This book constitutes the first monograph dedicated to an academic analysis of David Bowie’s appearances in film. Through close textual analysis together with production and reception histories, Bowie’s ‘silver screen’ career is explored in full. The book covers performance documentaries such as Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, star vehicles ranging from the eulogised The Man Who Fell to Earth to the excoriated Just a Gigolo, plus roles from the horror chic of The Hunger and cult fantasy of Labyrinth to the valiant high-brow Baal and vainglorious high-budget Absolute Beginners, ending with Bowie as Bowie in Bandslam and others as ‘Bowie’ in Velvet Goldmine and Stardust. Alongside showing his willingness to experiment (and at times fail) across a variety of genres, this study investigates Bowie’s performative style that, while struggling to accommodate the requirements of cinematic realism, fits more harmoniously with alternative production codes and aesthetics. More broadly, by exploring the commercial, socio-cultural and ideological significance of Bowie on film, the book demonstrates how notions of gender, sexuality and identity formation, plus commodity and cultural capital, function and fluctuate in contemporary society.

The first in-depth study of David Bowie's music videos across a sustained period takes on interweaving storyworlds of an iconic career. Remarkable for their capacity to conjure elaborate imagery, Bowie's videos provide fascinating exemplars of the artistry and remediation of music video. When their construction is examined across several years, they appear as time-travelling vessels, transporting kooky characters and strange story-world components across time and space. By charting Bowie's creative and collaborative process across five distinct phases, David Bowie and the Art of Music Video shows how he played a vital role in establishing music video as an artform. Filling a gap in the existing literature, this book shines a light on the significant contributions of directors such as Mick Rock, Stanley Dorfman and David Mallet, each of whom taught Bowie much about how to use the form. By examining Bowie's collaborative process, his use of surrealist strategies and his integration of avant-garde art with popular music and media, the book provides a history of music video in relation to the broader fields of audiovisual media, visual music and art.

The central image of David Bowie's “Life on Mars?” could have been ripped from his own experience: a child sits “hooked to the silver screen,” reliving fantastical scenes played out on film. Throughout his life, Bowie was similarly transfixed by the power of film. From his first film role in The Image to his final music video before his death, “Lazarus,” Bowie's musical output has long been intrinsically linked to images. Analyzing Bowie's music videos, planned film projects, acting roles, and depictions in film, David Bowie and the Moving Image provides a comprehensive view of Bowie's work with film and informs our understanding of all areas of his work, from music to fashion to visual art. It enters the debate about Bowie's artistic legacy by addressing Bowie as musician, actor, and auteur.

David Bowie was one of the world’s most famous rock stars. But, as David Bowie FAQ shows, he was also far more than that. After spending the latter part of the 1960s searching for the best medium through which to express his artistic aspirations—and trying out several performing arts in the process—he experienced fleeting but significant success in music with the top-ten UK hit “Space Oddity,” released at the time of the successful Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Subsequently he achieved true international fame in the early 1970s through playing the role of the androgynous alien rock-star Ziggy Stardust. From here he went on to a career that spanned five decades, exploring numerous artistic disciplines, challenging societal mores and conventions, and building a platform of constant change and reinvention. Whereas most rock stars would find a winning formula and rigidly stick to it to avoid alienating their fans, David Bowie made stylistic variation his cornerstone—an entirely new and model for rock stardom. But David Bowie was more than a rock star. Reflecting an approach to art that knew no boundaries, he also made his mark in movie acting, legitimate stage acting, and more. There was a unifying factor in all of the roles he played, regardless of medium, because even from childhood he’d felt himself to be an outsider, alienated and estranged. Bowie’s fans quickly recognized this quality in him, and it created a bond that went far beyond the usual star-fan relationship. Through David Bowie, fans found themselves able to accept their sense of difference as a positive thing rather than a negative one. David Bowie didn’t simply entertain people—he empowered them.

The first collection dedicated to David Bowie's acting career shows that his film characterisations and performance styles shift and reform as decoratively as his musical personas. Though he was described as the most influential pop artist of the 20th century, whose work became synonymous with mask, mystery, sexual excess and ch-ch-ch-changing genres, Bowie also applied his genius to the craft of acting. Bowie's considerable filmography is systematically examined in 12 scholarly essays that include tributes to Bowie's performance craft in other media forms. Classic films such as The Prestige and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, cult hits Labyrinth and The Man Who Fell To Earth, as well as lesser-known roles in The Image, Christiane F. and Broadway hit The Elephant Man are viewed, not simply through the lens of Bowie's mega-stardom, but as the work of a serious actor with inimitable talent. This compelling analysis celebrates the risk-taking intelligence and bravura of David Bowie: actor, mime, mimic and icon.

During the mid-1950s, when Hollywood found itself struggling to compete within an expanding entertainment media landscape, certain producers and studios saw an opportunity in making films that showcased performances by rock 'n' roll stars. Rock stars eventually found cinema to be a useful space to extend their creative practices, and the motion picture and recording industries increasingly saw cinematic rock stardom as a profitable means to connect multiple media properties. Indeed, casting rock stars for film provided a tool for bridging new relationships across media industries and practices. From Elvis Presley to Madonna, this book examines the casting rock stars in films. In so doing, Rock Star/Movie Star offers a new perspective on the role of stardom within the convergence of media industries. While hardly the first popular music culture to see its stars making the transition to screen, the timing of rock's emergence and its staying power within popular culture proved fortuitous for a motion picture business searching for its place in the face of continuous technological and cultural change. At the same time, a post-star-system film industry provided a welcoming context for rock stars who have valued authenticity, creative autonomy, and personal expression. This book uses illuminating archival resources to demonstrate how rock stars have often proven themselves to be prominent film workers exploring this terrain of platforms old and new - ideal media laborers whose power lies in the fact that they are rarely recognized as such. Combining star studies with media industry studies, this book proposes an integrated methodology for writing media history that combines the actions of individuals and the practices of industries. It demonstrates how stars have operated as both the gravitational center of media production as well as social actors who have taken on a decisive role in the purposes to which their images are used.

A revealing collection of interviews with the shape-shifting, genre-bending, wildly influential musician and song writer David Bowie was an icon, not only his stunning musical output, but also his fascinating refusal to stay the same—the same as other trending artists, or even the same as himself. In this remarkable collection, Bowie reveals the fierce intellectualism, artistry, and humor behind it all. From his very first interview—as a teenager on the BBC, before he was even a musician—to his last, Bowie takes on the most probing questions, candidly discussing his sexuality, his drug use, his sense of fashion, his method of composition, and more. For fans still mourning his passing, as well as for those who know little about him, it’s a revealing, interesting, and inspiring look at one of the most influential artists of the last fifty years.

Among the topics explored in David Bowie and Philosophy are the nature of Bowie as an institution; Bowie’s work in many platforms, including movies and TV; Bowie’s spanning of low and high art, and his relation to Warhol; the influence of Buddhism and Kabuki theater; the recurring theme of Bowie as a space alien, including “Space Oddity” and The Man Who Fell to Earth; the dystopian element in Bowie’s thinking, displayed in “1984” and the album Outside; the role of fashion in Bowie’s creativity; personal identity as preserved over various divergent personae; the aesthetics of theatrical rock and glam rock; Bowie’s public identification with bisexuality and his influence within the LGBTQ community. Pervasive themes in Bowie’s output include change, time, apocalypse, dancing, mind-body dualism, and spirituality. In the dualistic universe that undergirds his lyrics, body consistently wins over mind, but body is nevertheless on the hook of moral responsibility. There is thus an inherent tension: the overwhelming desires of bodily drives versus the repressive institutions such as church and the omnipresent “They” who would have us do otherwise than our body want. The emergent paradox in Bowie is that for all his alleged sexual indulgences, in the end mind trumps body.

David Bowie: Critical Perspectives examines in detail the many layers of one of the most intriguing and influential icons in popular culture. This interdisciplinary book brings together established and emerging scholars from a wide variety of backgrounds, including musicology, sociology, art history, literary theory, philosophy, politics, film studies and media studies. Bowie’s complexity as a singer, songwriter, producer, performer, actor and artist demands that any critical engagement with his overall work must be interdisciplinary and wide-ranging in its scope. The chapters are organised around the key themes of ‘textualities’, ‘psychologies’, ‘orientalisms’, ‘art and agency’ and ‘performing and influencing’ in Bowie’s work. This comprehensive book contributes a great deal to the study of popular music, performance, gender, religion, popular media and celebrity.