“Don’t expect classic, no beginning, middle, end”: Moonage Daydream by Brett Morgen, who is already director of a documentary on Kurt Cobain, violates the rules of the genre in his film David Bowie.
Forget the classic formats with specialists or close interpreters heroes passing in front of the camera in recording studios. Here, we only hear and see David Bowie speaking, with unpublished archives not divided in order but according to themes (the process of creation, art and money, etc.).
Synthetic images were specially created to punctuate the chapters, playing with the galaxy and stars. Obviously for an artist who, among other things, has created for his song Space Oddity the character of the astronaut Major Tom.
Between these visuals and the performer’s 48 remastered songs, the public experiences what is close to a immersive experience, as in a planetariumin the words of Brett Morgen, the AFP met at the 75th Cannes Film Festival where this documentary was shown outside of competition.
A heartfelt film for the filmmaker
This American, who signed Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck, more traditional in style, gave a high tone to the side of the festival. It took him five years in this job and it was the first of its kind that Bowie’s heirs had allowed since he died in 2016. They let Morgen open the treasure chests.
The singer of Aladdin Sane and the actor The man from another place may very important to me at some stage of my lifeexplanation by the filmmaker. First in 11-12, in adolescence, when I discovered It was powerful, at the time I wanted to be me, not my parents.
Then he met her in the 2000s for a project. This is not the [bon] time for him, thank goodness, because I’m not yet where I need to be for a Bowie movie. [rires]. When the creator of Ziggy Stardust died, he was ready to blow up the frame of the documentary.
One of the people in charge of Bowie’s estate confessed to him that David had collected and preserved his archives. Not for traditional work, but more for immersive diving like my target.
And then Morgen (53 now) had a heart attack and went into a coma. Returned, the philosophy, the words, the art of Bowie rang out to him more than ever.
“Death, reincarnation, Bowie talks about it from the beginning, as in the song Silly Boy Blue“, He insisted, draw a parallel with the phrase of Black startitle track from Briton’s final album, which also tells of death and the legacy left by creation.
A picture that does not hide shadows
Moonage Daydream (piece of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust …) is so attached to the appetite of an actor with 1000 faces. The most interesting is not the opening part with the musician’s considerations of space and time.
The documentary reached its target when we saw the creator cut out pieces of sentences on paper to randomly assemble them and give content to his songs, a technique often described, but not shown.
We also see pictures of Jeff Beck, guitarist of the Yardbirds, playing with Bowie on stage. Someone may be scared of a hagiography controlled by rights holders, but photos of a Bowie with hollow cheeks and compulsive sniffles testify to the dark era of addiction.
And a sequence with the famous soft drinks brand, sponsoring a tour and the source of an advertisement with Bowie and Tina Turner, puts the artist in front of his contradictions in art and money.
A meaningful passage also allows us to appreciate Bowie’s artist talents and we recognize on the canvases the singer Iggy Pop, a close friend.
Source: Radio-Canada
