With a career spanning five decades, how does one pack the full extent of David Bowie’s life and works into a single, 90-minute film? The answer, coming from this Channel 4 produced documentary, is simply, you don’t. Though sub-titled “The Final Act”, this film surprisingly – and at times frustratingly – dedicates minimal time to Bowie’s last few years, in which he created his swansong masterpiece album, Blackstar, and instead opts to delve into his lesser-known and obscure period of the 90s and late 80s (with a brief sidestep to his appearance at the inaugural Glastonbury festival). What follows is an oddly filtered overview of the star’s career, though one that is no less interesting for it.
How many casual Bowie fans know what Tin Machine is? Or Buddha of Suburbia, or Earthling? Most likely, very few. So it rather is pleasing that these moments from his career are finally given the spotlight, over, say, yet another retrospective of his Ziggy Stardust persona (Earthling is a truly great album and deserves a lot more recognition), and the specially recorded interviews with his many collaborators offer a fresh and insightful perspective of these undervalued works. The carefully selected archival footage is also a joy – a particular highlight being Bowie’s interview with Jeremy Paxman in the late 90s, discussing the potential importance of the looming Internet, in which Bowie can only give an all-knowing wry smile to Paxman’s increasing befuddlement.
Even though the film focuses almost exclusively on his career from the late 80s to the early 00s, it inevitably fails to include everything from this period – no mention of his acting roles during this time; nor of the reunion with his Berlin Trilogy muse Brian Eno, and the subsequent album Outside; nor of his celebrated, star-studded 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden. There is a sense that these events were omitted not because there would have been too much story to cram into a single film, but rather that they didn’t quite fit in with the narrative the filmmakers wanted to deliver. The result is both a curiously potted and suspiciously linear version of Bowie’s biography.
Alongside the obvious grief that millions across the globe felt when the sudden news of Bowie’s death broke – a mere two days after the release of his album, Blackstar – many were in awe of the grace, self-awareness and poignancy in which this final body of work was created and bequeathed to the world. Produced during his literal dying days, Blackstar serves as Bowie’s self-imposed requiem, recorded with a close-knit band of musicians, who knew of his imminent demise but were sworn to secrecy. From a documentary titled Bowie: The Final Act, fans hoping for a closer look at the creation process during this mournful era may be left disappointed – a meager fifteen minutes is all that is given. Instead, what this film provides is a testament of Bowie’s hunger for artistic collaboration, pushing musical boundaries, and embracing the inevitable future, even in the darkest of times.
David Bowie: The Final Act is screening at Plymouth Arts Cinema until Wednesday 14th January.
By Matthew Onuki Luke
