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immediately hit the brakes and called his estate. I told them what I was interested in doing, and they pretty much handed me the keys and said, ‘good luck’.” Access to Bowie's personal archives – let alone unlimited access – is an incredible privilege. Since his death in 2016, his family have rejected numerous offers to adapt his story. With this in mind, we ask Morgen what ground rules were established? “The only

DID YOU KNOW? Brett Morgen spent four years

assembling Moonage Daydream and another 18 months designing the soundscape, animations and colour palette. Bowie’s long-time collaborator, friend, and music producer Tony Visconti and Academy Award-winning sound mixer Paul Massey ( Bohemian Rhapsody ) remixed and translated Bowie’s original stems for presentation in Dolby Atmos, 7.1 and 5.1 audio.

thing I was told during the initial meeting was that David was not here to authorise the film. So it was never going to be David Bowie on David Bowie, it would always be Brett Morgen on David Bowie. And I needed to embrace that. But that was it. Those were the only instructions I was given.” The result is a movie that demands the viewer's presence more so than their attention. Moonage Daydream presents a kaleidoscopic journey of sight and sound, with colours and musings splashed across the screen in a chaotic yet keenly orchestrated fashion. It’s not so much a step-by-step account of Bowie's life, but rather an explosion of the man's emotions as expressed by Bowie himself through countless narrations, interviews and personal journals he had recorded over the decades. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the film is how it exposes the man behind the myth, whose own insecurities inform a new perspective. And, in turn, it holds a mirror to the viewer and lets them relate to an icon like no movie has done before. “The idea of the film, and the idea of Bowie, is that unlike most artists, Bowie consciously presented himself as a mirror to reflect back to us ideas and thoughts about our own lives,” explains Morgen. “Like, Bowie doesn't exist per se. It's

STACK chats with documentary filmmaker Brett Morgen about his new feature Moonage Daydream , a cinematic musical odyssey of David Bowie. Words Glenn Cochrane

Now, with the proverbial keys to the Bowie vault, he has created the ultimate interpretation of the British singer-songwriter. “This is the first film I have spearheaded from the beginning,” Morgen tells STACK . “Before I knew I was doing a film on David Bowie, I had created this form that I had wanted to explore called the IMAX Music Experience. “The idea was that I would make a series of films based on some of the biggest acts in the world – acts that are so well known that we don't need their biography.” Beginning with Bowie, Morgen’s intentions are to create cinematic

“Don't you wonder sometimes about sound and vision?” Those immortal David Bowie lyrics ring true in Moonage Daydream , the new musical odyssey that explores the legend of the late, great music icon, and the first film to be fully sanctioned by his family. Documentary filmmaker Brett Morgen has made a name for himself with award-winning features like The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002), about the life and times of Hollywood producer Bob Evans, and Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015), which took a deep dive into the life of Kurt Cobain.

spaces to experience and appreciate the subject’s art in a way that is both overwhelming and intimate. In the case of Moonage Daydream , the result is a prodigious sensory overload, and Morgen explains why he chose Bowie for this first venture into this new concept. “I was going down the road with several artists when Bowie passed, and I

a canvas, and the film embraced that and is

designed so that it's not a film about David Jones, who was born on January 8, 1947. It's a film about you, the viewer. “And one can say this about any art, but this piece of art was consciously constructed to be a biography about you, not David Jones.”

• Moonage Daydream is out on Dec 7

FURTHER VIEWING

14 DECEMBER 2022

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