Moonage Daydream

Grade: B+

Moonage Daydream – the bold, audacious David Bowie rockumentary, out in theatres now – has just one cast credit on IMDb: Bowie. Other than interviewers, audience members, and whoever else just happens to get into the shot, this is all him. There are no captions that spout-out pieces of trivia. No interviews with friends or family. The only voice-over narration is from Bowie himself. It is an exploration of his music, artistic process, and him as a person. It’s more about experience than information. It doesn’t always make sense or stick to a chronological progression of time, but plays on your emotions – like music. Director Brett Morgen (Cobain: Montage of Heck, The Kid Stays in the Picture) has given us an avant-garde take on the rock documentary, with a Terrence Malick feel.

I have to mention Malick’s The Tree of Life, which Moonage Daydream made me think of. The Tree of Life was a feature-length montage, which never settled down and had a real scene with dialogue and stuff. We’d get a couple of lines here and there in the midst of this enormous vignette. And yet, I felt like I’d gotten to know everything I needed to about these characters and their world. It was about everything and nothing. I can’t think of a movie that has challenged me more. That was Malick’s magic trick.

My biggest memory of David Bowie was when he opened the Concert for New York City, a month and a half after 9/11. This epic concert began with Bowie sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the Madison Square Garden stage, playing what looked like a toy keyboard, singing Simon and Garfunkel’s “America.” After that, he stood up, and rocked out with the band to “Heroes” – a song with lyrics so specific, it’s like it could have been written about 9/11/01. It’s an example of how he seemed to have a way of uncannily predicting something, or being ahead of the curve. The footage in Moonage Daydream feels like it was filmed and put together with the purpose of putting out a movie like this one day, even though it probably wasn’t.

I’ll see Billy Joel: Live at Yankee Stadium (from 1990) next week on the big screen. I can only hope that the sound and visual will be as strong as the concert footage in Moonage Daydream. Bowie’s unique nasal, staccato phrasing and his varied catalogue of songs pops in this film. The bass-line in the chorus of “Heroes” is a master class for any bassist.

Moonage Daydream would be a perfect thing to have playing at a Best Buy type store, to showcase the new TVs and sound systems. I admit my experience watching it was like having a stick of gum. It’s amazing for the first few chews, then the novelty and flavor wears off quickly, and you want to start another stick. I’ve always preferred Altoids anyway. It can get a bit repetitive. I get the feeling you could go have dinner in the middle of it, come back 45 minutes later, and you wouldn’t have missed out on anything really new. But I can’t deny that it’s a strong, impressive achievement – one I think he would have been proud of. Moonage Daydream is a surreal dreamscape that plays to the right side of your brain.

Grade: B+