![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Velvet Goldmine
Asking me to choose a favorite Ewan McGregor movie would be like asking me to choose a favorite Buffy episode. Sure, I can do it, but if you ask me again tomorrow, I'll probably have a different answer (for the curious, my favorite BtVS episode of this moment in time is Selfless from season 7. Thank you and have a nice day.).
Today, my favorite Ewan McGregor movie is Velvet Goldmine. I can't remember just when I first saw it -- it was probably post-Moulin Rouge, when I felt my first feelings of adoration for Ewan. Regardless, it's such a fun, mind-twisting little movie.
Ewan's character is definitely the most vibrant, the most volatile. Curt Wild is a very raw, very open character. In many ways, he's the lynchpin of the movie, the green gem. It's seeing Curt Wild that makes Brian Slade change his image in the first place. It's losing Curt that makes Brian kill Maxwell Demon. And it's Curt who sticks in Arthur's head, the man on the stair who wasn't there. He's the love interest.
The movie has a lot packed into it and it's a movie that plays with flashbacks.
Principle story -- Arthur Stuart, a journalist, is told to do a story about former glam rock idol Brian Slade (a character based off of David Bowie, circa Ziggy Stardust). We find out Brian's life story via flashbacks from his former manager and his ex-wife.
Brian and Arthur are both characters that go through obvious external transformations in the movie.
Curt, on the other hand, just is. He's not ever pretending to be something that he's not. He's brash and bold and fully willing to say "fuck you" to anyone who dislikes him (traits which strongly remind me of Ewan's film choices, honestly). His character is based off of Iggy Pop and with the long, bleached hair and he looks quite a bit like Curt Cobain. And he's really, really hot. Seriously, cannot possibly stress the hotness enough.
Something interesting that I didn't know until recently is that Ewan McGregor improvised showing his penis. He was only scripted to moon the audience, apparently.
You really have to love actors who go the extra mile, yeah?
Another interesting thing to follow is the pin. Oscar Wilde is found with it, Jack Fairy finds it, Brian Slade steals it, and Curt and Arthur are both given it. Seems to, you know, Say Things About Their Characters. Something like that.
And for something completely different:
Sci-Fi Friday! Eeee! I'm exceedingly excited.
I'm also very much looking forward to the new Harry Potter. Fannish things, yay!
Today, my favorite Ewan McGregor movie is Velvet Goldmine. I can't remember just when I first saw it -- it was probably post-Moulin Rouge, when I felt my first feelings of adoration for Ewan. Regardless, it's such a fun, mind-twisting little movie.
Ewan's character is definitely the most vibrant, the most volatile. Curt Wild is a very raw, very open character. In many ways, he's the lynchpin of the movie, the green gem. It's seeing Curt Wild that makes Brian Slade change his image in the first place. It's losing Curt that makes Brian kill Maxwell Demon. And it's Curt who sticks in Arthur's head, the man on the stair who wasn't there. He's the love interest.
The movie has a lot packed into it and it's a movie that plays with flashbacks.
Principle story -- Arthur Stuart, a journalist, is told to do a story about former glam rock idol Brian Slade (a character based off of David Bowie, circa Ziggy Stardust). We find out Brian's life story via flashbacks from his former manager and his ex-wife.
Brian and Arthur are both characters that go through obvious external transformations in the movie.
Curt, on the other hand, just is. He's not ever pretending to be something that he's not. He's brash and bold and fully willing to say "fuck you" to anyone who dislikes him (traits which strongly remind me of Ewan's film choices, honestly). His character is based off of Iggy Pop and with the long, bleached hair and he looks quite a bit like Curt Cobain. And he's really, really hot. Seriously, cannot possibly stress the hotness enough.
Something interesting that I didn't know until recently is that Ewan McGregor improvised showing his penis. He was only scripted to moon the audience, apparently.
You really have to love actors who go the extra mile, yeah?
Another interesting thing to follow is the pin. Oscar Wilde is found with it, Jack Fairy finds it, Brian Slade steals it, and Curt and Arthur are both given it. Seems to, you know, Say Things About Their Characters. Something like that.
And for something completely different:
Sci-Fi Friday! Eeee! I'm exceedingly excited.
I'm also very much looking forward to the new Harry Potter. Fannish things, yay!
no subject
It's a very oddly structured movie. I'm not sure that the director ever quite figured out what the movie was about.
Also, whenever I'm tempted to condemn real-person-fic, I think "But what about Velvet Goldmine?"
I just think of Shakespeare in Love. Not just RPF, but RPF with a complete Mary Sue.
no subject
VG is in many ways a rewrite of Citizen Kane, and shares its odd structure--meeting the hospitalized manager in wheelchair, the wife, other characters, and then the wife again (though in VG, the second "wife' sequence is with Kurt rather than going back to the actual wife, which is interesting). But it's a pomo Kane--while Kane suggests that there was an answer to the question "Who was Kane?"--i.e. Rosebud; the story of Rosebud, while never discovered, exists and explains Kane's fuckedupness pretty damn well--in VG, there really IS no answer as to "what happened to Brian Slade"--I mean, okay, yes, he became TS, but that isn't the same kind of explanation: why did he change? Because he did, is all; because people do. The story ends up not caring much about what happened to BS, and becomes more about what BS *meant* to our hero, A.