“Moonage Daydream” is a fantastic journey with music’s greatest chameleon

Nobody can top Bowie David Bowie and “Moonage Daydream” really gets that. Bowie did so much in his lifetime, constantly changing from persona to persona, musical style to musical style. From Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke, from glam and soul to pop and prog, it seems like it would be impossible to capture his entire life in one biopic.

So instead they didn’t even try.

Yes, Moonage Daydream is a documentary, but it wasn’t advertised as such before its release, and it’s not a documentary in the traditional sense. You really won’t learn anything new about Bowie by watching this. There are no interviews with talking heads of people reflecting on their time with the singer.

Instead of spitting facts and information at you, director Brett Morgen uses archival interviews, concert footage and home videos to craft a tapestry of light, color and sound that really puts you inside Bowie’s mind and creative process.

I’m no stranger to crying in movies; there’s actually a lot more going on than I’m willing to admit. Usually the tears don’t come until the end of the movie. But with this movie, my eyes misted up after Bowie first stepped on screen.

We see footage from various of his tours, including the Ziggy Stardust Tour, the Stage Tour and the Serious Moonlight Tour, which brought Bowie to his commercial height. We also see archival interviews, but the most insightful footage used in “Moonage Daydream” has to be the home videos, making the whole ordeal much more personal than a standard documentary.

Footage from a concert was used in the film.
Photo courtesy of NEON / YouTube

The film is, of course, peppered with a host of Bowie classics. All the songs you’d expect are here, “Space Oddity,” “Let’s Dance,” “The Jean Genie” and “Life On Mars?” are presented quite prominently.

However, much to my delight, they also pull out a ton of more obscure tunes, and that variety leads to tracks like “Cracked Actor,” “Warszawa,” “Hallo Spaceboy” and “DJ” getting plenty of airtime. Breaking free of the songs you’d expect to be featured in a Bowie documentary gives it a unique feel, rather than being primarily a greatest hits album in movie form (in other words, it’s the anti-Bohemian Rhapsody).

If I really had to make a criticism of “Moonage Daydream,” it would be that Morgen placed too much emphasis on the singer’s earlier work from the 1970s and 1980s. His work in the 1990s was only briefly touched upon, and his work in the 1960s, 2000s, and 2010s was barely mentioned. A little more time to flesh out these less iconic moments of his career would go a long way, as these are the parts of his career least known to the general public.

Although we don’t get much information about his career outside of his glory days, casual fans and die-hards alike will learn a lot about the singer’s creative process and hobbies outside of music. We see him painting, creating sculptures and acting both on stage and screen, including his appearance in the Broadway play The Elephant Man.

Bowie’s versatility is already well known through his adaptation of different musical styles, but being able to see him channel other art styles is incredibly refreshing and adds another layer of depth to this immense portrait of a film.

This is a movie to watch in theaters, letting the sights and sounds take you over.
Photo courtesy of Neon

This is absolutely a movie to watch in theaters, letting the sights and sounds take you over for a full two hours and 15 minutes. This is a film made for the big screen, from the way the visuals pop to the incredible sound design. It’s a truly beautiful and special experience, and it’s easily made my top 10 for the entire year.