Haynes
Lisa Blanning
The other night I saw Velvet
Goldmine for the first time. I seem to recall that when it
came out ten years ago, it looked quite cool, but folks who had
seen it hadn't been too positive about it. I hadn't thought much
about it in the interim, but not too long ago I came home and my
flatmate was watching it. I caught the part where Ewan MacGregor
plays Iggy Pop on stage and was immediately interested. Ewan is
fully convincing and his screen character Curt Wild (geddit?) has
even more extreme added twisted back story (one can only hope that
Iggy didn't have it so bad, but maybe if I ever get round to
reading his biography, I'll find out just how close it is). It made
me want to see the rest of the film and when I found out that
writer/director Todd Haynes had done this movie I made it a
priority. I'd recently seen Haynes's Dylan 'biopic' I'm Not
There and found it flawed, but really brave and very good.
That plus Time Out some months ago had a cover feature
of their top 50 rock flicks (or something like that) and Haynes's
barbie-casted Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story had
come out on top. Synchronicity!
Today, having watched Superstar on the internet (the
only way to see the short film, as its distribution suffered after
Richard Carpenter sued), I can now say I've seen Haynes's
music-inspired films (all within two months of each other) and it's
an interesting trajectory. Superstar (which is
Haynes's second film released in 1987) is certainly the most
straightforward, even with the barbies. It's an easy narrative
punctuated by ominous foreshadowing and illuminatingly preachy text
concerning anorexia. Given the primary device, it can't help but be
tongue-in-cheek ("No, we can't eat at The Source! hahaha"), but I
found it a sympathetic portrayal of Karen's self-cancellation. One
might assume (as Richard Carpenter probably did) that by using
dolls Haynes was making fun what must have been a tragic and
difficult situation, and while it may have actually been borne of
financial necessity, it makes for some tender homage in a form
similar to children at play. The love of children is not usually
duplicitous, and similarly that affection is revealed, as in the
lovingly rendered barbie-sized sets and costumes.
With Velvet Goldmine (1998), the on-screen rock stars
aren't at all veiled mirrors of their real life counterparts, but
in this case Haynes makes his own story using real characters
instead of relying overly on their real-life stories, as so many
young children are given readymade characters (like Barbie and GI
Joe) complete with a look and a backstory to make their own
adventures with. My main beef with this vastly entertaining and
rather beautiful film is Haynes still felt the need to retain lip
service to an overarching plot, which plods along between the
lavish set-pieces that are full of wit and insight not least
because of constant references to and quotes from Oscar Wilde,
which in itself ties the set-pieces together better than the
'plot'. One short scene of Curt Wild and Brian Slade (David Bowie)
musing on their love is acted by dolls in one child's voice and
intentionally cliched dialogue making it an oddly touching and
innocent portrayal of such a moment: gay hedonist rock star love.
Ten years later and Bob Dylan becomes the fetishised pop star in
I'm Not There, made up of vignettes close
and inspired to his life, the viewer's knowledge of which making
the lynchpin that allows the film to roam plot free. Losing that
structure seems to release even more ideas from an already
imaginative director and perhaps obsessive fan. The life of Dylan
is such a rich tapestry to draw from and Haynes really does that
justice. He keeps a few stylistic choices (making some scenes
deliberately stiffly acted, which can be a bit jarring when it's
not done humourously), but it's an incredibly engaging way to tell
a story and kind of makes you feel as though you're learning
something about the subject as well – getting a sense of that
elusive charisma that made them something special in the first
place.
Turns out Haynes's first film is actually about Rimbaud, who is a
poet I had recently decided to investigate. Synchronicity has
dictated my next foray.
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