Bowie the Man Who Changed the World Review
'The Homo Who Changed The World' Cashes In On David Bowie's Death Only Doesn't Explicate His Greatness
Photo: Everett Collection
A friend asked me the other day if I'd seen any good music documentaries lately (some friend, he obviously had not been keeping up on my weekly music dr. reviews for Decider, hmph!). I told him I'd probably seen about threescore in the past year. Of those, peradventure 5 were great. Another x to 15 were at the very least "skilful." The residual were kind of like pizza, yous know, fifty-fifty when information technology's bad, it's still pretty good. A select few were out and out terrible. Bowie: The Homo Who Changed The World, currently available for streaming on Netflix, falls into the concluding category.
My Dad worked in magazines, and I think being fascinated when he told me they already had memorial problems written for elderly celebrities, in apprehension of their deaths (President Ronald Reagan and Frank Sinatra being two they had on ice). The thought was take the outcome on the stands earlier the trunk was in the basis in society to quickly cash-in on the moving ridge of nostalgia post-obit their demise. Likewise, Bowie: The Homo Who Changed The Globe, which came out inside iv months of his passing in January 2016, feels opportunistic and hastily assembled, cribbed together from archival footage and interviews with B-listing acquaintances.
Information technology is beyond refute that David Bowie was one of the most important artists in the history of rock n' roll. Over five decades in the public eye, he wrote a library'southward worth of keen songs, was pivotal in the development of glam rock, inspired countless musicians and musical movements, influenced fashion and civilisation, and treated his life as a piece of fine art unto itself, constantly reinventing himself and reimagining his music and on-stage persona. If it'south possible to oversell his importance, Bowie: The Homo Who Inverse The World figures out a manner how. The overdramatic movie title – a play on Bowie'south 1970 album The Man Who Sold The World – and giant floating letters spelling out "BOWIE" in the opening credits garishly telegraph his significance, a stark dissimilarity to his learned sensibility and conceptual rock n' curl. While the hyperbolic narration tells us Bowie was "an innovator unlike any other," the ensuing hour and a half does piffling to illuminate or explain his greatness.
One big problems is The Human being Who Changed The World contains not a single note of Bowie's bodily music, nor any extended operation footage of him. This is of form in club to salvage the significant fees licensing his music would entail. Thus, nosotros have no manner to hear how his music changed throughout his various stylictic periods or run across how he incorporated theater and trip the light fantastic into the staging of his famously riveting live shows. Worst of all, to fill up these musical gaps, the director decided to employ soundtrack music that I can only assume they thought sounded "Bowie-esque," some of which is distractingly bad.
Later a disorienting x-minute opening pastiche of disembodied voices delivering mundane assessments of Bowie's artistic achievements, the film starts roofing the particulars of his life. The facts of his upbringing and artistic development are stacked on tiptop of each other like a freshman term paper, cataloging details to bear witness they read the text book. The interview subjects are a collection of ex-lovers, admirers and managers, mostly from before he hit it big, and while they accept the occasional interesting anecdote, they shed no new low-cal on his music or career-arc.
Nosotros come across the classmate who punched him in the eye, forever dilating one of his pupils. And so what. Nosotros meet his high school girlfriend. Who cares. We come across his starting time managing director who Bowie refused to talk to after 1976. I call up I sympathize why. Several minutes are spent explaining the influence of Anthony Newley. Who? We're then treated to such riveting insights (sic.) as "The roots of Bowie'south genius lay in his ability to write archetype pop songs and lots of them." The roots of his genius? What the fuck does that even mean? And for the record, no, no it'southward not.
Yous know who isn't interviewed? Anyone who always made music with him on any of the records we're nonetheless listening to and talking about. Y'all know what's not discussed in enough detail? How he put together The Spiders From Mars. How he cultivated and nurtured other artist's careers. How he pioneered the use of music videos. How he brought conceptual fine art techniques into the recording studio. How he never stopped listening to and being inspired by new music. I mean, for Christ's sake, even the archival Bowie interview footage they employ is ho-hum.
If you desire to watch a great documentary, track downward David Bowie – 5 Years – y'all'll accept to discover it on DVD or Blu-Ray, because sadly information technology's not currently streaming – which charts his metamorphosis from hippy singer-songwriter to rooster mulletted glam stone icon and across, focusing on five singled-out stages of his recording career. If you want to understand what made him great, listen to whatsoever three of his records from about 1970 to 1983 and note how they all audio completely different, yet are all obviously the work of the aforementioned creative person. Unlike other artists, whose life story unlocks the mystery of their genius, getting bogged downward in who David Bowie was every bit a man completely misses the point. As former flame Dana Gillespie says in 1 of The Man Who Changed The World few insightful moments "He was much improve performing in a role."
Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician who when he goes to get his hair cut says "Just make me look like Ron Asheton." Follow him on Twitter:@BHSmithNYC.
Watch Bowie: The Man Who Inverse The Earth on Netflix
Source: https://decider.com/2017/05/19/bowie-the-man-who-changed-the-world-netflix-review/
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