I
recently watched this film again for the first time in ages, and I enjoyed it
immensely. It’s definitely one of the
more original movies I’ve seen, I love the immersion into a world I know little
about, and Citizen Kane-esque
narrative device is well-used. Plus, how
can you dislike a film that posits that Oscar Wilde was both an
extraterrestrial and the first glam rocker?
Made of win! Brian and Curt’s relationship certainly isn’t
one of the best I’ve seen, but it’s plenty interesting, and I’m so intrigued by
the way the film uses it. Between the
colorful characters it involves, the good drama it facilitates, and the sly
commentary it makes, it seems ripe for review, so here we are. (Spoilers for Brian/Curt.)
Since
this is both a working partnership and
a romance between two flamboyant rock stars, it’s only fitting that Brian first
sees Curt onstage. The two men’s styles
(musically and aesthetically speaking) couldn’t be more different. At the time, Brian is all soft edges, long
hair falling in his eyes as he accompanies his Bowie vocals with an acoustic
guitar and wears hippie-ish dresses onstage (this is before he adopts his
glitter-alien persona.) Curt, meanwhile,
is the epitome of “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll” – there’s no softness or care
in his indifferent fashion sense, the ragged vocals of his heavily distorted
music, or his wrecking-ball stage presence.
The performance Brian sees isn’t a concert as much as an
experience. He’s transfixed by Curt’s
audacious sensuality, blatant anarchy, and seeming contempt for the adoring
audience losing its collective mind.
Brian’s second reaction is professional jealousy, to wish he’d come up
with that salacious stage show, but his immediate response is too overwhelmed for
coherent thought. Over the course of a
single song, Curt Wild has managed to win everything Brian has to give.
It’s why,
when Brian finally meets Curt some time later, with Brian on the rise and Curt
on the descent, he’s still gaga. Curt is
literally slumped in a corner and drugged up to his eyeballs when he’s introduced
to Brian, but Brian doesn’t have eyes for any of it. Curt’s unceremonious parting with his record
label and unemployable reputation only gives Brian the chance to offer Curt the
prospect of a co-written album. Others
who’ve known Brian throughout his life describe his inescapable magnetism, but
in Curt, Brian meets his match.
Regardless of the drama, the creative differences, and the recording
equipment destroyed in studio tantrums, both men exert a power over one another
that’s nearly impossible to break even when they’re apart.
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