All language subtitles for Behind The Glam & The Glitter

Every great century that produces
art is, so far, an artificial century,

and the work that seems the most
natural and simple of its time

is always the result
of the most self-conscious effort.

RHYS MEYERS: Imagine that
liberation of mind for the first time.

For the first time,
how those kids just went mad.

"Wow, we can have sex and drugs and..."

(EXCLAIMS)

"We can be anything we want to be.

"We can wear make-up,
and we can wear anything we want to

"and people think we're cool."

It was like a fantasy world, I suppose.

NARRATOR: For once,
there was an unknown land

full of strange flowers
and subtle perfumes.

A land of which it is
joy of all joys to dream.

A land where all things are perfect
and poisonous.

# Well, you' re the grand one

# Have you noticed?

# When you walk in
all the fairy boys are very nervous

# Well, my starship doesn't want me

# And neither does his world #

Political sensibilities
were being activated.

There was gay rights,
there was feminism,

there was a lot of stuff
that was ignored, I think, in the '60s.

I mean, the '60s had a real misogynist,
homophobic aspect to them.

It was a very brief moment where

suddenly that kind of gender bending
was not only acceptable,

it was encouraged,

and almost necessary to be successful.

I mean, even bands like The Kinks and
the Stones were wearing feather boas.

That is me! That's me, that! That's me!

I mean, everybody knows
most people are bisexual.

JERRY: Any more questions?

Yeah, woman with the beret.

I was under the impression
that you were married...

I was born in ' 71,
so I kind of missed it.

I was running around the countryside
in Scotland when this was all going on.

# See that cat

# Yeah, I do mean you #

McGREGOR: I love all that stuff.

I love the idea of anything going and
of bisexuality being hip.

But at the same time, I think
there was a lot of hypocrisy in it.

People saying that they were gay
and bisexual who weren 't.

And, you know, it was just
a hip scene to be in.

The people that were leading it
were leading it truthfully,

and, "We are gay and we are bisexual,"
and they were the cool people.

# See that cat #

McGREGOR: One of the first times
you see me in the movie,

I think, where I'm playing this concert,

and the audience is mainly hippies,

and they're not into
what we're doing at all.

I' m d oing my stuff and
they don't like it, and then,

I egg them on and
they like that even less.

# She got TV eye #

I have to dive into the crowd,
and they hold me up and I...

I do a bit of stuff, and they set fire
to me and all that kind of stuff.

It's kind of action-glam.

You know, Schwarzenegger
meets T-Rex, maybe.

Yeah, I love this stuff.

I like the performance
'cause I want to be a rock star really.

So he, you know, performed,
sang the songs live,

and then did these unbelievably
strenuous, outrageous performances

that of course worked through
a great deal from

things we've all seen and read
about Iggy Pop.

With a little bit of Lou Reed
thrown in there as well.

But he just blew us all away.

(HOWLING)

STIPE: Well, I was 12.
I didn't really understand it.

My grandmother told me...
She saw a picture of Alice Cooper,

who was kind of an American equivalent
to British glam rock,

on the cover of a magazine
when I was 1 1 or 1 2 years old and said,

"He's gonna burn in hell."

And of course I was intrigued
immediately by this person.

I wanted to know about him.

I think when punk rock was ushered in,

it was a little bit more of
a sexless musical revolution.

Of course, it was
incredibly sexy in its own way.

I think, politically, things just
changed dramatically in the mid '70s.

This is a period of time
that had great style

and great humour about itself,

and was able, in British words,
to take the piss out of itself.

At the same time, saying something and
having a good time while saying it.

I think that's what
a lot of that is about.

# It's a crime, you're mistaken

# Momentary seizure of love #

REPORTER: So you're saying
you're bisexual?

Yeah, I like boys, I like girls.

They're all great.
No difference, is there,

Mr BBC?

I am not really myself
except in the midst of elegant crowds,

at the heart of rich districts,

or amid the sumptuous ornamentation
of palace hotels,

an army of servants
and plush carpet underfoot.

And it's really, truly
a bisexual love story

in that it also very,
sort of, romantically describes

the marriage between
Brian Slade and Mandy Slade initially,

and Brian sort of getting

also completely sort of smitten with

this character from New York
named Curt Wild.

Love is tough
and it takes effort and work.

And I don't think Brian Slade was
into effort and work much.

People generally aren't good
with change, I don't think.

And things are just
constantly changing in this.

# I'll use you and I'll confuse you

# And then I'll lose you

# But still you won't suspect me #

Their relationship is obviously very
strong, one that's based in love.

But like a lot of love affairs,

it's like over
as soon as it's started, you know?

Mandy is a very, very complex character.

She had to be his door kicker.

She also had to watch him
do whatever he wants to do.

They both wanted to, kind of,
be out there.

And he came first,
and she never got her chance.

Her window never opened.

And I don't think
she ever forgave him for that.

Who would you most fancy meeting
in America?

Curt Wild.

(SATELLITE OF LOVEBY LOU REED PLAYING)

Curt was in love with Brian and
Brian was in love with Curt.

And it just couldn't mix.

Two very, very selfish people.

And massive egos, yeah.
His is bigger than mine though.

In terms of character, you know.
I think.

It's a love story
in a lot of different ways.

And then it's the story of this kid
named Arthur from Manchester,

who I think maybe we can all
identify with the most in the film.

Well, he's sort of the narrator,
in a way.

I mean, he got kicked out of his own
house because of his glam-attraction,

and everything that went with that.

It's the only period of his life
that he can look back on

and really sort of see
as a happy moment.

It was set in the 1 970s. It could be
any era, because it's people.

The movie's just about people
and how about...

Basically, how being true to yourself

was the greatest mask
you could possibly put on.

Because nobody can conceivably believe,
at that point in time,

that you could be anything that
you wanted to be.

England's such a tight,
classist society.

And these people were just like,
"Yeah! Free for all!"

Suddenly there was
this fresh, vibrant, new outlook,

which basically accepted everything.

It was like, be who you want to be
and love it.

So these people had complete freedom.

And they created so many
different personas for themselves.

I wanted to bury the past in the film.

And so there would always be
this nostalgia

and the sense of something dangerous
and exciting that was closed up,

that Arthur as a character
has to sort of dig out.

So from the beginning of the movie,
there's this enormous sense of loss

and of longing for a past that
we've forgotten or that we've buried.

And, yeah, I'm playing it up.

You don't see many great painters

or many great filmmakers

who just make funny happy films.

Or funny happy songs or
funny happy paintings. They don't.

All the best ones
delve into the world of tragedy

because out of tragedy is beauty.

I remember going to the movies when
I was a kid and feeling that thrill

about going on
some unknown trip somewhere.

I would love Velvet Goldmine
to have that feeling about it.

Nothing is ever as simple as
it might seem in his movies,

and that's definitely the case
with Velvet Goldmine.

If you are creating a myth,
initially, artificially,

the best way to really pull it off
is to become the myth.

Because the secret of becoming a star

is knowing how to behave like one.

Action!

(VIRGINIA PLAINBY ROXY MUSIC PLAYING)

What's true about music
is true about life,

that beauty reveals everything

because it expresses nothing.

I'm only 24. I was born in '72, my God.

But I certainly did... I got so into
the music, making the movie. I still am.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,

and whomever else who may be
in the house this evening,

I give you Brian Slade!

# Oh, I was moved by your screen dream

# Celluloid pictures living

# Your death could not kill
my love for you #

I guess the sound and
the content shared a great deal,

which was extremely ornate and melodic,

and very produced,

but not in a slick way
as much as embellished.

The music was dressed up.

It drew from the hard, sort of,

threatening, anti-hippy sounds of
the Velvet Underground

and The Stooges,
and that kind of violence.

The violence of the music
certainly was there.

The sexual violence that
comes from those groups

was definitely a part of it.

But it wouldn't have happened without
the music hall, vaudevillian tradition,

that seems to me so completely British,
mixing in with that.

# I came down like water

# For the age of solar #

I didn't know the music,
it wasn't what I was brought up with.

So I had to basically backtrack.

And I think now that
maybe it was better,

because people actually used musical
instruments instead of computers.

# We'll take the whole shebang #

Glitter. Even the music
had glitter on it.

Today there's no glitter,
it's all dense bass.

It had glitter, it had make-up.
Music had make-up.

Some of the stuff
they were doing back then

was so radical and
so creative. Really...

Not just musically,
but in terms of production,

in terms of what they were doing
in the studio.

Slamming together and
trying different ideas,

and some of it was abject failure,

but a lot of it was really inspired.

# Friends say it's fine
Friends say it's good

# Everybody says
it's just like Robin Hood #

And the mixture of those elements.

The theatricality mixed in
with the raunchy,

very frank sexuality of it all
is apparent in the music itself.

You don't even have to
listen to the words

or understand them, I think,
to feel that in the music.

# And it's plain to see
You were meant for me, yeah

# I'm your toy
Your 20th century boy #

It's swinging. It's rock.

It's got beautiful
romantic sweeps in it.

It carries you along.
It's a soundtrack to a dream.

# Baby's on fire

# Better throw her in the water

# Look at her laughing

# Like a heifer to the slaughter

# Baby's on fire

# And all the laughing boys are bitching

# Waiting for photos

# Oh, the plot is so bewitching #

I think its aggressive artificiality,

and sort of celebration of artifice and
rejection of the natural in every way,

frightened people off.

And that it's much easier
to sort of revitalise

and kind of reinvent moments
in pop culture

that seem to be about something
raw and truthful and earnest.

Like punk or like, you know, grunge
or like some of '60s music,

than it is to... I think there's
something more prickly and more complex.

Why the make-up?

Why? Because rock and roll's
a prostitute.

It should be tarted up, performed.

The music is the mask,
while I, in my chiffon and taff...

It was high performance

in a way that I think...
You only see certain periods

that pushed it to that extreme
in rock and in popular music.

The first duty in life
is to assume a pose.

What the second duty is,
no one has yet found out.

(NEEDLE IN THE CAMEL 'S EYE
BY BRIAN ENO PLAYING)

It was colourful,
beautiful loud colours,

flamboyant, flares,
lots of material being used.

Playful. People with boas,
the glamour, the glitter.

Innocent, just like a child dressing up.
You know, fantasy, escape.

The look of it, I mean,
everything is recycled.

I mean, people today are, like,
so into the '70s.

And then there are older folk
kind of looking at it and going,

"I was there. You're a fool.
Give it up."

I can make you a star.

I was like a really young teenager
in the sort of early '70s.

And all the stuff I've been able
to produce on this,

is stuff that I wanted to wear then
but couldn't 'cause I was too young.

I kind of did the best I could
and made my own versions,

but I really aspired to be able to wear
all these fantastic things

that I could see other people wearing.

So it's really exciting for me now
to be able to do it.

It was about going out on the street
and pushing it as far as you can.

Almost in a way pushing it
in people's faces a bit

and saying, "I don't care.
and you can just get out of my face

"if you don't like it."
And so on and so forth.

REPORTER: It appears today's youngsters
have fashioned a whole new bent

on the so-called sexual liberation
of the flower power set.

The long hair and love beads have given
way to glitter make-up, platform shoes

and a whole new taste for glamour,
nostalgia and just plain outrageousness.

REPORTER: Is London not shocked?

-London is improving.
-Well, I think it's a disgrace,

parading around all ponced up
like a pack of bleeding woofters.

Bloody hell, what'll they think up next?

It was wanting to really
push and provoke.

And everything was for a reaction.

Tell us, Brian, are the rumours true
when they say you and Curt Wild

have some sort of plans up your sleeve?

Oh, yes. Quite soon, we actually
plan to take over the world.

(ALL LAUGHING)

Everyone says that if you lived
through the '60s, you don't remember.

And it's perfectly true, I'm afraid.

I realised
I actually remembered very little.

And the '60s and '70s
got very mulched together.

So it was quite difficult
to differentiate

the different periods and
make sense of them.

Outrageous, bizarre, freaky,
well, obviously glamorous.

Because a lot of it was inspired
by the ' 30s, Hollywood ' 30s, 1 930s.

Cheers.

Extraordinary.

I think the costumes in the period
automatically tell the audience,

"This is who I am.

"I am Brian Slade. I wear these clothes
and I live in this country.

"And I'm alive at this time."

So immediately
you are sold to the audience.

MEN: Brian, Brian!

Maxwell Demon is the story
of a space creature

who becomes a rock and roll messiah

only to be destroyed by his own success.

Are you saying this is your destiny?
Are you Maxwell Demon?

Man is least himself
when he talks in his own person.

Give him a mask
and he'll tell you the truth.

I mean, I'm lucky because
the stuff I'm doing is, kind of, rock.

# Come on, little stranger
Die a little later

# Swear you're gonna feel my hand

# Swear you're gonna feel my hand

# Swear you're gonna feel my hand #

And I'm the leather-clad, kind of...
I'm the butchest person in it, you know?

And...

So I've got off lightly, but some of it
just drives me up the wall.

I can't stand it.

It was a joke at the time.

I think people looked ridiculous,
but it's really fun.

KING: The whole '70s thing
was about image.

Everyone sort of discovered that
the image was very, very important.

I mean, they had it before
with teddy boys and stuff.

But then thi s really came to the fore
with the Marc Bolans and David Bowies.

And God knows who else.

The New York Dolls,
and all the rest of them.

And all trying to create
their own image.

(HOT ONEPLAYING)

You know, you look back on parts of
being a teenager,

and a lot of it is very embarrassing,

the sort of clothes that
you started wearing and all of that.

And obviously this is not an exception
at all. I mean, look at us all.

But, I mean, what it represented to me
is not sad at all and,

you know,
it was a very important part of my life

and something that I dearly love.

I could remember quite a bit,

but the sort of stuff
I could remember was the stuff

that myself and my contemporaries
were wearing,

so we kind of used that for
the glitter kids.

The young fans, the sort of, like,
1 3 to 1 6-year-olds.

The greatest challenge was really
just making it be believable.

Even though you're dealing
with something

that's quite sort of extraordinary,

you had to make sure it felt real.

So that's when, for instance,
dealing with the audience

and the fans and the kids,

trying to make it look like
they've done it themselves.

As you say, it's all to do with shadows
and illusions.

What's behind the illusion, and is there
anything behind the illusion at all?

# Hail to the monkey

# We're having a funky reunion #

It was a time where anything went.

That's an incredibly powerful
and positive thing.

And now, it's not the case any more,
you know?

We really have jumped backwards,
I think.

Still, we shouldn't all wear flares

and flowery shirts,
'cause we do look ridiculous.

I'm glad we got out of that.

Everybody, I'd like to introduce you

to our lovely new wardrobe mistress.

Erm...

-Shannon.
-Shannon.

ALL: Welcome, Shannon.

The aesthete gives
characteristically cynical evidence

replete with pointed epigram
and startling paradox

while explaining his views
on morality in art.

I am always very interested in topics

in my films that call notions
of identity into question,

and call sort of natural ideas about,
you know, human kind.

That there's sort of a prescribed,
organic way of living in our culture.

And so,
this was a sort of celebration of

very much the Oscar Wilde tradition
played out in pop culture.

Is it your belief
that all dandies are homosexual?

Hah! Nothing makes one so vain
as being told one is a sinner.

(ALL LAUGHING)

Velvet Goldmine,
the title of the film, comes from

a B-side that David Bowie wrote,
a song from '72.

I don't know if it was ever officially
released in the States or not.

It's a wonderful song.

This is a rock and roll movie,

you know, it's a movie about
music stars and rock and roll stars

and parties and the whole band thing.

(BABY'S ON FIREPLAYING)

So many different things, you know.
It's a really multi-layered film.

And a lot of people, when they read
the script, they just didn't get it.

They were just,
"Whoa, what's that about? "

When I first read it, I loved it.
I thought it was brilliant.

I sort of likened it to a pop song
that you really love.

You can't quite explain what it's about.

And you keep... The more you listen
to it, you hear new lyrics.

Maybe you can't quite hear
what the singer is saying,

but you like the sound of his voice.

And you learn new things about it,
the more you go back and delve into it.

Give it here, then. Let's have a look.

Bloody nora!
Our kid's one of them pansy rockers.

He's a fucking puff, that one there.

-No, he's not.
-That's naff. That's naff!

You're disgusting. You know that?

Well, there's the script.
It's an incredible piece of writing.

It's completely brilliant.

It's so fragmented and so...

So representative of the kind of image
we have of the '70s,

'cause it's all over the place.
It's mad and it's exciting and,

you know, it's beyond comprehension
really, some of it.

People talk about scenes and you go,
"Where's that? "

Then you go back and
you read the script,

and there's a whole scene
that just never went in your mind.

GIRL: My career was on the skids, mate.

And you fished me out of the muck.
You got me back on my feet, you did.

It was nothing, chum.
I wanted to help you

make more of that far-out sound.

I love your music, my son, and I love...

You don't have to say it, mate.

I read the script and I thought,
I'm completely wrong for it.

I'm so wrong, but I fucking love it.

I faxed Todd and I...

I just had to do it.
I'm so in love with it.

And I can't wait to see it.
I think it's brilliant.

When you're trying to be truthful
and speak from the heart,

but you are an institution
unto yourself,

and you're making huge amounts of money,
and there's corporations financing you,

the contradictions of that
direct statement from the heart,

by the time it gets into the hands
of the kids out there, whatever,

it's so contradicted, I think,
on so many levels,

that when you set out to tell the truth,

I think you always fail.

The whole film is loaded

with contradictions about itself,
as was the era.

I contradict myself 1 0, 1 5 times a day.

I think one thing and mean the other.

And it's...

I don't know, I think it's confusing.

I think everything is confusing.
I think this EPK is confusing.

I think going back
and thinking about it now

is even more confusing
than before I started it.

Because I'm trying to think,
"Is this part of my past?

"Or is it part of somebody else's?

"Was that really me doing that? "

Because I don't know what's going to
come up on that screen at all.

And it's going to
frighten the shit out of me.

Because I don't know, was it me?

Or was it what things affected me
at that time?

"I knew I should create a sensation,"
gasped the Rocket.

And he went out.