The Damned and the Beautiful

Rating: 10/10 (28 February 2005)

Though a major box office hit,this film is not commercial-it rather reminds of Italian Neorealism,Ken Russell,Orson Welles... In Citizen Kane style a journalist is determined to find out more about the life of the(supposedly)dead pop star Brian Slade,several years after the actual events happened.This inquiry becomes(just like in Welles's creation)a puzzle,a labyrinth of facts,legends,myths,rumors,each bit and piece of evidence telling its own partial truth. Brian Slade's story was seen by most of the viewers alike as a thinly disguised biography of David Bowie-he looks like Bowie,has Bowie's preferences and lifestyle,is even born in on the same day and in the same year like Bowie,on the 8th of January 1947-this film doesn't have to be an allusion only to David Bowie,on the same day,however twelve years earlier another famous music icon was born,with whom Slade's career also resembles:Elvis(trough a strange coincidence the same actor which played Brian Slade in this film also recently acted in a biographic film about Elvis). Besides Bowie and Elvis,Brian Slade also reminds of other influential stars of the twentieth century music industry like Jim Morrison,Mick Jagger,Ozzie Osbourne,Bryan Ferry,Kurt Cobain,Marc Bolan and others. Another comparison which plays a very important part in this film is the similarity between Oscar Wilde and Slade,from the beginning of the film Slade being shown as a modern day Oscar Wilde(or even Scott Fitzgerald,who like Wilde was an Irishman, a dandy,a big spender,a witty aesthete both in work and life,a controversial,often theatrical and scandalous character,who even died at the same age as Wilde,at 44,also bankrupt and forgotten by the time of his death only to also be rediscovered after wards)and also the whole film being spiced up with famous quotes from Wilde's work. In my opinion,Slade is,besides a great performer,a real genius. Already in his childhood he was misunderstood and bullied in school(like it often happens with talented people)and in his early teens he increasingly broke off his respectable,bourgeois,middle-class roots,dressing up in a somewhat exaggerated,opulent way(almost tasteless,but this is probably what being a dandy is about,playing a risky game at the verge of tasteless vulgarity,at the boundary between ridicule and sublime),engaging in bisexual experiences,and,above all trying his luck in music with increasing success. Still very young he reaches the height of his fame and has almost overnight everything a man can dream about-fortune,fame,an unrestricted sex-life,also a wife who loves him-their first date resembling to the fateful encounter between Jim and Pam immortalized in the film "The Doors"(she's called Mandy in the film hinting both at Barry Manilow's famous tune and also another woman immortalized by another famous song:Angie,the same Angie that inspired the famous Rolling Stones hit,this very Angie happened to be Bowie's ex-wife). While Curt Wild(more than Iggy Pop/Oscar Wilde),Slade's homo-erotic flame is a more energetic,temperamental performer than the cool,sophisticated Slade-his violent,unique on-stage performances of Jim Morrison's or Ozzie Osbourne's much talked about (by that time scandalous,because today not even such gestures shocking anymore)whiskeys,drugs,masturbation,exhibitionism or biting pigeon's and bat's heads off-shows.Curt Wilde is a true rocker and the match between him and Slade is more that sexual-they also communicate on an intellectual level ,their relationship being a somewhat idealized form of homo-eroticism seen also in the strange male friendship from Women in Love,in Fellini's Satirycon,or in the films of Visconti or Pasolini(both of them homosexual). But eventually Slade will,like many other superstars,pay the price for his success-one day he is allegedly murdered,without anyone realizing what actually happened-many fans of his thinking he would still be alive(another parallel to Elvis,of whom many people even today claim to have actually discovered that he is still alive),some even supposing it was all just a marketing strategy due to the fact that record-sales began to decrease,after all he himself predicted in a far too obvious way that he knows he's going to get killed. This last supposition,as preposterous as it sounds,turned out to be true-after all today's stars also know how to capitalize on faked suicide/suicide attempts,nervous breakdowns,sex scandals and every sensational lie possible,they,their agents and managers,the businessmen,the tabloids,the TV channels come up with,as long as it sells&pays. However,like in a literary work by Wilde or Fitzgerald,something did happen to Brian Slade,after his publicity stunt he reappears years later visibly changed-even the actor playing Slade is another one-in spite of his opulent shows in Liberace or Siegfried&Roy style(and notice that his natural style was always a top of the line,glamorous one)he clearly lacks the originality and wit from his earlier period,having become hopelessly mainstream,his decay being apparently not as radical as we are used from Wilde or Fitzgerald,Brian Slade does not die,he doesn't lose his mind,not even his status and fortune,he doesn't end up as an alcoholic or drug addict,his decay is far deeper and somewhat far radical one,the lost beauty,ideal,fascination once achieved are impossible to bring back(like Wilde's Dorian Gray or Fitzgerald's Gatsby he is trying without succeeding to turn himself into a half-god,to reach impossibly inaccessible ideals,or,maybe Kane's "Rosebud"). I can't quite understand why Slade(who seems to be like Jim Morrison more a poet rather than a superstar from a strictly commercial viewpoint underwent the change for other reasons than merely lucrative ones,or maybe he didn't act on purpose,it was just the way the ruthless world of showbiz seriously altered him,before he could have even the slightest idea what happened to him.Anyway,many questions remain open,a clear conclusion of the plot,a clear solution/answer to the quizzical labyrinth called Brian Slade actually missing,yet such an outcome fits the main character totally-gifted artist are often unpredictable,contradictory,controversial,hard to live with,difficult to understand,moody,unbalanced. This film is a masterpiece for various reasons,like the awesome soundtrack(including,among other songs,some Roxy Music hits-in fact something of Bryan Ferry's distinctive style influenced this film)which,like in Oliver Stone's The Doors or Abba.The Movie(two other films about two other music legends I would gladly recommend to anyone liked this film)is an important part of the plot,perfectly matching the character's actions,feelings,the mood,the period... Psychologically accurate,ruthless yet subtle critic the of consumerist star-system,both highly realistic(unprejudiced,frank) and highly poetic. I wish more art films like that were made nowadays.