Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a bisexual glam rock star patterned mostly after David Bowie in the 1970s and 80s. Slade inspires teenage boys and girls to paint their nails and explore their own sexuality. Unable to escape the role he created for himself, he plots his own murder. In the end he destroys himself, but when his fans discover that the murder is a fake, his popularity declines and he is all but forgotten. Another rock star, Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor) is a genre defying performer who doesn't back down from sex, nudity, or drugs on or off stage, and who is based on Iggy Pop and Lou Reed (whose parents sent him to electroshock therapy to "cure" his homosexuality).
The story follows a British journalist, Arthur Stewart (Christian Bale), who has to search his own past when writing an article about the mysterious disappearance of Brian Slade for an American periodical. The film turns Slade's paranoia of being murdered during a concert (a paranoia that Bowie incorporated into the "Ziggy Stardust" story in the climax of the "Ziggy Stardust" album) into a career-ending publicity stunt by Slade, after which he gradually disappears from the public view. As Stewart locates and talks with people connected to Slade, trying to find out what happened, he revisits the glam-rock scene of the 70s in a series of vignettes, which recreate the stories of Slade, Wild, and others involved in their lives.
The tale strongly parallels Bowie and Iggy Pop's relationship in the 1970s and 1980s, with parallel stages in both stories. Brian Slade's gradually overwhelming on-stage persona of "Maxwell Demon" and his backing band, "Venus in Furs", likewise bear a resemblance to Bowie's similar persona and backing band, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. And like the relationship of Slade and Wild, Bowie produced records with both Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.
Although the character of Brian Slade is heavily based on David Bowie, Bowie disliked the script and refused to allow his songs in the film. The soundtrack features new songs written for the movie by Pulp, Shudder To Think, and Grant Lee Buffalo, as well as many early glam rock compositions, both covers and original versions. The title of the movie takes its name from the song "Velvet Goldmine", written by David Bowie. Lead character Brian Slade is an allusion to the 1970s glam band Slade, and the name of Slade's persona "Maxwell Demon" is from Brian Eno's first band. Curt Wild's backing band, The Rats, shares its name with one of Mick Ronson's earliest groups, and also alludes to Iggy Pop's band, The Stooges (both words are terms for someone who is an informer). "Venus in Furs" is a reference to Lou Reed's Velvet Underground song of the same name. Carter Burwell and Craig Wedren composed the original music, and Todd Haynes wrote the screenplay from his story co-written with James Lyons. Todd Haynes directed.
