Velvet Goldmine

Preceded by Todd Haynes’s music video for “Disappearer” by Sonic Youth

Dir. Todd Haynes. 1998, 123 mins. 35mm. With Christian Bale, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Ewan McGregor, Toni Collette, Eddie Izzard. Haynes’s spectacular and ambitious Velvet Goldmine borrows the structure of Citizen Kane to chart the rise of glam rock and the star who was the movement’s brightest flame. Functioning as both history and dream, Haynes’s immersive, completely enveloping musical fantasia is initiated by Bale’s Arthur, a journalist assigned to find out whatever happened to Brian Slade (Rhys-Meyers), a pansexual Bowie-like singer who faked his own death at a concert in the seventies. His inquiries take him to Slade’s former lover, Curt Wild (McGregor), modeled on Iggy Pop, and American ex-wife Mandy (Collette), but no closer to the truth. Haynes’s film interprets the glam rock era emotionally and philosophically, as a time of endlessly reinvented personas and sexual experimentation in which identity becomes as formless as music itself. Featuring an electrifying rock soundtrack, Velvet Goldmine begs to be seen and heard on the big screen. 

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.