BOOK 160: GIOVANNI'S ROOM: JAMES BALDWIN

The book focuses on the events in the life of an American man living in Paris and his feelings and frustrations with his relationships with other men in his life, particularly an Italian bartender named Giovanni whom he meets at a Parisian gay bar.

Giovanni's Room is noteworthy for bringing complex representations of homosexuality and bisexuality to a reading public with empathy and artistry, thereby fostering a broader public discourse of issues regarding same-sex desire.

Baldwin admitted that his publisher first told him to "burn" the book because the theme of homosexuality would alienate him from his readership among black people. However, upon publication critics tended not to be so harsh thanks to Baldwin's standing as a writer. Giovanni's Room was ranked number 2 on a list of the best 100 gay and lesbian novels compiled by The Publishing Triangle in 1999.

(Information from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni's_Room)

Film 803: Velvet Goldmine

Trivia: Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Ewan McGregor sang their own songs in the movie. (Some of Rhys Meyers's songs were overdubbed by Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke.)

When Brian first sees Mandy, he says "Do you jive?" That's what David Bowie is supposed to have said when he first saw his first wife, Angela Bowie.

During the Festival sequence where Brian sees Curt perform for the first time, Ewan McGregor was only due to moon the disgruntled crowd. But inspired by the antics of Iggy Pop, he improvised, and ended up gesticulating wildly while flashing the audience, leaping about with his trousers around his ankles.

When Christian Bale and Ewan McGregor were filming their sex scene, the director cut without letting them know, so the two continued to simulate the act until they realized the trick that had been played on them.

The Curt Wild character is mainly inspired by David Bowie's relationship with two American 1960's underground rockers whose careers Bowie resurrected, 'Iggy Pop(I)' and Lou Reed. Iggy Pop hailed from Michigan and shared Wild's long blond locks, while Reed underwent shock therapy for bisexuality as a teen and was rumored to have had an affair with Bowie before their falling out after Bowie produced Reed's album Transformer. Much central to the film is fictionalized such as the mythical, mysterious decade-long disappearance of "Slade", although he reincarnated himself as Tommy Stone, a blonde with a white suit (the 'thin white duke'). Bowie wasn't as huge of a star as Slade is depicted here and never withdrew for so long from the public-eye as did the film's character.

Courtney Love considered supplying music to the film's soundtrack, however after viewing a rough cut she withdrew, claiming that the character of Curt Wild too closely resembled her late husband Kurt Cobain both in character and physicality. The Wild/Cobain parallel later became a much-discussed point among critics, and while director Todd Haynes and actor Ewan McGregor have noted similarities between Cobain and Wild, both claim the resemblance was unintended. Haynes, for his part, notes that Cobain borrowed many style traits from Iggy Pop, who served as partial basis for the Wild character.