David Bowie Is, 2013.
Directed by Hamish Hamilton and Katy Mullan.
SYNOPSIS:
A documentary tying in to London’s Victoria & Albert Museum’s David Bowie Is exhibition”.
A lot of well deserved praise has been heaped on the work and life of David Bowie since his very sad death in January this year. However, in 2013, three years before he died, an exhibition was created by the V&A to chart his life and success as artist and art.
The exhibition was such a success it has been on tour ever since, and the documentary / virtual exhibition was recorded on its last night in London before it went on tour. Titled David Bowie Is, the exhibition creators cleverly left the sentence open ended in order to allow each person to finish it for themselves. The documentary makes use of this and labels each segment something else starting with David Bowie is.
Throughout the documentary we get to see the crown jewels of their exhibition. Original stage costumes, concept drawings and videos Bowie had produced for some of his earliest bands when he was still Davie Jones, to paintings he worked on during 1.Outside. It’s quite a trip to see many of his characters and stage personas under one roof in this way. Perhaps the greatest thrill for any Bowie fan is to see the handwritten lyrics for songs like Five Years and Rock and Roll Suicide. Simple sheets of paper with simple words jotted down, sometimes scratched out and replaced with the lyrics we now know by heart. It is incredibly surreal to see these words of an artistic giant written by the hand of a young man. The songs play as the camera scans the lyric sheets and it really brings home the power of these songs.
We are shown some small video clips of bowie discussing one of his song writing techniques, we hear snippets of interviews, we see his hand drawn art and a plethora of incredible photos, from baby to icon. Nearly all of the content comes from the official David Bowie Archive owned by the man himself as the V&A were given special access in order to create the exhibition. There is the letter informing then manager Ken Pitt about the name change from Jones to Bowie. There is a letter from Jim Henson asking Bowie to be in Labyrinth. The exhibition both brings him closer to being a real person, and sets him further apart as a truly unique genius at the same time.
There are several segments labelled ‘David Bowie is happening now’ which have guest speakers talking about Bowie’s profound influence on them or their field of interest. These segments perhaps serve to educate the less informed Bowie fan about his major cultural impact in areas outside music. This, I think is a strong take home message from the documentary and exhibition. There are important people in the fields of fashion, art, film, photography all speaking about his work in those areas which more casual fans may not be aware of. To label Bowie simply as a rock musician is to undersell all the areas of art and culture he has influenced since the late 1960s. And still the documentary doesn’t cover everything (how could it!) There is a photograph, but no real mention of his critically acclaimed run as John Merrick in the stage adaptation of the Elephant Man.
Interspersed with everything else, there are clips of people there at the exhibition gushing about their love for Bowie. There are middle aged people who were children when Ziggy first beamed down through their TV sets who can barely contain their joy at seeing all of these iconic things from different eras of their lives in one place. There are lots of young people as well seeing things they probably only ever saw on Youtube. Bowie’s appeal seems to know no bounds. There is one moment that pulls on the heart strings when a young fan says, ‘how could he do all this in one lifetime, and he’s not even dead yet’. That made me sad, but then I remembered that when this was made, only two years ago, he still had so much more to do. He gave music to a television show, wrote a stage play that starred Dexters Michael C Hall, reinvented himself again as an eerie new character, released a hugely successful and acclaimed album, recorded two incredible videos…. All of that while battling cancer!
The documentary is a must see for any Bowie fan, and will certainly serve to educate anyone who has never read a biography, however I feel the documentary barely scratches the surface of the magic actually being at the exhibition must bring. The word genius is thrown around far too much these days, but attempting to catalog and understand everything Bowie accomplished…. I think that genius is too small a word.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
David Fleming
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published July 17, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
