David Bowie: Five Years

A lot of well deserved praise has been heaped on the work and life of David Bowie since his very sad death in January this year. One of his great gifts was spotting trends and seeing the way the wind was blowing before anyone else, a facility he retained right up till he passed on. This great documentary uses personal quotes from the legend, as well as his songs.. It was released just three years before he died, and there are some unexpected highlights, like a sequence of Bowie filmed at Andy Warhol's Factory, which suggested that Bowie's talent for mime wasn't all it's cracked up to be. The structure of Five Years makes it a lot more interesting than your usual pop documentary. Rather than try to talk about 50 years of pop super-stardom in two hours, the movie gives us five year-long snapshots. Things are brought up to speed at the end with a snippet of what we could call The Next Year. The follow up "David Bowie "The Last Five Years" is out next year

David Bowie: Five Years is a celebratory collage of his music career as the years are not consecutive.

The documentary begins in 1971, Bowie is flirting musically with Andy Warhol which did not work out. He has music but he needs an image. You have a picture of Angie Bowie yelling at him in a concert that was by two man and a dog. As journalist John Harris states, he projected himself as a star and it becomes true like some self fulfilling prophecy.

Bowie worked with very good musicians, Mick Ronson was influential and like a magpie he stole from the likes of Lou Reed and Iggy Pop.

By 1975, Bowie has killed off Ziggy Stardust and worked with black musicians to create a more soul based sound. Working with future stars like Luther Vandross who was his backing singer in the album Young Americans.

In 1977 Bowie had moved to Berlin and when for a stripped back sound. He recruited Brian Eno and Tony Visconti as producers. Robert Fripp came in as lead guitarist. By then Bowie had made a splash in acting and also had a well documented problem with drugs. The result was both Low and Heroes. It also marked of Bowie returning to a his more obtuse lyrics.

With a new decade. Bowie entered the MTV age. In 1980 he released Scary Monsters. Major Tom was updated accompanied in videos dressed like a clown. Videos allowed Bowie to explore both sound and vision.

In 1983 Bowie recruited Nile Rogers as producer and went for a more rock and funk sound in Let's Dance. It was by then his biggest album. He no longer felt like a cult star, now Bowie was filling concert stadiums.

This documentary had never seen before archive footage. Bowie never revealed much of himself in interviews, as a few commentator observed, he always held some of himself back from his fans. In some interviews from the 1970s you sense he is just high or jet lagged. I did think he had a dry sense of humour and an ordinary blokeishness which manifested more when he was clean.

There is nothing new here for Bowie fans. It is a celebration of Bowie's music. The interviews with his collaborators was more revealing.

First of all I wanted to mention one thing -- during one scene, a sort of a cappella version of "Starman" is part of the soundtrack. If somebody knows where I can find a copy of that beautiful remix, I would be most grateful! Still I almost doubt it was ever done to completion.... I hope I'm wrong because it is truly sublime.

I enjoyed watching this mainly for the clips of David Bowie himself, as tends to be the case. I wasn't thrilled by the omission of certain eras, but the media tends to focus most heavily on the Ziggy Stardust stuff anyway. I thought the production quality was really fine, and I enjoyed the relatively quick summary of his career. Really a great thing for an introduction to him as an artist, but not a whole lot of new information for anyone who has seen video clips online, read about him, and pieced together the personal history from their own "research."

Not TYPICAL MTV style Bio. This is ART as much as David Bowie is a True ARTIST! This Film which uses Music Videos/Rare Making Of, Live Stage Performances, David Bowie interviews, and various background info and Personal chats with many, many of his Musicians and Collaborators is breathtaking and a refreshing combination, in Film! Indeed, so numerous are the interviews yet sharing details which are heartfelt and honest. In the end, you and all those heard from know RockNRoll, Dance, and Alternative Music has been tremendously influenced by David Bowie! Bowie, all-the-while was simply living his life which created an art form like no other single Performer has in Past, or may ever come near, in future. *A MOVIE to Own!

This music documentary about David Bowies five most important and drug free years in the late 70'ies and start of the eighties is a must see for lovers of music, even for those not infatuated by Bowie and his music.

Amazing background interviews, time warp interviews and great music samples with video and concert clippings makes this amazing. Not too long either, though it could have lasted 2 hours without tiring me.

With songs like Heroes, China Girl, Let's Dance and all the other hits from he period, making him the best paid superstar in England, making EMI Records paying a record amount for signing on for five more albums, is interesting.

I think I became more of a Bowie fan after watching this. Great documentary making!