Moonage Daydream

Furthermore, the whole “experimental” vibe is directly at odds with the conceit of having Bowie explain himself through preexisting interviews. Moonage Daydream is inherently limited by the source material, which mainly consists of straight-laced interviewers asking him insipid questions about his life, and Bowie uncomfortably answering, like a God trying to explain quantum mechanics to an ant. He doesn’t want to explain himself, so having two-plus hours of these ever-shifting answers feels interminable. The truth is he’s a fickle bitch (in the best sense), and this feels like some weird form of accounting or accountability. It is genius repackaged through pedestrian intermediaries.

Often the beauty of art is in the ephemeral, shifting nature of possible interpretations. At other times it is in its pure beauty. If you ask a butterfly why it evolved from a moth, you probably aren’t going to get a very satisfying answer. It is just awful to see Bowie talk about astrology or do late-life interpretive dance on a 60-foot screen. Sometimes you can make the magnifying glass too big.

“…enjoy Bowie a little more on your terms, without the tacked-on artifice.”

There’s another limitation to using only archival footage, and that is resolution. Some of the source material can’t handle being blown up to IMAX extravagance. Film grain is perfectly acceptable, but some footage looks blurry when magnified. Worse, some of the source material is fairly low-resolution digital, and the finished product has noticeable compression artifacts.

Lastly, perhaps the biggest problem with Moonage Daydream is that it is just way too long. There’s probably a great 90-minute doc in these 2 hours and 20 minutes. But by the time we’ve heard Bowie explain (but not really) his nature for the third time, we’re a little over it. When it comes to the fourth, fifth, or sixth times, we’re practically furious. All the nausea-inducing montages can go. Morgen has explained that this was supposed to be an 18-month project, but it took him seven years to complete. He ran out of money for an editor, so he edited it himself on his laptop. It shows. He needed someone to tell him that less is more — to cut out the self-indulgence and to just get out of the way. No one trying to put their stamp on genius will come away looking like they’ve added to it.

I’m not sure what drug you should use if you see Moonage Daydream in IMAX, but you need one. The saving grace is that it will come to HBO Max, where you can fast-forward past the added bullshit and enjoy Bowie a little more on your terms, without the tacked-on artifice.

Moonage Daydream played at the 2022 Cannes and Toronto International Film Festivals. It premieres in IMAX on September 16 and will ultimately come to HBO Max.