While it's fair to call Moonage Daydream an energised and trippy collage of David Bowie material that works as a celebration of the artist and his art, something that a fan will certainly want to appreciate at least once, it's also fair to claim that this isn't really a documentary that seems to reveal anything truly new. Many of the Bowie clips used are taken from archival interviews, ensuring that Bowie is still often trying to keep some kind of persona in place to protect the real person, and a lot of the concert footage, while new, feels like stuff we've all seen already.
I like to consider myself a Bowie fan, but in the same way that so many others will consider themselves Bowie fans. I don't claim in-depth knowledge of his entire body of work, I cannot tell you the name of every track on every album, but I automatically mistrust anyone who doesn't have some connection with him, either through his music or through his pretty impressive selection of acting work. I'm a "Greatest Hits" fan, a "Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars" fan, and I consider my knowledge to be cursory, at best. But here's what I know wasn't given full, or any, coverage in this documentary: his first wife (Angie), his years spent as a functioning drug addict, his experimentation with fascism, the period in which he had sex with at least one underage groupie, and the relationships forged with other musicians that helped to strongly define chapters in his artistic life (Mick Ronson and Niles Rodgers are either shown for the briefest of moments, and I missed some of their screentime, or seem to be completely missing, although Brian Eno gets his due).
I hope some of you are already raising your eyebrows. That seems like quite a lot to miss out, even in a documentary that is officially authorized by the Bowie estate. I wouldn't expect everything to be covered, and appreciate that maybe not mentioning his two children was a way to keep the focus on his artistic life, but the more that ends up being conspicuously absent, the less rounded and satisfying the whole thing is. What you're left with is an overlong and repetitive selection of songs presented in different live incarnations, film clips often accompanying visuals without the right context (personally, I would have loved to hear anything more about The Man Who Fell To Earth, which is a sci-fi classic and an astonishingly brilliant collaboration between the cast and the visionary Nicolas Roeg), and soundbites that seem to deliberately show Bowie juxtaposing his own wit and charisma with the mundanity of other aspects of everyday life.
I enjoyed spending time with Bowie. Very few people wouldn't. But a documentary should do more than feed you scraps and expect you to feel grateful for them. And a documentary about David Bowie, clocking in at no less than 135 minutes, should struggle to cram in every worthwhile bit of audio and visual footage. While this is a feature-length music video selection, with Bowie tweaking his personalities ever so slightly as he bleeds from one chapter into another, it could have been much more than that. If writer-director Brett Morgen had decided to double the runtime, and pack MUCH more into this, then I would have been happy. As it is, however, this is a huge missed opportunity, and I'm not sure how it will play to anyone who isn't already a fan.
5/10
If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
No comments:
Post a Comment