By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Brett Morgen
Country: germany, united_states
Year: 2022
Running time: 135
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9883832/reference/
Cheryl says: “I had high hopes for this documentary and was really looking forward to seeing it when I finally made it to the Arlington Capitol for the last night of its 3-plus week run.
“The promo promised never-before-seen live performance footage, which would have been enough to satisfy me, but the film also delivered a large dose of Bowie’s philosophy interspersed with film clips from an eclectic mix of 20th century auteurs like Fellini, one of the artist’s many influences.
“David Bowie continues to defy convention, and Morgen does his subject justice by splicing together interviews, still photos, concert footage, TV news, and mid-century sci-fi movies in an experimental visual collage that transports the viewer to another realm. The editing not only suits Bowie’s aesthetic as a musician, painter, cinematographer, writer, and performance artist, but it also succeeds in elevating the film from the established genre limitations of the rock doc biopic.
“I only saw Bowie perform live once, on his 1983 Serious Moonlight Tour at Sullivan Stadium in Foxboro. Featured in the film, the concert left me feeling disconnected from the giant video screen images, but the music and his charisma infused the crowd with an intense energy that somehow managed to reach the entire sold-out crowd. After Bowie died unexpectedly in 2016, I attended a tribute concert at the Wilbur Theater in Boston, with his former band mates playing the songs he made so famous, anthems for a new queer audience around the world; there too he was ever-present. His spirit continues to emit an inimitable joie de vivre even now. As I watched the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders concert on screen, I was in the audience, with the screaming fans in London in the 1970s. Morgen established his doc cred with his previous features, THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE and COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK. Here, in 134 minutes, the director frames the transient trajectory of the life of a true innovator, and captures the ineffable essence of a great modern artist. Not to be missed. 4.5 space cats“
Tom M. responds: “Love the space cat rating 🙂 The story of making the movie and how Morgen almost died it wind/intriguing, it also underscores the importance of having the artist or their estate involved, see STARDUST and VELVET GOLDMAIN and RE Brian Jones, STONE, it can really kill the film, though Haynes did some nice end arounds in GOLDMINE. The inherent bad of ‘involved’ however is control over or input into the project…