The way the Dylan folkies in the film react to his ‘betrayal’ of the Woody Guthrie–Pete Seeger acoustic tradition reminded me of how you [Haynes] in Velvet Goldmine characterize David Bowie's betrayal of glam and the spirit of Oscar Wilde. He’s an opportunistic hollow man who doesn’t care what his Ziggy Stardust image meant to people — adolescent gays and bisexuals — whom the movement liberated. The Bowie figure is so unsympathetic that in the end he’s even revealed to have had plastic surgery and allied himself with an Orwellian Fascist culture.

So why does Bowie’s shifting persona represent the ultimate sellout and Dylan’s the mark of a pure spirit?

David Edelstien, New York Magazine, 10/ 4/07