Moonage Daydream is Moving, Electric Tribute to David Bowie

During the heyday of MTV and music videos, David Bowie unapologetically inquired whey Black artists weren’t in rotation at the network, a sentiment echoed by many other artists including the late Rick James. David Bowie never backed down from anything in his life or career and had no problem reinventing himself when the industry began to grow bored with him or his interest in his own image began to wain.

David Bowie had a multitude of personas as a musician, painter, actor, and world traveller. This documentary portrait, told in his own words from decades of interviews, is as eccentric, bold and visually inventive as he was. Coming six years after his death, Moonage Daydream celebrates the immortality of his art, drawing upon an astonishing depth of rare footage including live performances of quintessential songs such as “Space Oddity,” “Sound and Vision,” “Heroes,” and more.

Director Brett Morgen meets the challenge of Bowie’s career with a kaleidoscope of imagery that moves through the artist’s different phases — from the experimental identities of Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane in the 1970s, to the mass appeal of “Let’s Dance” in the 1980s, to his later explorations when Bowie’s main goal was to please himself.

Bowie’s interviews are surprisingly frank. This doc reflects on his suburban childhood, years of restlessness, falling in love Iman and serves as a reminder how frequently he was ahead of his time, including his normalizing attitude toward bisexuality and gender bending in the early ’70s.

Bowie described himself as a generalist who’s comfortable in chaos and Morgen’s vision embraces this sensibility, churning an eclectic array of imagery that represents the cornucopia of inspirations flowing throughout his work.

This is definitely one you will need to screen on repeat to catch everything being thrown in order to take it all in. As Bowie’s would say, “Press your space face close to mine, love / Freak out in a moonage daydream….”