Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

28.
“I
LOVE Velvet Goldmine,” says the film’s director,
Todd Haynes, just over a decade after its original
release. “I’m so proud of it. It was the first film of
mine that met with much more of a mixed reaction
when it first came out, especially in the English
press, but it was a film I always meant as a gift to
young people, as a kind of tripped-out druggy movie,
an experience film. Those kind of films don’t get
made anymore—like Performance—weird, trippy,
complicated and beautiful. That meant so much to
me growing up. A place where your imagination and
creativity can be nurtured by a film. What’s so cool is
the movie became that for a mass of young people.
And it’s still a film that young teenagers, particularly
girls, come up to me and tell me how much it
changed their lives. And it became a huge Web
obsession and a flash fiction inspirer. They gave out
prizes for the best triple-X story, best double-X story,
and best softcore story all involving the Velvet
Goldmine characters. I also love that it inspired kids
and exposed them to all this great music.”
Velvet Goldmine takes poetic license with
Bowie’s rise and fall but remains more or less a
linear biopic fueled by extensive research, done
largely by Haynes, a lifelong Bowiephile. It is an