Scott’s Rating:
Admittedly, I appreciated David Bowie thoroughly but couldn’t have told you much about him before seeing this movie. I had as much information as the next casual onlooker- Ziggy Stardust, Labyrinth, challenged gender/sexuality norms, married Iman, great hair. Despite spending my life taking him for granted, however, his death left in me a lingering sense of sorrow at the loss of such a unique voice and talent. Little did I know just how much he had left to impart to the world, but thankfully director Brett Morgan has collected a series of soundbites and imagery to give voice to David Bowie once more in the captivating and utterly kaleidoscopic Moonage Daydream.
This is the most gobsmacked I’ve been by a documentary since probably Cameraperson and, before that, Exit Through the Gift Shop. All three have in common a distinct flair for re-contextualizing the various artforms they represent, and, in the case of Moonage Daydream, also feature a kick ass soundtrack beefed up with one of the densest and loudest sound mixes I’ve heard in a long time. (I cannot more thoroughly recommend the IMAX format for this- it is a symphony for the senses and a wonder to behold.)
As for the man himself, I have rarely seen a more thoughtful and adroit rendering of an artist. Much like Bowie, the film transcends the boundaries of its premise and is as much an examination of creative process as it is a portrait of a life well lived. The insights are often brief and suggestive, offering little more than passing thoughts on subjects like life, family, love, creativity, music, or fashion (those looking for a straight concert film or an exposé of major life events will be disappointed and possibly bewildered). But the aggregate of these sentiments and the changes in them throughout the course of the film gives one an understanding of his complexity, his insecurities, his art, and his humanity.
Where there are blanks to fill, Morgan does so by bombarding the screen with iconography from across early twentieth-century culture (particular attention is paid to German expressionism and early film history), suggesting influences and patterns of thought that give fresh context to Bowie’s earliest innovations.
Admittedly, certain chapters could have used more time to breathe- passages about his mother and stepbrother in particular feel truncated, merely gesturing in the direction of larger epiphany. But on the other hand, there probably is a degree of mystique to be maintained in honor of Bowie’s legacy. As eloquent as he was, he could be surprisingly cagey, and seemed to prefer keeping relationships at a distance for the vast majority of his life. Whether this was an act of emotional avoidance or an attempt at artistic enlightenment is anyone’s guess, but the film more or less concludes that either or both were in play at any given moment and does a fine job of illuminating how time and age can alter such fundamental holdings. Interestingly, it draws this conclusion from his own words in taped interviews over the course of his life, and I’m hard pressed to recall such a reversal of opinion from a public figure that was hiding in such plain sight.
What it might lack in comprehensiveness, it certainly makes up for in evocation- you very much walk away with a sense of the man and his achievements. Brett Morgan applies a technique not unlike collage to the project that quite brilliantly parallels his subject’s own abandon of artistic expression, and I am heartened and inspired to see modern filmmakers so willing to experiment with form. Because let’s be honest, the last thing you’d want from a movie about David Bowie is predictability.