Salt Lake Film Society Summer Showdown: Hedwig and the Angry Inch vs. Velvet Goldmine

June is my favorite month for two reasons: Pride and my birthday. This weekend, I combined the two by inviting my friends out to celebrate my birthday and watch two queer films, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Velvet Goldmine. I’ll admit that I went into this showdown with a bit of a bias. I’ve always loved Hedwig, and I’ve developed an even deeper attachment to it recently as I’ve been rehearsing for my shadowcast production of the film (shameless plug – come see our show!). But Velvet Goldmine had been recommended many times and was on my list to watch for many years, so I was open to it blowing my mind. 

The almost-drag queen, almost-rockstar known as Hedwig (John Cameron Mitchell, Shrill, How to Talk to Girls at Parties), starts out as Hansel, a boy living in East Berlin. An American Soldier agrees to marry Hansel and get him the hell out of the communist state. But on one condition — to be married in East Berlin, Hansel must undergo a sex change operation and take on the identity of his mother, Hedwig. The operation is performed by a quack doctor and left unfinished (hence the angry inch). 

Now divorced and living in Kansas, Hedwig returns to her long love of rock music. Hedwig falls in love with a young man named Tommy (Michael Pitt, The Dreamers, Last Days) and teaches him all she knows about music, aptly granting him his new name: Tommy “Gnosis,” Greek for “knowledge.” Tommy takes his newfound wisdom and runs, finding fame from the music he and Hedwig created together. Despite forming a new band of European rockers and even marrying one of them, Hedwig does not move on from Tommy. She follows his tour schedule, traveling throughout the country to play in front of elderly people in slow restaurants, while Tommy plays arenas nearby. 

A major theme throughout the film is the “origin of love” — a myth claiming that the first humans were each two people put together (either two men, two women or a man and a woman) but were separated by the wrath of God, forced to roam the Earth looking for their other half. This motif relates to both Hedwig chasing Tommy after their split and the experience of not feeling quite whole as either a man or a woman. The film ends with Hedwig stripped of their drag, walking the streets naked to embrace an existence outside of the gender binary.

Describing Velvet Goldmine is a lot harder, maybe because I haven’t seen it nearly as many times and maybe because it’s fucking weird. So much happens, and yet, I have far less to recount. Let’s give it a shot: Arthur (Christian Bale, The Dark Knight, American Psycho) grew up in the glam rock era of the 70s in England. Ten years later, he is a reporter chasing the story of a rock star that he and many others used to idolize, Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Michael Collins, The Tudors), who faked his own death on stage and fell out of the spotlight after the bad publicity that resulted from the stunt, later secretly becoming a much more conservative musician. Arthur talks to Slade’s ex-wife, who recounts the rise and fall of both their marriage and his career. 

Similarly to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Slade creates an alter ego through his music, Maxwell Demon. This identity puts Slade at the forefront of public discourse, turning heads by being both outwardly androgynous and bisexual. Slade’s rise to stardom grants him the opportunity to collaborate with American star Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor, Trainspotting, Moulin Rouge!), with whom he develops a deep relationship and eventually has a falling out. As Slade’s lifestyle becomes increasingly extreme and his fame goes to his head, his marriage and career fall apart. 

Both of these films evoked similar emotional reactions: heartbreak, liberation and a yearning for their wardrobe, hair and makeup. Both embrace a fluid identity, warn about the risks of fame and fortune, showcase unlikable yet compelling protagonists and have fabulous soundtracks. While Hedwig felt like a much more straightforward film after watching the disjointed tangle that is Velvet Goldmine, it still deserves to be recognized for its artistic experimentation. The nonlinear narrative serves to slowly reveal Hedwig’s background rather than confuse viewers, and distinct, surrealist animation guides the narrative forward. The pacing in Hedwig is perfect, the movie breezing by, almost leaving me wanting more. Velvet Goldmine is 30 minutes longer, and I felt those minutes weighing on me by the time it dragged to its conclusion, having thought it was going to be over three times before it actually was. So I’m sorry to have not changed my mind by the end of it, but Hedwig’s reign as Queen of the Queers continues. –Braxtyn Birrell

Read more film reviews by Braxtyn Birrell:
Secondhand Screenings Presents: Guilty Pleasures
Last Call for Secondhand Screenings!

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