Spoiler alert for Moonage Daydream, be careful I guess...
Having recently watched Moonage Daydream directed by Brett Morgen, a documentary that is more of a séance than a film, I can not stop seeing bits of myself in a certain Mr David Bowie or should I say the glam alien god that is Ziggy Stardust. Morgen conjures up Bowie's voice with his wizardry editing skills and starts the film with the singer asking "Does it matter? Do I bother?", pondering on the transience of existence (if anyone wants to know the answer, of course, it is yes, as far as the documentary is concerned). There are a lot of personal thoughts and bits of my personal life which were deeply touched by this dreamy documentary, but first, I would like to talk about the film itself.
Brett Morgen puts together an artful collage of archive footage, interviews and concert recordings, in lieu of plodding through in the classic chronological order with a mix of the talking heads. What Morgen actually managed to show me was what it would have felt like, and what it meant to be Bowie; what it felt like to be a fan of Bowie. Especially for the older generation now, which most people in the cinema I went to were, they are able to resonate the most with this stunning footage because they too experienced the context and progression, the sources and influences of his music and the relation to the fast developing world. The way Morgen bends and twists the timeline is magical and we can see why it took him two years to go through all of the footage. He traces an arc from the early 70s into the 90s, creating a paramount of Bowie's presence in the film and the ghostly effect where Bowie himself seems to be narrating. He talks about his own ideas on time, consciousness and the world. This is so much more than just a documentary but the capturing of parts of David Bowie's essence, of course, it can only capture parts, no 134-minute film can define or contain the whole of Bowie's legacy.
As Morgen traces Bowie through the years, beginning with Ziggy Stardust and eventually capturing Bowie himself, I was immersed in his otherworldly charisma, his bright orange hair, inventive fashion choices, ever-changing personality, his frank bisexuality and his quiet casual mastery of divergent musical idioms makes him such an irresistible puzzle for the media, the fans and an idol to the young and truthfully, an enigma to me.
I have always been a fan of him and the 70s rock genre, but perhaps due to my arrogance, I never thought about or was aware of Bowie's creative process or his thinking. He approached his own personality with Nietzche's philosophy and narrative from Thus Spoke Zarathustra which actually fits perfectly into his progressive life. Bowie changes the way he writes, the content he writes, the voice he sings in and of course his flowing suits, he is fighting different aspects of his own persona or as Nietzche would put it -- he is trying to find the Offerman. I have always struggled to put this feeling of loss and lack of self into words, so much happens in the world around us every day but when can I make sense of it all? I am very indecisive, don't know what I want even when it comes to simply ordering a pizza, overthink so much of everything all the time, I feel like I am losing parts of myself everyday. I am fairly closed when it comes to talking about feelings, so I choose to write them down but I am not about to spill them everywhere here, they are saved for my own journal. Getting back to Bowie, he eventually found himself through love, like all mysteries in our world, it often leads to another mystery. His transition from restless solitude to contented middle ages and eventually reaching a form of enlightenment all achieved through his second marriage, to Iman.
Watching Bowie move from phase to phase and finally finding his own Offerman sent me into reflection (I am having way too many existential crises these days), I wonder if I will find something or someone like what Iman was to Bowie, or a solution to the always emerging ultimate question of life --- Why am I and who am I? Can I find an answer someday, I don't know. Oh, how I wish to be as thoughtful and lucky as Bowie who found an answer before his death, and in the fullness of time, unlike the mythologies surrounding Bowie but the real him, to live a happy life.