Freak Out in a Moonage Daydream Oh Yeah!
The new David Bowie documentary reveals the Space Oddity to be supremely down to earth
I had the great pleasure of being invited to watch a sneak preview of the new Brett Morgen documentary on David Bowie, Moonage Daydream, in an IMAX theater in San Francisco.
I’ll admit that although I was open to attending this screening, I was not overly excited to see the film. I’d already seen a couple of decent, biographically-leaning Bowie docs (Sound and Vision, 5 Years). What more was there to say about the Thin White Duke that hadn’t already been said?
Apparently, a lot.
Including a bonus piece for Earworms & Song Loops, written by fellow Substacker and music historian Brad Kyle on the (maybe not so) secret history of the song “Moonage Daydream.” Be on the lookout for that one in your inbox shortly! Here’s how to read Brad’s other pieces:
I was grateful to have read literally nothing about Moonage Daydream ahead of time. All I knew was that Brett Morgen was the director. I had found his previous documentaries — The Kid Stays in the Picture about film producer Robert Evans, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (about, um, Kurt Cobain) and Jane, about Jane Goodall — captivating, illuminating and stylistically unique from one another. So I knew I was in good hands; yet I was still skeptical.
When I entered the IMAX theater, I expected to be blown away by the documentary’s technical achievements. The masterful editing and effects. The immersive in-your-face sound design. One isn’t given an international IMAX distribution deal without the film having some pretty incredible visuals and sonic adventurousness.
This was indeed the case with Moonage Daydream, as often, beneath the layers of archival footage and never-before-seen photographs, were beds of abstract graphics and animations designed in the art styles that Bowie himself was directly influenced by and admired. Sometimes the backdrops took on a minimalist sci-fi vibe and other times they took on an abstract expressionist motif.
We even see footage of Bowie painting directly onto a giant canvas on the ground, his movements and gestures dance-like and trance-like, clearly a nod to Jackson Pollack.
What I truly appreciated about Moonage Daydream is the way Morgen taps into the inspired artist side of Bowie. He’s less interested in his celebrity status, he wants to show the viewer how important exploration and wonder and play were to Bowie’s creative process.
And it was never just about music or performing. We spend time with Bowie the painter, Bowie the movie actor, Bowie the sketch artist, Bowie the dancer, Bowie the Broadway actor, Bowie the sculptor, Bowie the mime.
Bowie the man, the artist, was always looking for new ways to express himself. New sources of inspiration. It was never about being the most accomplished musician, the biggest rock god, a Hollywood movie star.
In a recent interview with director Brett Morgen on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, Maron mentions that it was hard for him to watch the documentary because it deflated all the elevated mystique he’d formed about Bowie. He wasn’t ready to witness the rock and roll icon admit to struggling at times with confidence. To see him unafraid to show his vulnerability. Kill Yr Idols, Marc! I wanted to yell at my windshield as I listened to the interview.
I agreed with Marc that it was surprising and illuminating how well the film demystifies Bowie’s almost alien, unknowable persona. But instead of finding it hard to watch, like Maron, I drunk it all in like the finest of wine. I could feel my own heart opening up as I watched clips of Bowie gushing about how free he felt finding true love the day he met Iman. When an interviewer repeats back to David a statement he’d made a decade earlier about how love only gets in the way of making art, David’s response was “I sure would like to take that idiotic statement back,” or something to that effect.
Although I’ve always loved the music of David Bowie, I’m far from being a fanboy. Until my mid-20s (roughly the time of his Tin Machine years), the only CDs I owned of Bowie were the greatest hits collections ChangesOneBowie and ChangesTwoBowie. I eventually dove deep into his catalog (quite late, I admit) and fell in love with his 1970s-era albums — Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Alladin Sane, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, Station to Station, Low, Heroes, Lodger, Scary Monsters (can you think of a stronger string of 10 albums?) — though I’d always viewed Bowie more as a rock god than as an actual living, breathing person with doubts and insecurities, who had to wipe his ass and brush his teeth just like me.
This was partly due to the way the media portrayed him, but also it had to do with the way he portrayed himself as well. With each subsequent album, he’d reinvent himself, forming an entirely new persona, new appearance, and often, a new sound. Everything about him was bold and convention-busting, but it was hard to get a handle on who David Bowie the human being was.
Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Alladin Sane, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, Station to Station, Low, Heroes, Lodger, Scary Monsters (can you think of a stronger string of 10 albums?)
By the time I discovered Bowie’s more experimental, identity-shifting “sound and vision” during his 1970s heyday, he'd already moved into his debonair, commercial, dance-oriented Let’s Dance phase. He’d become a big time movie actor too. Starring in big Hollywood films like The Hunger and Labyrinth.
On the outside, it might have appeared that Bowie had veered into a more visually and sonically conventional direction, but, as the documentary reveals half-way into the film, during a TV interview clip in 1982 — one year before Let’s Dance would be released — Bowie had grown tired of all the characters and symbols, of the esoteric recording techniques and song-writing methods he’d been using. He wanted to dance and he wanted to tap into his love for R&B and Soul. He was creating a new persona, one of popular rock star.
This was happening with many of the 70s rock and roll “Heroes.” Bruce Springsteen would release Born in the USA and Tina Turner recorded the multi-platinum Private Dancer in the early 80s. The music industry was booming and money was flowing like water, so it made sense why a lot of our greatest musical artists from the 70s would want to cash in after decades of struggling to survive financially.
Although I did enjoy Let’s Dance and find “Modern Love” an instant classic, it definitely was a hard album to love, compared to everything that came before. I don’t want to begrudge him his foray into superstardom, but Let’s Dance, for a lot of Bowie fans, signaled the end of their obsession with him.
After that, Bowie released two of his worst albums in terms of critical acclaim as well as musical evolution: Tonight (1984) and Never Let Me Down (1987). A couple of decent songs on each, but definitely not essential Bowie.
Then, in 1989 he decided to mix it up a bit, reappearing as the front man for a brand new band. Tin Machine. It was a true band this time, Bowie wasn’t the main songwriter and it seemed as though he really tried to share the baton in terms of how the band presented in the public eye. But was this yet another one of his personas? Or was David genuinely tired of having the spotlight aimed so directly onto him and wanting to be part of a rock and roll band again? The film doesn’t explore this, but to this fan, it seemed that when Bowie returned to writing music for his own projects again, he was newly inspired.
I’m not going to bore you with an album by album dissection, but I will say that during the 90s and early Aughts, when Bowie would release 7 mostly forgotten albums (Black Tie White Noise, Outside, The Buddha of Suburbia, Earthling, Hours, Heathen, and Reality) he was in a creative fertile period. Sure, none are as immediately entrancing as Ziggy Stardust or Scary Monsters, but I’ve been dipping back into those late-era albums over the past week since seeing the film and they are all worth revisiting or visiting for the first time.
You can skip the 2nd and 3rd Tin Machine albums though.
I did not expect to leave the theater feeling like I might understand David Bowie, the sensitive, sometimes shy man of many talents. A person just like you and me, who struggles with loneliness and self-doubt. A man who viewed making art as a way to better understand himself. Yet that is exactly what happened. The film gave us a peak behind the curtain, let us see the human being behind the enigma.
Moonage Daydream the film, like David Bowie the person, is a piece of art. It’s unlike any documentary I’ve ever seen before. It follows no logical chronology, it has no clear story arc, it is chaotic (a term Bowie uses often when discussing his work), yet it is always moving forward and is never less than captivating.
And Morgan, having been given access to hundreds of hours of never-before-seen footage of Bowie throughout his career, was able to piece together a portrayal of Bowie as a seeker, a curious traveller, a man who lived for the moment, in the moment. The only spoken words are audio clips from Bowie himself. There are no talking heads. We never meet any close friends or family members telling stories of wild parties or salacious scandals. No ex-band mates appear to recount “the good old days.” The only voices we hear other than David Bowie are of TV interviewers from talk shows during the 70s and 80s and even a bit from the 21st century. We watch as Bowie tries to answer — genuinely, thoughtfully — to homophobic and provocative questions regarding his sexuality and his fashion choices. He never chides the journalists for their infantile lines of questioning.
Bowie’s kindness, his thoughtfulness is on constant display in the film.
Moonage Daydream was the most inspiring cinematic experience I’ve had in years. It’s certainly a visual and audio feast, with never before released concert footage and broll from movie clips that only serve to cement Bowie’s brilliance as a live performer and actor.
But more important than the bonus footage and gorgeous graphics, in Moonage Daydream, we get to know David Bowie the artist and human being from the inside, from the outside, from above, below, to the left and the right. It’s that immersive.
Moonage Daydream is hopefully screening in a theater near you. It’s not necessary to see it in IMAX, but I do suggest seeing it in a theater, ideally with a great dolby surround sound system and hundreds of your closest friends.
It's hard to give you a standing ovation, Steve, and write a glowing appreciation for your work at the same time! But, I'll give it a stab! Beautifully written to be sure, but you gave such a colorfully-described overview of the Bowie canon, while also making me want to go see the film that much more!
I agreed with a lot of your critiques (good and bad for all the "right" albums!) for the musical twists and turns Bowie made, but in real time, I just rolled with his punches, and it never occurred to me to abandon his work, eager, at the very least, to check out each new album.
Again, well done, Steve!
Nice post, Steve.
I’m one of the few in my circle of friends who was never taken with Bowie. I’ve dipped into a few singles here and there and always admired him as an artist but never took a deep dive into his body of work. I do, however, love a good rock doc and this one looks to be quite spectacular. After reading this week’s blog, I plan to reach out to a few friends (maybe not a few hundred) to set a date to see Moonage Daydream on the big screen.
Side note: You accidentally turned Tina Turner into Elton John. Her 80’s hit album is Private Dancer, rather than Tiny Dancer. 😁