#8
Velvet Goldmine - Todd Haynes (1998)
Today, there'd be fighting in the streets. But in 1972, it was more like dancing.
Now, just because someone sees, you know, two naked people asleep in bed together, it doesn't necessarily prove sex was involved. It does, however, make for a very strong case.
***
You live in terror of not being misunderstood.
***
The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.
***
- We set out to change the world... ended up just changing ourselves.
- What's wrong with that?
- Nothing, if you don't look at the world.
***
Listen, a real artist creates beautiful things and puts nothing of his own life into them, OK?
***
Brian was elegance walking arm and arm with a lie.
***
According to legend, when Kurt was 13 he was discovered in the family loo at the service of his older brother, and was promptly sent off for eighteen months of electric shock treatment. It was guaranteed the treatment would fry the fairy clean out of him, but all it did was make him go bonkers whenever he heard an electric guitar.
***
Style always wins out in the end.
***
- So what are you, a mod or a rocker?
- Six of one, half a dozen of the other, really.
***
- I don't believe that there is much of a future to speak of.
- We're in a bit of a decadent spiral, aren't we?
- Sinking fast.
- Big Brother, baby, all the way.
- Which is why we prefer impressions to ideas.
- Situations to subjects.
- Brief flights to sustained ones.
- Exceptions to types.
- And yourself?
***
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person... Give him a mask and he'll tell you the truth.
***
- I don't think I have what you're looking for.
- I think you do, actually.
- Oh, yeah? What makes you say that?
- That smile for one thing.
- Well, smiles lie.
- Exactly.
***
Rock and Roll is a prostitute, it should be tarted up.
***
I'm not really myself except in the midst of elegant crowds, in the heart of rich districts, amid sumptous ornamentation, palace hotels, army of servants, plush carpet under foot.
***
It's funny how beautiful people are when they're walking out the door.
***
You live in terror of not being misunderstood.
***
The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.
***
- We set out to change the world... ended up just changing ourselves.
- What's wrong with that?
- Nothing, if you don't look at the world.
***
Listen, a real artist creates beautiful things and puts nothing of his own life into them, OK?
***
Brian was elegance walking arm and arm with a lie.
***
According to legend, when Kurt was 13 he was discovered in the family loo at the service of his older brother, and was promptly sent off for eighteen months of electric shock treatment. It was guaranteed the treatment would fry the fairy clean out of him, but all it did was make him go bonkers whenever he heard an electric guitar.
***
Style always wins out in the end.
***
- So what are you, a mod or a rocker?
- Six of one, half a dozen of the other, really.
***
- I don't believe that there is much of a future to speak of.
- We're in a bit of a decadent spiral, aren't we?
- Sinking fast.
- Big Brother, baby, all the way.
- Which is why we prefer impressions to ideas.
- Situations to subjects.
- Brief flights to sustained ones.
- Exceptions to types.
- And yourself?
***
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person... Give him a mask and he'll tell you the truth.
***
- I don't think I have what you're looking for.
- I think you do, actually.
- Oh, yeah? What makes you say that?
- That smile for one thing.
- Well, smiles lie.
- Exactly.
***
Rock and Roll is a prostitute, it should be tarted up.
***
I'm not really myself except in the midst of elegant crowds, in the heart of rich districts, amid sumptous ornamentation, palace hotels, army of servants, plush carpet under foot.
***
It's funny how beautiful people are when they're walking out the door.
Soundtrack
- Needle in the camel's eye - Brian Eno
- Hot one - Shudder to Think
- 20th century boy - Placebo
- 2HB - The Venus in Furs
- TV eye - Wylde Rattz
- Ballad of Maxwell Demon - Shudder to Think
- The whole shebang - Grant Lee Buffalo
- Ladytron - The Venus in Furs
- We are the boys - Pulp
- Virginia plain - Roxy Music
- Personality crisis - Teenage Fanclub & Donna Matthews
- Satelite of love - Lou Reed
- Diamond meadows - T. Rex
- Bitter's end - Paul Kimble & Andy Mackay
- Baby's on fire - The Venus in Furs
- Bitter-sweet - The Venus in Furs
- Velvet spacetime - Carter Burwell
- Tumbling down - The Venus in Furs
- Make me smile (come up and see me) - Steve Harley
