Talk:Velvet Goldmine

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1 Jobriath
2 Mentioning 'Bend it like Beckham'
3 Citizen Kane
4 Gay Scene

[edit] Jobriath

This article should mention, in some form, the similarities between Maxwell Demon and Jobriath, a connection which I've seen mentioned before but have not found time to research deeply enough. However, it is very obvious that the "naked" LP cover was directly modeled after a Jobriath LP cover, and the concept of taking a nobody and turning him into a pop star was certainly a parallel to Jobriath's early career.

Todd Vierling 05:32, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is this original research? I've not seen references to this elsewhere. Cleduc 20:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Using only the internet, I am able to find (1) that the album cover is clearly a model just from looking at it for an image of the Maxwell Demon album cover in the film, (2) that more than one person has *claimed* that Haynes *denies* that Jobriath was a model for the story, and (3) I can find no evidence that #2 is true--I can't find any discussion of Jobriath in any interviews. I recall reading an interview (I can't recall where, probably in the published screenplay, which I don't have handy) in which Haynes said that he had done a ton of research for the look of the glam era--it's possible that the album cover similarity emerged from that. But I can't find any authority for the claim that the *narrative* parallels the life story of Jobriath. Haynes does say that the life story parallels (loosely) that of David Bowie, which is obvious enough. I don't know enough about the life of Jobriath to comment on whether the parallels are there.--Agent Cooper 23:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

the inside cover of MW's album resembles, to me, the inside of the Aladdin Sane album, which can be viewed here: http://www.davidbowie.se/img/album/as/2.gif I do agree about the outside of the album resembling the Jobriath album however, and it can easily be found on google. UnderPressure 11:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mentioning 'Bend it like Beckham'

Is it usual to refer like this to a film made after the film under discussion?

"Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Bend It Like Beckham) had his feature debut playing the role of Brian Slade"

Njál 01:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

You're right - these extra film references are probably not necessary since the actors are linked - AKeen 20:24, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Citizen Kane

I've (twice) reverted the addition of this:

The narrative structure of the film is modeled on that of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.

We need to cite a source for this assertion. Though it may be similar, "modeled on" implies that the director intentionally structured it to resemble the other work. This smacks of original research to me. Cleduc 15:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I was the one who put it up the second time--I think I only put it up once, with good intentions. Being somewhat new to Wikipedia, I'm not sure what the standard approach to this sort of thing is. To me, the similarity between the two films was so detailed and obvious as to not require "proof." (I'm reminded of the dialogue in All the President's Men where Hoffman and Redford argue over what you can infer from a wet pavement). However, in the interests of scholarship, I poked around, and what I found was that while the Citizen Kane connection was mentioned by interviewers in questions directed at Haynes, he never responds to those questions bye making the affirmative statement "yes, what I was trying to do IN FOLLOWING CITIZEN KANE was X." Apart from that, almost every one of dozens upon dozens of reviews of the film comments on this aspect of the film, using phrases like "following," "modeled on" and even in one place "filched from." So if I understand the issue here, it seems like the right statement would be "Many reviewers have seen the narrative structure as closely resembling that of Citizen Kane"? That, at least, is an indisputable fact; a good example of it is in Roger Ebert's review, but I think there are dozens of others, which one can get via googling "Todd Haynes Citizen Kane".--Agent Cooper 21:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

That's cool, I just put it back with a likely source (one that quotes him). Citing sources is a good thing. Cheers, Cleduc 23:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I second Agent Cooper's statement -- there are scenes that are such exact parallels of Citizen Kane; to deny them would be to deny that American Idol were based on Pop Idol. UnderPressure 11:25, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Cool backatcha. Hope I didn't seem testy. When I was in law school, if you wrote "and on that morning, as the sun rose in the east" you'd get "no citation: what's your authority for saying that the sun rose in the east on that particular day?" But I can see how one can err in the other direction too: one man's obviousity is another man's controversial bogusiousity! --Agent Cooper 22:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)