1192 Moonage Daydream

[Big Ben]

Teaser for Moonage Daydream. Looking forward to this. Whatever it really is.

[DarkImbecile]

Teaser for Moonage Daydream. Looking forward to this. Whatever it really is.

Maybe it was the mild effects of getting COVID booster and flu shots earlier in the day, but I was in just the right state of feverish receptivity to be beamed up by Brett Morgen’s hallucinogenic and deafening kaleidoscope of a music documentary, Moonage Daydream. Even as only the most casual of Bowie appreciators, I found Morgen’s depiction of the musical and cultural iconoclast as an irrepressible fount of creativity near impossible to resist, even if some of its structural ambitions exceed his grasp.

Relying almost solely on Bowie’s voice — both as an artist and for recollections about his ever-malleable identities, philosophies, and artistic Interests — keeps you as immersed in his point of view as possible, which is a pleasurable and stimulating place to be. I’m not sure how much new information any superfans are getting (and there were multiple in Ziggy Stardust facepaint at my screening), but as ignorant as I am the limited dips into Bowie’s upbringing and career shifts were illuminating enough.

Most segments of the film build up to a concert sequence after some table setting by Bowie describing where his globetrotting artistic impulses have led him; probably my favorite is a killer performance of “Cracked Actor” over a delirious, pseudo-Lynchian montage of his time in Los Angeles which hints at but doesn’t explicitly comment on his burgeoning addictions and flirtation with political extremism.

The film’s shortcoming is in its awkward length: 2h15m feels like too much if the aim is to give an unstructured impression of Bowie’s impact and influence, and too short given the largely chronological structure Morgen adopts, lingering on certain eras for 20+ minutes at a time and gliding past others with minimal visual or auditory evidence that they happened at all. Feels like either a tighter, faster film or a longer, even more luxuriant experience would have been preferable.

Perhaps the most pleasant of the film’s surprises was the sheer volume of cinematic references made in Morgen’s montages — not just Bowie’s own remarkable work as an actor and creator of avant garde videos, but multiple visuals from Lang, Murnau, Ōshima, and others. As to the “deafening” descriptor above, I saw this in IMAX and while I have no doubt that this was far and away the best format in which to see the film, I also have little doubt that I received roughly as much ear damage as I would have at an actual two-hour concert without ear protection.

[J Wilson]

Maybe it was the mild effects of getting COVID booster and flu shots earlier in the day, but I was in just the right state of feverish receptivity to be beamed up by Brett Morgen’s hallucinogenic and deafening kaleidoscope of a music documentary, Moonage Daydream. Even as only the most casual of Bowie appreciators, I found Morgen’s depiction of the musical and cultural iconoclast as an irrepressible fount of creativity near impossible to resist, even if some of its structural ambitions exceed his grasp.

Relying almost solely on Bowie’s voice — both as an artist and for recollections about his ever-malleable identities, philosophies, and artistic Interests — keeps you as immersed in his point of view as possible, which is a pleasurable and stimulating place to be. I’m not sure how much new information any superfans are getting (and there were multiple in Ziggy Stardust facepaint at my screening), but as ignorant as I am the limited dips into Bowie’s upbringing and career shifts were illuminating enough.

Most segments of the film build up to a concert sequence after some table setting by Bowie describing where his globetrotting artistic impulses have led him; probably my favorite is a killer performance of “Cracked Actor” over a delirious, pseudo-Lynchian montage of his time in Los Angeles which hints at but doesn’t explicitly comment on his burgeoning addictions and flirtation with political extremism.

The film’s shortcoming is in its awkward length: 2h15m feels like too much if the aim is to give an unstructured impression of Bowie’s impact and influence, and too short given the largely chronological structure Morgen adopts, lingering on certain eras for 20+ minutes at a time and gliding past others with minimal visual or auditory evidence that they happened at all. Feels like either a tighter, faster film or a longer, even more luxuriant experience would have been preferable.

Perhaps the most pleasant of the film’s surprises was the sheer volume of cinematic references made in Morgen’s montages — not just Bowie’s own remarkable work as an actor and creator of avant garde videos, but multiple visuals from Lang, Murnau, Ōshima, and others. As to the “deafening” descriptor above, I saw this in IMAX and while I have no doubt that this was far and away the best format in which to see the film, I also have little doubt that I received roughly as much ear damage as I would have at an actual two-hour concert without ear protection.

I tend to agree with your assessment. Even as a huge Bowie fan, I found myself thinking it felt even longer than it was. The footage from the Isolar II tour was great to see and I wish we'd get a restored version of that released. My main complaint though was the volume level; as you said, this was brutally loud, the loudest thing I've even seen in a movie theater. I was thinking of maybe seeing it again, but I'll bring my concert earplugs if I do.

[senseabove]

While I can't say I hated it, I thought Moonage Daydream was about as illuminating and immensely more exhausting than a Behind the Music special, and seemed to want little more than to assure viewers that whatever he said at the time, at least in retrospect, Bowie, too, thought Let's Dance was vapid. Bowie has been one of the longest running and most continually surprising artistic presences in my life, from a teenage obsession sparked by Velvet Goldmine to, twenty years later, a recent fascination with the maligned 90s albums; while I may be more than a casual fan, I'm far from a superfan—e.g. I've never watched any of the concert films besides Ziggy, seen with friends shortly after his death—and yet this brought nothing new to the table except perhaps never once actually using the word "cocaine" during coverage of the Cracked Actor period. Yet it's still frequently bewildering and endlessly frustrating in its rambunctiousness and nonsensical mixing of eras, albums, and ephemera. I think we get one single, complete performance of one single, complete song, and it's in the first ten minutes, lifted directly from the Pennebaker doc. The career evaluation is completely received; aside from a brief segment focusing on his painting wherein we are shown a slideshow of the work while Bowie talks about it—which by that point feels nearly avant-garde in its straight-forwardness—it has no interest in re-evaluating or re-situating any of his work: the first album doesn't exist, the 70s were good, fame made him a little wacky, the 80s were a downhill ride, and the 90s (which I've come to think of as some of Bowie's most fascinating, if admittedly uneven, work)... well, they happened, I guess: you get mention of his marriage to Iman, the implication that choosing a romantic relationship meant an end to his being an interesting artist, and a montage of some concert performances with inexplicable inserts from various cyberpunk movies, like Johnny Mnemonic, to whose soundtrack Bowie was asked to contribute, though at Eno's suggestion he declined—which is not something I learned from this doc. Overall I admit that it's interesting in its attempt to almost completely rely on visceral impact and vague impression, but unfortunately, footage from the Blackstar music videos aside, that impression is twenty years out of date (and Bowie's only been dead for a little over five!).

[yoloswegmaster]

from today's NEON press release:
NEON’S SLATE OF AWARD WINNING FILMS TO JOIN THE CRITERION COLLECTION, INCLUDING ALICE DIOP’S SAINT OMER, LAURA POITRAS’S ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED, RUBEN ÖSTLUND’S TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, BRETT MORGEN’S MOONAGE DAYDREAM AND CELINE SCIAMA’S PETITE MAMAN

Interesting that they are releasing Moonage Daydream when NEON/Decal already released it on blu a couple months ago.

[DarkImbecile]

It’s going to be a decent looking UHD, I’d imagine

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

I wonder if they'll release it in conjunction with Velvet Goldmine.

[Mario G.]

Interesting that they are releasing Moonage Daydream when NEON/Decal already released it on blu a couple months ago.

Even more interesting because Morgen mentioned on twitter (during one of his numerous Q&As around the film's release) that he detested special features, so let's see what a special edition would even look like. Especially annoying as he's dropped hints about a lot of interesting stuff he had to cut from the final version!

[jwd5275]

People are connecting this to the imminent release of Velvet Goldmine. However what is the chance we could get a release of Pennebaker's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars? They have a very good relationship with Chris Hegedus and Pennebaker's estate...

[zedz]

I wonder if they'll release it in conjunction with Velvet Goldmine.

Considering Bowie famously refused to sanction Haynes' movie, that would be rather perverse, and probably something neither licensor would be particularly happy about.

[swo17]

Sep 26 on 4K

[The Narrator Returns]

The second opportunity they've had to include the "Jump They Say" video as a special feature and they whiffed it again.

[beamish14]

The second opportunity they've had to include the "Jump They Say" video as a special feature and they whiffed it again.

It will happen when they finally give us a 4K of Static (1985)

[Mario G.]

I went to a Q&A for this and Morgen spoke at length about deleted sequences that seemed really interesting, the details of which I of course can't remember now. I wasn't holding my breathe for their appearance because Morgen had also spoken at length about being against special features for his films, but I was hoping maybe Criterion could convince him. I'm glad it's not the bare bones release I was expecting, but still a little disappointed in what's here. Thought they'd use the film as an excuse for some Bowie related extras at least.

The movie itself is certainly interesting, but I'm not sure it holds up when it's not projected on an IMAX screen with blaring speakers. It's more of an experience than a film, which makes a Criterion release so soon after initial release all the more surprising!

[yoloswegmaster]

New extra has been added:

Previously unreleased 1974 live performance by David Bowie of “Rock ’n’ Roll with Me”

[pistolwink]

One thing that struck me seeing this in the theater is that the many clips from silent films (Metropolis, Nosferatu, and a bunch of others, none particularly surprising), aside from being semi-random and inapposite, looked like shit -- as though they had sourced them from YouTube and then upscaled with the world's clumsiest algorithm. Although it's a small part of the film overall, that's the kind of lack of attention to detail that sticks in my craw.

[TBickle020776]

I am intrigued for the Criterion 4K edition because I missed it on IMAX and in theaters and curious to know if it holds up on the small screen. I’m a huge Bowie fan so I’m sure I will enjoy it but there are a lot of mixed reviews and I’m a little scared to buy it blind. Any early reviews yet? How will this film hold up in my not impressive home theater?

Did Criterion fall short with what they’re offering in the supplement material department? A full-length Bowie concert rather than a single performance and some archival interview material would have made the package more attractive in my opinion.

With the newly restored 50th Anniversary of Ziggy Stardust just released and offering never before concert footage of Jeff Beck I was really hoping this edition would offer something new Bowie fans haven’t seen before. Again, I was expecting more but I’m a sucker to pick this up during the next flash sale I’m sure.

[FrauBlucher]

I just watched this after DVRing it off of HBO. A very unique rock documentary for a lack of a better term. But then the subject was also very unique so this is super fitting. As Mario G. stated, it's more an experience than it is a film. I have to agree. The imagery reminds me of the clubs I used to go to that had stuff like this playing on TV monitors scattered around the club. I liked it enough that I'll pick up the bluray.

[jonwdennis]

Has anyone had issues trying to watch this on Philips Blu-Ray player? I just get a black screen.