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1[[quoteright:263:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/velvetgoldmine.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:263:Slade and Wild in two of their ''tamer'' costume choices.]]
3
4A 1998 film by Creator/ToddHaynes about a bisexual pop star and his meteoric rise to fame during the GlamRock movement of the 1970s. It's [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial absolutely not]] [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed about]] Music/DavidBowie. The film centers on Brian Slade (Creator/JonathanRhysMeyers), whose outer-space alter ego, [[CaptainErsatz Maxwell Demon]], is in no way Ziggy Stardust. His band, the Venus in Furs, are most definitely not the Spiders from Mars. Throughout his life, Slade falls in love with a series of people who in no way resemble Angie Bowie, Music/IggyPop, Music/LouReed, Music/MickJagger or Music/BrianEno.
5
6Years later, a journalist named Arthur Stewart (Creator/ChristianBale) is 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, while also musing 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.
7
8Contrary to popular belief, the film was not originally intended to be explicitly about David Bowie. Bowie's involvement with the project was based on whether or not his songs would be used, which ultimately didn't happen because he disliked the script.
9----
10!!The movie provides examples of:
11* AbusiveParents: The only time anyone's parents get any lines in the movie, it's [[spoiler: Arthur's father yelling at him (for masturbating to a picture of Brian and Curt kissing.)]]. Curt's parents are the most obviously abusive, [[spoiler: sending him for electric-shock treatment after he had sex with (or was abused by) his older brother]].
12* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: 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.
13* AdvertisedExtra: Although he's not really billed, Brian Molko's face shows up prominently on the DVD cover. The members of Music/{{Placebo}} only have a small cameo and a few lines, but it seems like the DVD distributors knew their audience.
14* AgentPeacock: Brian Slade. He's not bi''sexual'', he's bi''winning''. His androgynous sex appeal is what kick starts his career as a rockstar.
15* [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys All Guys Want Bad Boys]]: Slade's attraction to Wild.
16* AmbiguousGender: Jack Fairy dresses very androgynously, usually wearing what might be described as women's clothing that reveals his bare chest. The overall look is someone who is neither male nor female.
17* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: A DoorstopBaby, apparently delivered by alien spaceship is...Creator/OscarWilde. (It could make ''The Star-Child'' semi-autobiographic...)
18* BittersweetEnding: Brian will reinvent himself as the boringly mainstream Tommy Stone; glam-rock is effectively dead; Mandy will become the bitter character that we see in 1984, and the world will become greyer and more, for want of a better word, heteronormative. But the sense of freedom and joy and potential will live in on the memories of the people who lived through it.
19-->''Fade away never... fade away never... fade away never...''
20* BrotherSisterIncest: Same-sex example. Curt Wilde allegedly had an incestuous relationship with his older brother when he was 13. His parents had Wilde start shock treatments to "fry the fairy clean out of him".
21* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Curt Wild ends up shagging Arthur on a rooftop, and doesn't remember him ten years later. Or maybe he does...
22* CarefulWithThatAxe: True to his basis Music/IggyPop's vocal stylings, Curt Wild at the beginning of his performance of "T.V. Eye". Even more so on the soundtrack version, where his screams are simultaneously those of a man being burned alive and having the greatest sex of his life.
23* CastAsAMask: Brian Slade reinvents himself as a music star by the name of Tommy Stone; a different actor is used to play Tommy Stone in order to hide the surprise.
24* CastFullOfGay: Or Bi, really.
25* CastFullOfPrettyBoys: A very young Creator/JonathanRhysMeyers, and still young Creator/EwanMcGregor and Creator/ChristianBale (clad in glitter, makeup and feathers, of course).
26* CaughtWithYourPantsDown: This happens to Arthur, whose father finds him masturbating over a picture of two men kissing (and promptly kicks him out of the house). It's heart-wrenching.
27* ClosetKey: Arthur's is Slade.
28* CompositeCharacter:
29** Curt Wild is mainly supposed to be an expy of Music/IggyPop. A lot of the incidents involving him are based on other real-life figures, such as Mick Ronson, Music/LouReed, and Music/MickJagger.
30** Brian Slade, while most ostensibly based on Music/DavidBowie bears definite traces of Music/BrianEno, Music/MarcBolan and Jobriath.
31* CureYourGays: Curt Wild is given shock treatments by his parents to cure him (based on the Real Life experiences of Lou Reed).
32-->'''Cecil:''' The doctors said the treatment would "fry the fairy clean out of him". But all it did was make him bonkers — every time he heard an electric guitar.
33* TheDandy: Brian Slade
34* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:
35** The whole movie for David Bowie's career. In particular, Slade's FakeAssassination mirrors an infamous announcement by Bowie at the end of the supporting tour for ''Music/AladdinSane'' where he announced the breakup of the Spiders from Mars in a way that led people to believe that he himself was retiring (though Bowie's career continued for decades after the real-life incident; he'd completed the supporting tour for ''Music/{{Earthling}}'' just six months before the film came out).
36** 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.
37** In Curt Wild's first appearance, he holds a bottle of glitter in front of his crotch and vigorously shakes it into the audience, as if ejaculating on them.
38* {{Dystopia}}: You can read the current time (the year 1984, no less), 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. A more mundane explanation is that it's just the more conservative, more heteronormative The80s, and Reynolds is a stand-in for UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, painting Brian Slade as a sellout for supporting Reynolds.
39* EvenTheGuysWantHim: In addition to his wife and devoted female assistant, Brian Slade/Maxwell Demon insinuates his way into the hearts (and in some cases beds) of his manager Cecil, fellow rocker Curt, groupie-wannabe Arthur, and briefly his stylistic progenitor Jack Fairy. He breaks them all. Jonathan Rhys Meyers was once named the "Hottest Straight Guy We Wish Was Gay" by ''OUT'' Magazine.
40%%* EverybodySmokes (Zero-Context Example)
41* EveryoneIsBi: Stated basically word-for-word by both Wild and Slade in interviews. Most of the characters seem to be bi, though Arthur doesn't show any interest in women.
42* EverythingsBetterWithSparkles: The film loves its glitter -- which is appropriate as it's about a glam PrettyBoy rock star.
43* FakeAssassination: Brian Slade attempts this as a publicity stunt, hiring someone to "shoot" him in the middle of a concert. However, it backfires as the public learns the shooting was faked, killing his career and causing him to be come a recluse.
44* FakeBand: Malcolm from the band "The Flaming Creatures" is [[Music/{{Placebo}} Brian Molko]]. Molko's bandmates Stefan Olsdal and Steve Hewitt also appear as band members.
45* FakeOutOpening:The first part opens with a UFO streaking across the sky. Then it cuts to the childhood years of Oscar Wilde.
46* FakingTheDead: What ultimately does Slade in. The amount of backlash he receives for pretending to be shot dead on-stage as a publicity stunt ends up destroying his career and forcing him to go into hiding. Additionally, [[spoiler:it's revealed near the end that Arthur was at the concert where this happened and that it was this event that lead to his obsessive search for Slade in the first place, essentially making this trope the driving force of the entire film.]]
47* FluffyFashionFeathers: Brian Slade wears several enormous pink feather boas, and a peacock-like fanned collar of white egret feathers over the course of the film.
48* ForcedOutOfTheCloset: Arthur with his parents sort of.
49* FramingDevice: Slade's life story is told though Arthur's interviews, in a manner reminiscent of ''Film/CitizenKane''.
50* {{Gayngst}}: Arthur had some as a kid before coming out. [[spoiler: [[TheRunaway Not that it really goes smoothly for Arthur after that point, either.]] ]]
51* {{Groupie}}: Arthur is a male example. In his youth he's an ardent fan of Venus in Furs and devotes his life to following them on tour for a time. He even ends up sleeping with Curt Wild, the guitarist.
52* HookersAndBlow: 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, [[spoiler: when Mandy is trying to get him to sign their divorce papers,]] we see Brian snorting a line of coke from the naked buttocks of a semi-conscious black woman in a big white wig. (Of course, given that Brian seems to be able to get anyone he meets to have sex with literally anyone, she might not be a hooker, just someone in his entourage.)
53* IJustWantToBeSpecial: Slade before he gets famous. When he sees Wild drop trou at a show and moon the crowd, he laments how he wished he'd thought of it first.
54* ImpracticallyFancyOutfit: 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?
55* LampshadeHanging: 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...
56* LongHairedPrettyBoy: Early on in his career, Slade had flowing, shoulder-length hair, and as mentioned elsewhere, was more beautiful than his wife. Wild also fits this trope.
57* LoveAtFirstSight: Both of Slade's serious relationships start this way.
58* LoveDodecahedron: 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.
59* LovingAShadow: Brian Slade is in love not with Curt Wild, but the "idea of Curt Wild".
60* MagicalAccessory: Oscar Wilde's brooch, stolen from Jack by Slade, then passed on from [[spoiler: Curt to Arthur at the end]]. May be a real alien artifact that makes the bearer a star, may be symbolic, YMMV.
61* MagicPlasticSurgery: [[spoiler: How Tommy Stone was created, presumably.]]
62* MaleFrontalNudity: Thank you, Mr Wild (but not Mr Wilde).
63* MakeUpOrBreakUp: [[spoiler: Wild/Slade, Slade/Mandy -- They break up.]]
64* MeaningfulName: 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. And how everyone has a popstar name but Arthur and Mandy, essentially marking them out as Normal [=McNormalsons=].
65* MrFanservice: Both in-universe and out- Curt Wild and Brian Slade's stage acts involve dancing provocatively in tight-fitting or revealing clothing, and Curt Wild is practically a WalkingShirtlessScene. As with real life glam rockers, the sexiness was part of their appeal.
66* NeverAcceptedInHisHometown: A downplayed example in Jack Fairy, who teenage fans sometimes recognise in the street, but they never regard him as the visionary pioneer that the other characters regard him as.
67* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Slade is Bowie, Curt Wild is Iggy Pop (with a dash of Music/MickJagger and Music/LouReed), Jack Fairy is Music/BrianEno and Music/MarcBolan, and The Venus in Furs are The Spiders From Mars.
68* OohMeAccentsSlipping:
69** Creator/EwanMcGregor plays a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed-version of Music/IggyPop / Music/LouReed / Music/MickJagger. Apparently people from Michigan have the tendency to sound like Creator/SeanConnery.
70** In flashbacks, Mandy's accent slips when she's upset; in scenes taking place in the present, she doesn't bother. It's particularly impressive given Creator/ToniCollette is Australian, therefore neither of the accents she veers between are her own. This is actually a positively uncanny imitation of Angela Bowie, who is American but either absorbed or intentionally adopted a faux-British accent during her then-husband's glam rock days. It's especially prominent in the opening to ''Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture'', for example, when she comes backstage to chat with the band.
71* PaperThinDisguise: Brian Slade turns up to a concert in a "disguise" consisting of a large hat and coat. Although his ex-wife reveals that she recognised him, and public opinion towards him had already soured somewhat, it seems a bit odd that no one bats an eyelid at his appearance, given that he is still very famous, and very poorly disguised.
72* APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy: Innocent new wardrobe mistress Shannon is led by Jerry [=De Vine=] into a distinctly uninhibited party of stars and crew, all laying about on floor cushions.
73* PrettyBoy: Brian Slade fits this trope rather well, as one might reasonably expect from a nineteen-year-old Jonathan Rhys Meyers in ''make-up''...He manages to be more delicate and prettier that his own wife (who is not bad-looking or particularly butch.)
74* PrettyInMink: Notably, it's the guys wearing the furs most of the time.
75* PerformanceArtist: Slade and Wild, along with Jack Fairy.
76* PrideBeforeAFall: Happens to Slade, who thinks himself infallible.
77* QueerFlowers: This movie is about 1970s glam-rock figures and heavily uses green carnation symbolism for gay or bisexual men.
78* TheQuietOne: Brian Slade, despite being the main character and basically the ''subject'' of the movie, has surprisingly sparse dialogue throughout. When he does talk, he's almost always talking in riddles or quoting Oscar Wilde. Also Jack Fairy, who doesn't say a word until the Death of Glitter concert.
79* RomanAClef: Interesting in that it is two Roman a clef put together: that of David Bowie/the emergent glam rock scene as well as ''Film/CitizenKane'' (a Roman a clef itself), with bits of Oscar Wilde thrown in.
80* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: What Arthur does after his parents [[ForcedOutOfTheCloset find out he's not straight]] in...[[CaughtWithYourPantsDown shall we say no uncertain way]].
81* SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll: Slade is increasing overwhelmed by his own image, and drawn into a web of sex and drugs that coincides with the end of his career. Also implied to have happened to Curt Wild in the past- when Brian Slade finally meets him, he's addicted to heroin and can barely do anything. He gets better.
82* ShaggyDogStory: Arthur interviews Brian's former manager, ex-wife and eventually his artistic collaborator and lover, only to come up empty. There are hints that he resurfaced as a different pop star but nothing is confirmed. And then there's the bizarre and inexplicable implications that Oscar Wilde was an alien.
83* ShoutOut: So. Many. Shout outs.
84** The Venus in Furs, while sounding a lot like Bowie's band from his Ziggy days, is actually based on a song by Music/TheVelvetUnderground (which is in turn based on a novel of the same name).
85** Wild's story of how he was caught ''flagrante'' with [[spoiler:his older brother, and his psychiatric treatment]] are this to Music/LouReed.
86** ''Velvet Goldmine'' was a Bowie song.
87** Brian Slade is an allusion to the glam rock band Slade.
88** Music/BrianEno's first band was Maxwell Demon which in turn is a nod to Maxwell's Demon, a thought experiment.
89** The Rats, Wild's band, is a reference to Pop's Music/TheStooges. Wild's dancing and onstage nudity are directly based on Music/IggyPop.
90** 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.
91** Half the quotes in the movie are directly from said people, eg, 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 Creator/OscarWilde quote or paraphrase.
92** The structure of the story, as well as some direct shots, are straight from ''Film/CitizenKane''.
93** The opening shot, with a group of teenagers excitedly running towards the camera, over the opening titles, to the tune of Eno's "Needles in the Camel's Eye", is an obvious reference to the opening shot of ''Film/AHardDaysNight''.
94* SidelongGlanceBiopic: Depending on how fictionalized you consider it to be.
95* SingleTear: The stone-cold pretty boy Brian Slade sheds one single tear after breaking up with his boyfriend Curt Wild at the end of his performance of "Bitter-Sweet".
96* StagedShooting: The assassination of Brian Slade at the beginning of the movie turns out to be just one of Slade's publicity stunts. It is not well-received.
97* TitledAfterTheSong: A Bowie song, of course. They would have used the song, too, if Bowie had given permission.
98* WingdingEyes: When Slade and Wild sign up to work together, Slade's eyes fill with hearts showing his immediate infatuation. Their manager's eyes light up with dollar signs.

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