Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

This concert-film, mixed with concert footage, backstage looks and interview clips, highlights Bowie at his best. It is situated in a rock era that was actually coming to an end. Glam-rock was a new style that was very hot in the UK and it got its start in 1971. It would be the style that would help Bowie launch his career from performer to star. It was a style that would end its own reign by 1975. Bowie, after a slow start in the late 60s, would work in experimental music and styles. He again emerged in 1972 as the colorful and asexualized, alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. Complete with, psychedelic colors, gritty film stock and lot of awesome rock-and-roll, this film is an androgynous, flamboyant spectacle.

Be aware that this film is listed as 1983 also, because it was released in 1973, but only in a few theaters and film-festivals. It wasn't until Bowie got really huge in the 80s that the film was re-released ten years later. The film had a number of problems with the shooting of the concert. Director D. A. Pennebaker, who was only planning on shooting 20 minutes' worth of the concert, was so taken in by Bowie's amazing aura on stage, that they changed plans and shot the whole thing. Unfortunately, that caused extra challenges due to lack of cameramen, audio issues and lighting problems between the stage and the audience.

His simple solution for the lighting was telling everyone to take as many photos as possible so the flashes would help with the lighting issue. The initial release of the film in 1973 was deemed a sloppy mess. Even Bowie, who said in the film, that this was their last appearance as the Spiders From Mars, who would bail on the Ziggy persona a year or two later, lost interest in the film, because of the delays in getting the technical issues fixed, until they were able to clean things up for the 1983 re-release.

If you ask me those technical issues are what make this film so great. The grittiness of the film grain, because of the low light, the streakiness of the lights and colors, because of the film stock and the edgy, vinyl recording sound, all help to create this mood that I feel Bowie was trying to convey.

Bowie is all smiles throughout this film too. He obviously is having a lot of fun and thoroughly enjoys his craft. Even in moments when things get serious you still feel a playful positive mood coming off of him and out of the screen. His talent is beyond amazing, especially when you consider this was very early in his career. They do an amazing version of Space Oddity. All the songs are well done. This is a definitive version of what a cool concert film can be and it is even more interesting when you think about the fact that he would have an even more amazing career for the next 40 years after this.

7.8 (B- MyGrade) = 8 IMDB.

To look at Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and be much too critical of it, and this is now four months since David Bowie left his corporeal form (has it been that long already?) is difficult. I know I can certainly nitpick certain things, mostly in the streak of the 'auteur'; given that this is DA Pennebaker, who also brought us basically the definitive Dylan doc from the era a decade before this, Don't Look Back, and the precursor to Woodstock in Monterey Pop, this isn't quite as superlative as those films as far as the Cinema Verite fly-on-the-wall approach. There's some behind the scenes stuff, but it's not terribly involving (aside from seeing Bowie's make-up put on to make him Ziggy) as the conversations seem muted and uninteresting (yes, even with Ringo backstage which seems a feat).

BUT, and this is the big but here, I know deep down I don't care, at least as far as why I wanted to watch this again. And somehow, of all things, watching his life performance here of 'Space Oddity' finally made me cry. I don't know whether it would've brought me to tears (not for too long, just enough, and some of it was due to feeling a connection with the audience as a couple of people shown by Pennebaker's camera were also in tears), but it was in that moment it hit me: we won't get this again, not quite in this style, not quite in this style, not shot on such rough film and in such an atmosphere.

Of course there are still provocateurs in rock/pop (Marilyn Manson on the heavier side, Lady Gaga on the more space-driven and sexual, if it can somehow get more sexual than Bowie), but Bowie was his own sound much as Tarantino was and is his own filmmaker: taking from various sources (rock, blues, glam from T-Rex, the avant-garde rock of Lou Reed, Iggy Pop to an extent) and making it his own giant and unmistakbale SOUND in full caps. And don't forget this is David Bowie as Ziggy friggin Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - including the practically incomparable guitarist Mick Ronson on guitar playing like he's ten years ahead of the fashion and heavy metal stars only still in his own class - and playing off of all the works he'd done up through the masterpiece Aladdin Sane.

Here you get to see him perform many of his big hits (along with Oddity you get 'Changes' and 'Suffragette City' and his own rendition of 'All the Young Dudes' which he wrote), and Pennebaker and his crew are at times breathless to keep up and yet have enough cameras and sense to also get the crowd. The audience is a key part of this, even as at times it's hard to see all of them and the lights make it into its own stylized piece of filmmaking; they're often seen only briefly, and yet what we see is enough and, again, I think this helps to connect the audience watching the film further with the band. But for all the hits (and some covers, like 'White Light White Heat' and 'Let's Spend the Night Together'), the stand-outs here are the songs that people who only know Bowie from classic rock radio won't know as well.

By the time that Bowie and the Spiders get to 'Time', which is more indebted to German lounge singing of the early 20th century (Threepenny Opera anyone?), the softer but incredibly incisive 'My Death', and a wild, possibly overlong but who the hell cares rendition of his most metal-ish song 'The Width of a Circle', he's on fire as a performer and totally in control of how he can command a stage and an audience. In other words it may not be the perfect rock documentary, hence why it's not the full top-star rating. But as far as performances by mega-stars in their prime, this is a keeper (and ironic that this was his "final" performance, of course just the beginning of the many many Bowies). And yet the tears I had briefly watching this and coming to grips after months of feeling numb to his loss were I think the fact that he'd still be iconic if all he left was this.

Don't come expecting plot: Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is just a concert film, recorded at the last show of David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" tour at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, July 3rd, 1973. However, to say it's _just_ a concert film doesn't quite cover the bases... Let's be blunt: if you like the idea of the 26-year-old Bowie in a skimpy satin tunic and boots, growling into a microphone and spreading his thighs for the fans, then you're going to love this film. If that idea does nothing for you -- and, frankly, if it doesn't then I think you're missing one of life's great kicks -- then you're not the target audience.

I should add that there are also five or six costume changes, some amusing backstage conversation, plenty of shots of the audience (apparently mostly fourteen-year-old girls in varying states of sexual ecstasy), and some rather scorching extended solos from lead guitarist Mick Ronson. Oh, yes: and I shouldn't forget to mention that Bowie's showmanship is amazing and the musical performances range from interesting to excellent -- there's a truly fabulous version of "Cracked Actor," for instance, with Bowie maintaining a surprising level of fierceness while playing harmonica and draped in a satin kimono.

Beyond the music -- "Ziggy" staples like "Changes," "Space Oddity," "My Death," "All The Young Dudes," etc., as well as covers of the Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend The Night Together" and Lou Reed's "White Light, White Heat" -- the visual imagery is what really makes this interesting. The come-hither hip-shaking of "Moonage Daydream," or the guitar-sex-flavored performance of "Time" (with Bowie in unitard, garter and feather boa), all make this a fantastic education in what Bowie's original aesthetic -- and sex appeal -- were all about.

Personally, I think this is a _Gesamtkunstwerk_ -- that is, a total work of art -- and should probably be beamed into outer space for the aliens to have fun with. But you can probably figure out which segment of the audience I fall into.

P.S.: By the by, Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine made a hell of a lot more sense after I'd seen this film.

I have absolutely no idea what movie the vast majority of commenters were watching... For a start, Pennebaker's style of documentary is grainy and gritty through *choice* not "amateurism". It's called REALISM. I first saw "Ziggy" in a movie theatre in Germany and was completely blown away by its energy and freshness. I think it's a sad state of affairs that modern audiences are so dulled by CGI and DVD extras, that they can't appreciate a mind-blowing piece of cinema verite like this. This movie captures all of the sweat, hysteria and sheer balls of Bowie's final performance as Ziggy Stardust, and it's incredible.

but I like it. This is a terrific concert recorded 30 years ago by Bowie. Considering that Bowie is in his 50's now and still recording and touring this is an excellent opportunity to see him in his prime. His voice is in great shape & the songs are first rate. Ziggy is one of the peaks in Rock and Roll history. Also Mick Ronson is one of the greatest rock guitarists ever. Much has been made of the costumes & Bowie's use of mime etc. but it is the music which carries the day.