Moonage Daydream
A cinematic odyssey featuring never-before-seen footage exploring David Bowie's creative and musical journey.
- Released:
- Runtime: 120 minutes
- Genre: Documentaries, Music
- Stars: David Bowie, Iman, Lou Reed, Tina Turner, Russell Harty, Dick Cavett, Bing Crosby, Elizabeth Taylor, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Max von Sydow, Charlie Chaplin, Max Schreck, Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder, Mick 'Woody' Woodmansey, Ken Fordham, Brian Wilshaw, Geoffrey MacCormack, John 'Hutch' Hutchinson, Mike Garson
- Director: Brett Morgen
Comments
- shawnpmccullough - 10 January 2024
Incredibly boring.
Kinda upset at how incredibly boring this was. I absolutely love Bowie, but there's no real story to this. Random clips thrown together, total periods of Bowie's career are completely glossed over or not mentioned at all. Different eras are completely mixed up, for example the part that focuses on Berlin is accompanied by a live performance of Space Oddity from the '90s.
I was beginning to question if HBO could make a decent music documentary then I noticed it was produced by Brett Morgen who also did Montage of Heck which is the worst documentary I've ever seen. This guy is awful and has made two documentaries that fall completely flat, albeit for different reasons. - TheBigDog225 - 10 May 2023
Meandering free flowing consciousness of blah
David's commentary was a meaningless wandering of nothingness. Don't know if his game was always to be provocative, but I can't believe I sat through 2+ hours of this blah.
He had so many great songs that weren't played and none of them were ever delved into.
I swear he'd always say something counter to what the interviewer was asking, but his answers were just pulling meaningless thoughts out of thin air.
He really didn't have anything substantial to say.
His less known music was always being played in the back ground, but it was never really connected to his rambling dialogue.
Bowie fans need not waste their time. - kittenfromJapan - 23 April 2023
I did not like it.
I am a Japanese Bowie fan. The film was released in cinemas in Japan at the end of March. Since I had found out about this film last year, I had waited for it to be released for months, but I did not like the film.
To me, it seemed when the director decided to show something, like isolation or his brother, he collected bits and pieces from his interviews to show what he decided to show the audience.
For example, in the film, Bowie said something, which I think was about isolation, and then the voice of an interviewer said, 'Does that mean xxx?' but this question from Mavis Nicholson and Bowie's answer are from a different interview. I have watched the interview with Nicholson many times so I knew that. So the director put bits together from different interviews from different eras.
Also,the director used Word on a Wing when Bowie and Iman were on the screen. Isn't that something like playing Paul McCartney's My Love, dedicated to his first wife, Linda, when his current wife is on the screen? I thought it was misleading.
The director said before a preview in Tokyo that releasing the film in Japan was one of the conditions for him to do the job, so I thought I would be able to some private pictures or videos of Bowie in Kyoto and was excited because all I can find on the Internet is a series of black and white photos taken by the photographer Sukita and some honeymoon photos. Accoring to Sukita, Bowie drove him and the other person around in the city of Kyoto to take them to places he liked. That tells how much he loved the city and how familiar he was with it. But the film only showed some of the photos from the series. I was so dissapointed.
I saw some people here talking about 'the escalator in Japan', but it was not in Japan. It must have been in some other country in Asia. I think people know Bowie loved Japan, so they just thought automatically it was Japan when they saw that escalator! I wish it was in Japan! - raven-95810 - 3 December 2022
David Bowie and only David Bowie in this documentary
David Bowie was a creative muse for me and others. This film was inspiring, and I had interesting dreams all night. However, there weren't many of his muses and collaborators, except for some quick flashes of "art". He got the cut-up method of writing from William Burroughs, who isn't even mentioned at all. A grievous error. His bandmates not given any time at all in this, as if his music would stand without their excellent quitar hooks: Mick Ronson, Alomar, Belew, Gail Ann Dorsey, the Sales brothers. Where are they?! Iggy Pop not mentioned at all with their trip to Berlin together. I would like less swirling colored goo, and maybe more interviews with his ex-wives, his kids, his band mates. But, that said, I'm not the director, and I'll appreciate the excellent footage and interviews provided here. - beige-41733 - 23 October 2022
A vibrant cinematic experience
It's common knowledge that David Bowie had a great deal of mystery around himself, and what's refreshing about this film is that it acknowledges and respects that. Moonage Daydream presents what Bowie did, what he stood for, who he wasn't - but never who he really was.
My only criticism would be about the pacing - the majority of the runtime covers the '70s eras of Ziggy, Aladdin Sane, and the Berlin years, while the following phases are crammed into the remaining 1/3 of the movie before it concludes with the mid-'90s and a brief snippet of Blackstar, as if there was nothing to be told after Hallo Spaceboy.
That approach brought this down by two stars for me, but it's still an experience not to be missed, especially for fans. It's loud, vibrant, and everything that cinema should be. I'm sure the Starman himself would have approved. - blpkst - 10 October 2022
Bowie Fans will be disappointed
I loved David Bowie, I love his music, I love his genius in making music and song writing, I loved the way he looked physically and found his life's philosophy intriguing. That he died sick from cancer and kept his illness to himself and his family was another revelation. He wanted to live for as long as he was living. "Moonage Daydream" makes an impression of Bowie's impact but does little to celebrate his music. I wanted to be enveloped in the music, assaulted with fabulous imagery of the man himself, instead we get maybe three songs, two of which I didn't know, psychedelic imaginings, silent film clips that Bowie probably would have appreciated and that are easily recognized by people well versed in film, as I am, but none of it was what I was hoping. The early clips of Bowie showed his outrageousness, and the contrast of one of the chat show commentators served only to make Bowie appear silly but he was more than that. The documentary then takes a different direction and shows Bowie the man, the world traveler on his quest for purpose that was revelatory and so was his art, his portraits and his paintings. There was more to Bowie than met the eye. We left the cinema perplexed. I think the documentary, "Five Years," serves Bowie much better and is more satisfying.
