Bowie: The Man Who Changed the World

I'm a die-hard Bowie fan from before Ziggy Stardust. This new release confirmed my hopes & desires to see something different about Mr. Jones so I was pleasantly surprised. It may not be especially interesting to casual fans, but Bowie zealots will treasure these new interviews with friends who document the making of an icon. It examines how Bowie was responsible for pioneering the most groundbreaking fashion trends of the twentieth century. How he refused to conform to 'masculine' expectations and ended up changing the face of music. His shifting identities served a purpose, but even when all the "confusion" is stripped away, he still retained an enigmatic mystique. Sadly, there's no Bowie music in this, but it's well constructed and overall, the movie serves to help illuminate to Bowie fans on who the man really was.

If it hadn't been for a few good interviews with David, seemingly made by others in different times (plus an odd phone video that is nevertheless quite interesting) this almost tabloid style tale of David Bowie's life wouldn't have been worth watching and certainly isn't worthy for such a great and unique artist like David Bowie.

Some people from Bowie's life tell a few stories, but the life story that this film attempts to illuminate is sketchy and jumpy, which is only underlined by the interspersed still photos typically from the wrong era and usually the wrong video material for the events being presented and multiple times also being repeated for seemingly no good reason. It's like a film school project and I'm not sure Andersson is passing the exam either.

I hadn't seen much of this before, so found it somewhat interesting nevertheless, but the absence of any Bowie music made the experience very odd and the editing, well, it's not very good, is it?

I had just finished reading "On Bowie" by Rob Sheffield, which was a touching a passionate tribute to the late singer. I thought that this documentary would be the perfect follow-up, providing a clear portrait of the man's life, art, and personality set against the social climate of the decades that saw his rise in popularity.

It absolutely wasn't. It was a directionless mess, with the sort of obnoxious narration and editing one might expect from a celebrity news program - phony, superficial, and without a clear vision or narrative driving it. You see the same pictures over and over again, the same interviews are sampled. It's an exercise in monotony.

You could easily complain about who wasn't interviewed for this documentary, but more egregious is the fact that the film couldn't even secure the rights to Bowie's music. Can you imagine a Jimi Hendrix movie that didn't feature his rendition of The Star Spangled Banner? Or a Prince movie where we don't hear "Kiss"?

And yet this movie references "Space Oddity" and "Fame" without a single note of these iconic songs. No clips of "The Man Who Fell To Earth", "Labyrinth", or any of his music videos. There is footage of his live performances with the audio removed because who wants to watch a movie about a singer and actually hear them sing?

This is a crass and tasteless movie that was clearly cobbled together after Bowie's death in an attempt to exploit his grieving fans. He deserved better. His fans deserve better.

"The Man Who Changed The World" is yet another celebrity-documentary to be released in the wake of the tragic death of pop-idol, David Bowie in 2016.

There can be no denying that at the very pinnacle of his popularity - Bowie had a phenomenal influence (as had Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson) on the direction of pop music and on the contemporary fashions of his generation.

Through stills, interviews, and film clips (from various stages in Bowie's career) - "The Man Who Changed The World" offers the viewer a fond reminiscence of a dynamic individual who was greatly admired, emulated, and respected by millions of adoring fans from all across the face of this planet.

I am late to the party on this one, but this is the David Bowie story I didn't know. It's the young David Jones from Bromley, who was a singer looking for a personality, and spent his life trying to win his mother's approval. It follows his early career, a long apprenticeship in which he picks up the tricks that would make him famous. The dire mime days, the way he mimicked the style of Anthony Newley, and then got banned by the BBC. It took 11 years for him to achieve fame with Ziggy Stardust.

There a lot of voices fitted in here. The tender but candid recollections from Mary Finnegan and Dana Gillespie of their years with Bowie, and Russell Harty asking bizarre questions. Overall, it was pretty damn good.