a gay porn film disguised as a musical.
Mick and Tony: Mick: I haven't actually seen the film yet. It's going to be hard for me not to be very critical.
Mick and Tony: Mick: Having read the script, I realized it was something I need to keep distance from because
Mick and Tony: Mick: it had nothing to do with the period. A fact that gets lost is that a boy in those days wearing a lot of makeup
Mick and Tony: Mick: would probably attract a lot of girlfriends, speaking for myself. Makeup was nothing to do with being gay,
Mick and Tony: Mick: it had a lot to do with getting laid, for a very heterosexual person.
Mick and Tony: Mick: You couldn't fuck a lot of girls unless you were wearing some mascara.

~

From a BowieNet Live Chat of 27/2/99 with Boy George

Boy George: I saw Velvet Gold mine and I thought it was an insult to my youth. I sat in the cinema tutting throughout and thought they got it completely wrong. Americans shouldn't make movies about British culture.
David Bowie: Definitely not enough shopping in it.

Dave, darling,
Your pal Schnabel's 'Basquiat'- Soho in the 80s for fuck's sake - definitely not enough shopping in it.
Just a thought,
Lux

~

From a Live Placebo Chat with Bowie on 29/3/99

David Bowie: Outside of the writing, do you guys involve yourselves in art?

Stefan Olsdal: There hasn't been much time for it we've been very busy. We've worked on films.

Brian Molko: A film which you particularly dislike. (laughter).

David Bowie: What's that, "Shakespeare In Love"? (laughter). "The David Bowie Story", isn't it?

Brian Molko: Yes, "The Velvet Goldmine". And we've done a bit of modeling, here and there. Modeling for Gucci.

David Bowie: You know, it wasn't that I disliked the film, it's just that I thought it wasn't terribly successful. The only bits that I liked in "Velvet Goldmine" were the gay bits. I thought they were really very well done and you really felt the heart of the director. But I thought the rest of the film wasn't very good. It felt very early-80's to me.

Stefan Olsdal: The thing for us as well, we didn't grow up during that time, so we weren't part of it. As young people, we didn't experience that era, and we don't really know what to compare it to.

David Bowie: I think that anybody who has lived through one era, and then looks at somebody from another period altogether, is going to be substantially touching the wrong keys, is bound to be just sort of out-of-sync. I think it produces this surreal idea of what it might have been like. It's a bit like the Jane Austen England books that you see on television, you get this incredibly parochial, pastoral world which was in fact probably a lot dirtier, smellier, more evil...

~

From 'Getting It', October 1999

"GI: Here comes the Velvet Goldmine question: How did you feel about the portrayal?
DB: I didn't notice that I was in it. Am I really that uninteresting? God, he was about as interesting as a soapdish, wasn't he? I presumed that they kind of backed off the portrayal characterization and just went for cipher. I had the advantage of reading the script before it was made and knew it was a stinker from the moment I read it.
It had two things going against it: First, they wanted all of the songs that I want to use for Ziggy Stardust, and from about halfway on, the writing just fell to pieces. It had a fairly interesting start and totally disappeared somewhere. I anticipated it would be a bomb.
I also think its location was totally wrong. I think (writer/director Todd Haynes) located it in the early '80s - unwittingly. I presume that's when he grew up. Because for me, I was watching Steve Strange and Boy George and the New Romantics, who had by that time, (when they had reinvestigated the idea of Glam) put a certain kind of ennui, a certain kind of sophistication on the thing. It was all very mannequinish, by the time it got to the '80s. It was all made very well. The stitches didn't show in the '80s. In the '70s it was vulgar, tacky and funny and there was a lot more shopping. They didn't show that in the movie. It was located in the wrong era. The only entertaining areas for me were the gay things. I think that (Haynes) inherently has an understanding of the gay situation.
But the lovely thing that came out of it was a fantastic five-page letter from Michael Stipe who asked me to be involved - which I'll keep for the rest of my life and is far too personal and adoring for me to reveal, yet. But of course it will go up on the Internet eventually.
GI: Are you doing a Ziggy film?
DB: Yeah, I'm not only doing it (overly ambitious as always), I'm doing it on three platforms. I'm working with people on a film version and I'm working with people on a theater version that's completely different and I'll synthesize the two into a huge version of Internet hypertext - where we will find out about Ziggy's mum and things like that. I want this kind of parallel world with Ziggy on the Internet that stays there as archive forever - like a living organism. But the theater version and the film versions will be completely and utterly different from each other. The stage show will be about the interior values of Ziggy and his contemporaries. It won't have terribly many characters in it. The film would be the audiences' perception of who or what Ziggy was. It will be a bigger, grander, more blah, blah. But the three taken together is, I suppose, lazy post-modernism where the same story is told in different ways.

GI: What's the timeline on that?

DB: 2002. It's scary. It'll be exactly 30 years by then. I hope we can get one of them out by that time."



Oh dear, it's 2005 now and Bowie's Ziggy Film is nowhere in sight. Judging by the above description, [Ziggy's MUM???] it might be better that way. Lovely book that Moonage Daydream, however.

~

He was still miffed in an interview from 2003

What did you think of the movie Velvet Goldmine by Todd Haynes? It seemed such a not-so-thinly veiled story about you. It sounded like he'd just read a few of the biographies of you out there and tried to turn it into a movie.
Yes, it certainly had a lot of that. And I think because of his own particular sexual politics he wanted to make something that represented queer cinema in that way. I guess he did OK, I just found all the characters very colorless; everybody kind of lacked personality, and the main thing was that if he was trying to catch an essence of glam in London in '72, '73, whatever, he really missed the humor. It was a very serious movie.

Good point, it was very grim.
It was hilarious in those days! A scream! It was really a riot, you know, it was a lot of fun. And this seemed like a cold world he'd painted, dry as a bone, yeah? So I don't know, it's not the best thing he's ever made. I suspect he'll make great movies, though; he's a good filmmaker."

and

From an interview in Filter - Issue Six: July/August 2003

[Bowie:] "Velvet Goldmine was that. The guy in that movie was supposed to be me, apparently. I'll tell you what, (His voice dropped an octave to a tone in which one leans over to reveal something) I thought he was as charismatic as a glass of water. I thought surely I've got more zing than that. He was more Warhol than me being Warhol, that guy. He was a good-looking kid and all that and I thought, 'Whoa, thank you.' Obviously they didn't see the teeth that I had back then.
"The thing is, that film came from a distinctly American perspective. And glam never happened in America. It was so intrinsically a British thing. You had to understand the idea of these bricklayers and blokes like that who suddenly put on make-up. It was just funny." The strange thing about all this was that David Bowie generally resents questions about that era of his career. It was short. One incarnation of many. There was Ziggy Stardust, yes - in 1973 - for a little over a year.

Comments

attack of the run-on sentence

[(Anonymous)]

In my more objective moments, I can see where some of the criticisms that many people, including Bowie, have of VG come from, even when I can't agree with them, so I'll just stick to commenting that for people who lived through and participated in the Glam era, Mick Rock and Tony Visconti are betraying a surprising amount of homophobia in their chat.

-Glitter Nixon

Re: attack of the run-on sentence

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

I agree completely. Plus, they were doing so many drugs that they have no idea whether they were pulling birds or blokes anyway. ;-)

Re: attack of the run-on sentence

[the-automatik.livejournal.com]

I agree. In fact, I'm terribly disappointed in them as artists after reading that.

[wild-huntress.livejournal.com]

1. Am I the only person who thinks that he may have made up the whole Ziggy Stardust movie as an excuse for not letting them use the songs in Velvet Goldmine? *shifts eyes*

2. At the moment I'm attempting to finish my literary essay paper on Velvet Goldmine. Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this. This journal is the best source ever and I hope you don't mind me citing/ linking to you in my paper?

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

1. I would not be surprised in the least. Perhaps he had some intentions but the project would have been daunting.

2. Not to sound too pretentious, but I see this LJ as my thesis of sorts, so I would be flattered if you would mention it, thanks.

[wild-huntress.livejournal.com]

1. Good, I'm not just conspiracy theorizing. Although another Bowie related movie would be fun, especially if the rumour that Jude Law was supposed to play him was true. ^^

2. This LJ is the best thing ever. Seriously. It's practically the only source I have for my paper so I'm damn appreciative. ^^

[psycholibrarian.livejournal.com]

"Not to sound too pretentious,"

Heh, isn't that what we're all about here? ;)

Great, great varda posts! I remember reading most of these 1998-99 press and interviews when they came out, and it was just amazing to me how Bowie et al. could make criticisms in terms of the film not being completely true to the period... when one of the main points of the film was the about legends being more important than truths!

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

Heh, isn't that what we're all about here? ;)

Whoops, you've found me out! ;)

I too was surprised at Bowie and his contemporaries' reactions. If I recall correctly, however, Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno sat together at the premiere and nodded to each other in recognition at certain parts. They were a bit overwhelmed after the roller coaster ride of the film but they were flattered.

[psycholibrarian.livejournal.com]

Ah, you gotta love Les Deux Bri/yans.

Have you read Eno's "A Year with Swollen Appendices"?

Or Paul Stump's "Unknown Pleasures: A Cultural Biography of Roxy Music"

The latter has more to do with all our combined interests, I'd wager, but both are fabulous reads!

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

I have a psycholibrarian to recommend books! What is cooler?

I love the Eno book. I haven't read Paul Stump but I've been waiting for Jonathan Rigby's "Both Ends Burning: The Complete Roxy Music" to finally come out in the States. The latest due date is June 5 but they've pushed it back several times.

[psycholibrarian.livejournal.com]

"I have a psycholibrarian to recommend books! What is cooler?"

I do my best :D

Another good one - mostly tangentially related to glam, but enlighening nonetheless - is "The Beat Goes On: The Rock File Reader", edited by Gillett and Frith (Pluto Press, 1996), which collects some fantastic Rock File articles from the 70s. Invaluble insights abound for the 70s English rock completist!

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a book to get lost in! Thanks for the book recs - and thanks for your posts this past year. Your comments were unique and thought provoking.

[psycholibrarian.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I wish I could have contributed even more. I for one say there's no such thing as too much VG!

[queerxcore.livejournal.com]

I find it amusing that Bowie enjoys the *sex* scenes in the movie, and saying that was the only part they got right in the film. :o)

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

I know, I mean how would he know, wait...

What also irks me is that he says stuff like, "I ... knew it was a stinker from the moment I read it. ... I anticipated it would be a bomb." He sounds like Brian Slade there, betraying the idea that only artworks that are popular and successful are worthy. Since he is supposedly so fascinated by the outsider and avant garde art scenes, his taste is shown to be awfully mundane here.

[the-automatik.livejournal.com]

Agreed. The part about Michael Stipe really made my stomach turn.

...which I'll keep for the rest of my life and is far too personal and adoring for me to reveal, yet. But of course it will go up on the Internet eventually.

*rolls eyes*

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

It's not up on the Internets yet, as far as I know. But yeah... @@ (eye roll emoticon)

Shut. Up. David. Jones.

[q-spade.livejournal.com]

"The thing is, that film came from a distinctly American perspective. And glam never happened in America. It was so intrinsically a British thing. You had to understand the idea of these bricklayers and blokes like that who suddenly put on make-up. It was just funny."

Oh please! KISS (http://www.icebergradio.com/artist/3210/kiss.html)? Native New Yorkers. (Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley are filthy rich – on a larger scale than Bowie – because of all the "bricklayers and blokes" that have bought their records and seen their shows over the decades.) And how about Alice Fucking Cooper? (http://www.randysrodeo.com/rock/cooper.php) Let us not forget Suzi Quatro (http://www.nyrock.com/interviews/suziq_int.htm)!

Glam happened here. It co-existed with the UK scene, and the Brits riffed off us as we riffed off them back in the day. It wasn't exactly like what was going on in England – one cannot compare a small island to a huge continental land mass – but it definitely existed.

I could be really evil and bring up Parliament-Funkadelic (http://www.fastnbulbous.com/funkadel.htm) and LaBelle (http://www.allthingsdeep.com/dge/labelle.htm)...without whom Young Americans might never have happened, eh David?

Re: Shut. Up. David. Jones.

[psycholibrarian.livejournal.com]

Bowie's saying that the film came from a distinctly American perspective is shite. It came from a uniquely Todd Haynes perspective, that being one of queer-based retrospective glam fandom, regardless of country of origin.

However, I'd tend to agree with his saying of Britain that "glam happenned here".
OF COURSE, we had Kiss and Alice and the Dolls - preceded by the Velvet Underground period, if you will - but as you've mentioned, American glam was a whole different animal than British glam.

British glam - and here I'm talking more of Bowie and Roxy Music than I am of groups like Slade and suchlike, who were only visually derivative and stylistically derivative on specific levels - works on a much deeper level, comes from an entirely different set of sociological circumstances, and had a much clearer idea (being the brain-spawn of the 60s British art-school set) of what it was doing.

Style over subtance, and meaninglessness over meaning to the point where it became its own meaning. (I'd venture to say that British glam - in addition to borrowing more from vaudevillian tradition, androgyny, futurism, and various decadent periods of the past - was more Warholian in its underpinnings than American (mostly NYC, bien sur!) glam could ever have hoped to be.)

American glam, I think, followed a similar letter of the glam law, but not really a similar spirit. Yes, it existed, but it never caught on here in the states the way it caught on in England. To use your words again, one cannot compare a small island to a huge continental land mass, but this is true in culture as much as in size. For O! so many reasons (from the most esoteric to the most mundane) glam never had a real chance here.

If I had more time, I'd do a WAY deeper analysis here. But I don't, ah well.

Re: Shut. Up. David. Jones.

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

After re-reading this today and having a bit more time I just want to repeat this:

It came from a uniquely Todd Haynes perspective, that being one of queer-based retrospective glam fandom, regardless of country of origin.

Yes. Thank you!

Aside from the fact that, as you say one of the main points of the film was the about legends being more important than truths! How can Bowie say:
I also think its location was totally wrong. I think (writer/director Todd Haynes) located it in the early '80s - unwittingly. I presume that's when he grew up. Because for me, I was watching Steve Strange and Boy George and the New Romantics...

That's ridiculous. First, Bowie should know that Todd never does anything 'unwittingly'. It is also an insult to Sandy Powell and Peter King who certainly grew up in the era.

Re: Shut. Up. David. Jones.

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

Very good points, q_spade and pycholibrarian. I think what Bowie missed is that both Glam and the film reflected the love affair between England and America, London and New York. The scenes obviously influenced each other. American Richard Lester made the quintessential Beatles films, for instance. And what can he mean by "You had to understand the idea of these bricklayers and blokes like that who suddenly put on make-up. It was just funny." It is funny - Arthur is one of those blokes that just put on makeup - but it's also amazingly powerful and transformative, a far more interesting thing to examine than just mocking the kids who were your fans.

I could be really evil and bring up Parliament-Funkadelic and LaBelle...without whom Young Americans might never have happened, eh David?

Well, dear David had to be stuffed to the gills on drugs to have the nerve to appear on Soultrain, but then he probably can't recall that.

[bboinnng.livejournal.com]

I can't trash Bowie as he's far too much of a god to me, but I do feel bad for Todd to have had him trash the film in multiple interviews like this. Wow, must that have stung like a bastard. I wish David had just not responded to these questions, but I suppose he had a right to.

I find it particularly catty to bring up Stipe's 5 page pleading letter in a mocking way. I would genuinely love to read that letter, myself. I'm sorry David apparently felt it was pathetic and laughable. Ouch.

I too certainly assumed the Ziggy movie he was supposedly putting together was just a ruse to have an excuse not to okay the song rights.

At the same time, I have to say I remain a bit dumbfounded and perplexed that Todd and Stipe et al actually thought Bowie would approve the song rights. This is a film that very clearly makes the bad guy - a corporate right wing sellout supporter of a Reagan-like president - a quite obviously stand in for Let's Dance era Bowie, himself. Did they think he wouldn't pick up on that? Was he really about to allow his own songs to be used in a film which featured a scene ie "it's okay, unless you look at the world", that then focused squarely on and lingered over the image of Tommy Stone? The message being, Tommy and his ilk are one of the things wrong with the world?