Moonage Daydream of Brett Morgan, enthusiastically received in Cannes and Deauville, is much more than a documentary on David Bowie! It is to a real sensory experience that the director invites to plunge into the universe of the artist. The public really has the impression of visiting Bowie’s brain, a 2h20 psychedelic trip from which he emerges on a small cloud.
Brett Morgen, already director of a documentary on the Rolling Stones and Kurt Cobain, sifted through 5 million archives (films, audio recordings, drawings) for four years to achieve this result as dazzling as was the star. “There were times when I was so blown away by what I was discovering that I felt like opening the door and inviting people into my editing room to share the footage with me,” recalls he.
Nothing to do with a biopic
Brett Morgen has made the draconian choice not to provide expert comments or testimonials from David Bowie’s relatives. “My film is not a biopic, he insists. It’s a collage that I orchestrated. » From this patchwork of images and sounds emerges the complexity of the talents of David Bowie who knew how to reinvent himself for more than half a century. “I am a collector who collects personalities and ideas,” declared the artist in a 1973 interview. Moonage Daydream which makes you feel the incredible versatility of a brilliant man whose various artistic approaches are more valued than his private life.
Rare documents (his theatrical performance in Elephant Man or his work as a painter) are just as striking as his music and his physical metamorphoses. Moonage Daydream highlights how, beyond the icon, David Bowie was a fine, funny, modest and likeable man. If there are many rock stars that we would not like to have in our living room, the ironic but benevolent delicacy of David Bowie makes you want to know him personally. Moonage Daydream fills the eyes and ears with stars. This experience, as powerful as it is immersive, is really designed to be experienced in a cinema, as it is innovative in its approach and captivating in its 20.