David Bowie: The Last Five Years

Being born in 1960 I had the privilege of listening to David Bowie and watching his TV and movie performances for most of my life. This documentary really shows his ability and love of his craft right to the unfortunate end. I hope many people can take from this who suffer in any way what true strength and heart can do. I hope even though he's gone that the current and coming generations will appreciate his pure talent was and I believe this film shows just that. Bravo Tony Visconti, Carlos Alamar and others who knew him for your support and help through his career and your presence in this documentary. Having those only who actually knew him and not others who can only comment on his talent was a relief. Of all the documentaries I've watched through the years about someone famous this is the only one I give 10/10.

Last five years of the great star's life, but really a review of his career with studio versions of his songs played over obscure live footage.

Most interesting thing I took from it is the Major Tom element. At one point Bowie says it was his internal dialogue made manifest, then there's an image of a skeleton orbiting in space, then a skeleton discovered inside a spacesuit, then an adaptation of Heroes for Lazarus, then screw heads for eyes over a bandage in a death bed. You had to be there.

Overall: engaging, gets more interesting in the end.

Usually fake reviews give movies a 10. This time there are a bunch of haters giving this a 1.

Not sure why, unless they are just fake. This is a top notch, rather sentimental, documentary that explores Bowie as he was dying.

It also shows his transition into a rather decent person.

For those who wanted more Bowie -- how much more? He was in EVERY scene!!!!

And remember, haters, this is not a biography of the guy. It's a doumentary on the last 5 years of this life. It's poignant and relevant ands really well done. I generally get bored out of my mind 20 minutes into one of these kind of films. This one captured my attention throughout.

first we don't have to do a documentary about bowie in his last five years his 70,s and 80,s years were excited they should do a documentary about that should be cool how he started his career the wild of drugs,alcohol of 70's the england movement of 60,s and 70,s could be interesting for me but this film is boring sorry sorry telling the truth.

The more famous he became, the more ordinary David Bowie wanted to be. When he resided in Switzerland he was known as plain David Jones.

I heard since 2012 that Bowie's health was not so good. It had been some years since he was regularly seen in public.

So fans and critics were surprised when Bowie released The Next Day album in 2013.

In January 2016 the rock world was shocked when his death was announced just a few days after the release of the Blackstar album.

This documentary more than just looks at the last five years of his life. Bowie had health problems when he toured in 2004 and in the years after he seemed to have withdrawn from the public limelight.

We hear from collaborators on his final albums, some of them recreate the sounds from those albums. You can sense the surprise and joy they had been asked to record with Bowie. We also hear from directors who made the videos to accompany the songs from these final years and there was the collaboration he did for a stage musical. Some of them knew he was ill and that his time was short.

The most striking thing about this documentary was to hear from Bowie that his biggest regret was to lose some of his best years to drug addiction. A lot of performers whether they are actors or musicians claim that they regret taking drugs and I am never sure they are ever sincere. Bowie seemed to be here.

In ways this was a low key documentary but it was fascinating. Director Francis Whately seemingly did not have much to go on because Bowie was away from the limelight for so much of the last decade of his life.