Moonage Daydream

David Bowie Moonage Daydream. 2hours 18 mins of Bowie, it's not your usual " talking heads" bigging up some old/ dead/ has been rock star who has a reissued album to flog. It's just Bowie, well it isn't? It's a beautifully compiled fast edited montage of Bowie, his music, visuals, interviews both on screen on audio and various clips of his many many influences. What I learnt about Bowie, he was constantly striving for his art, he was some times lost (mainly during his successful periods) and like all of us he wished could have more time towards the end. Most importantly he was really happy at the end of his life both emotionally, creatively and spiritually. There are loads of previously unseen clips and lots of unheard mixes of songs. Ps I love Bowie, 1980 I bought my first Bowie album on the day of its release (Scary Monsters) and I never looked back. If your not a fan I don't know how you'd take it, it's a fascinating work of art and totally enthralling so I'd give it 10/10 if your not a fan give it a watch and perhaps you'll see why people where heart broken when he passed away. Listen out for "Cygnet committee" there's a lovely choral version at the end, and watch until the end of the credits, David will speak just to you.

It was always going to be hard to capture David Bowie's life and career in documentary format, as even the standard, talking head interviews + archive footage in chronological order would fail to capture all the important information in just over two hours. More troubling, however, is the fact that an ordinary documentary wouldn't do justice to who Bowie was/wasn't/might've been. He had an eccentric and still somewhat mysterious life, adopting different personas that all had some relation to his true self, yet never seemed to perfectly reflect it.

This all makes the fairly abstract approach in Moonage Daydream feel mostly appropriate. The only voiceover you get is from archival David Bowie interviews, and even then are they rarely presented in a way most interviews in documentaries are presented. Right near the end, there's a single shot of Bowie looking just over the camera, at the interviewer, and it's such a jarring moment because of how "ordinary" it looks.

Snippets of interviews are instead mixed with concert footage, archive/news footage, shots from music videos, photos, some animation, and clips from films - some of which starred Bowie. The visual style does feel close to relentless, but never becomes exhausting. For as much as I really liked Brett Morgen's Kurt Cobain documentary from 2015, that one was an assault on the senses at times (but likely intentionally so). Moonage Daydream is a little mellower and less in your face, but I think it lacks the hard-hitting emotion of Cobain: Montage of Heck.

For as great as Moonage Daydream is at capturing a good deal of Bowie's music and style, I don't think it's a slam-dunk, and part of that comes from it not making me feel as emotional as I'd expected it would. Maybe that was never the intention, and maybe instead, things were purposefully kept a little abstract. Still, it never went so far as to feel cold or too distant, and it remained engaging at a relatively lengthy 135 minutes (the perfect length; I think any longer and it may have become fatiguing).

I don't think all David Bowie fans will love this, because it doesn't always explain events clearly and spends a good deal of time on some of the less well-known periods of his life. But if you approach it with the knowledge that it's not an "ordinary" documentary the same way your average Bowie album is not an "ordinary" album, you should find a good deal to appreciate and enjoy.

Epic and opulent like the man's life and career, "Moonage Daydream" splashes a kaleidoscope of sounds and colors celebrating David Bowie's legacy. Eschewing the traditional chronological narrative director Brett Morgen with excellent editing paints a collage of images and music using live gigs, music videos and interviews throughout Bowie's time in the limelight ornamenting them with clips from films and acted scenes. Bowie comes across as handsome, intelligent and articulate as he expresses himself conveying his one of a kind talent. I would have preferred a traditional kind of documentary to set the basics on what made Bowie great. The loose style of the film barely reveals the man's importance except for fans. Clocking in at over two hours long the way the film is made leads to tediousness and slow parts which does this fascinating and eclectic artist a disservice. No surprise the great music buoys this up from start to finish. Timely and a fitting tribute "Moonage Daydream" is one for fans and to those who want to know why back in the day Rock was everything.

There's much to like here. Visually interesting and it gave me a deeper appreciation of Bowie as a person. Some very sage quotes and sound bites. At one point I felt quite sad and thought Bowie was quite lonely/dissatisfied with life, but then the film ended with some brilliant statements from the man himself.

But. It was a bit of a mess with the story telling. Jumped about quite a bit and I can't help but feel it missed the last 15 years of his life? I also think it was too long and could've been easily less than 2 hours.

Interesting watch but not one I'd go back to. Definitely a one-time experience.

It's more of a series of musical montages than a biopic, really. This seems to be Morgen's shtick at this point. Some montages work better than others and while I didn't find the movie that pretentious, as others have said, some montages were just drawn out too long even if they were pretty cool.

It might have been better to take a more balanced approach where there is more actual information presented about Bowie's life and career (there was some but not enough, IMO). This movie is short on details in that regard; it paints over everything in Bowie's career with a broad brush and goes into very little detail re: how, exactly, his career progressed. The overarching message presented is nice but fairly cliche: embrace life, appreciate each day, live in the present moment, etc. Nevertheless, it will still be enjoyable for those who like Bowie's music.