Published: 9 September 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
BRETT MORGEN tells RACHELLE UNREICH how an intensely personal relationship with Bowie, from childhood onwards, drove his cinematic homage to the musician.
Brett Morgen’s first encounter with David Bowie did not start well. The pair met in 2007 to discuss a “hybrid nonfiction film,” but “it was a slightly contentious meeting,” remembers the US filmmaker. “I’m very sensitive to criticism. I was going to pitch him a project [but] before I could start telling him about it, he just launched into a total assault on my most recent film at that time.
“I don’t believe anyone had ever undressed me - who I wasn’t intimate with - in such a forceful manner!” Nevertheless, the pitch was discussed “and he really enjoyed it, which is how I ended up making this film.”
Having been given unprecedented access to Bowie’s archives for a documentary about him, Morgen took another 15 years to land his film, Moonage Daydream, on the big screen. Bowie died of cancer in 2016; two years ago, Morgen had begun the process of wading through Bowie’s footage, art collection and poetry when he had a heart attack.
“I flatlined and was in a coma for a week. That came about because I was out of control of my life. I’d been a workaholic from as far back as I can remember. Bad habits, lifestyle, that stuff. It was a wake-up call. And I didn’t heed the message.”
Yet, when Morgen emerged from his coma and saw the surgeon in his room, the first thing he said was, “I need to be on set on Monday! I’m shooting a very important pilot for Marvel!” The surgeon told him that he wasn’t going anywhere, but Morgen insisted: “You don’t know what’s going on! This is very important! IT’S FOR MARVEL!”
It was at this point that Bowie’s wisdom brought Morgen back to an even keel. When the 53-year-old director, best known for documentaries such as The Kid Stays in the Picture and the Oscar-nominated On the Ropes, listened to Bowie’s interviews, he discovered that the singer’s words and thoughts were not just comforting, they were life-changing.
“I was struggling. I have three children and I was haunted: what if I had died that night? What message would my children take from my life? Dad has been at work? I don’t know what dad said.
“I didn’t know what the message was. And as I’m trying to figure out what it is of value that I can leave for my kids, I’m hearing David, and he’s providing me with the kind of guidance that I couldn’t get from religion, that I couldn’t get from a therapist, that I couldn’t really get from any other source.
“It was a guide to how to lead a balanced, satisfying and fulfilled life in an age of fragmentation and chaos. I saw an opportunity through David and through this film to leave something for my children in my absence that they could turn to, that would offer guidance and a kind of roadmap.”
I relate to Bowie; these are things that he’s telling me that are applicable to this world, this moment in time and what I’m going through.
The result, Moonage Daydream, which opens nationally this month, is not exactly a biopic; Morgen calls it an “experimental IMAX movie: no [third party] interviews, no talking heads, no biography.” It is an insight to his music, artistry and – perhaps most significantly – his way of thinking and approaching the world, which is at once inspirational and motivating.
Less-publicised facts about Bowie’s life, including the influence of his half-brother who ended up grappling with mental illness, are combined with stage performances and clips (including Bowie’s Broadway debut in the title role of The Elephant Man), mashed together into a coherent whole.
While it covers the stretch of Bowie’s life, it does not portray all of its details. Rather, the documentary is more a portal into Bowie’s mind; a melange of words and visuals that includes Bowie’s interviews, paintings and surreal film clips, the combination of which feel like a trip to outer space and a realm beyond.
Two of Bowie’s credos become clear in Moonage Daydream: his distaste for wasting time, preferring to celebrate the possibility that every day holds, and his desire to push himself artistically so that he lands in a place where his feet don’t quite touch the ground. If that level of challenge and slight discomfort for the viewer is achieved, Morgen says, you’re in the right place.
Bowie – or rather his alter-ego, Ziggy Stardust – first landed into Morgen’s consciousness when he was a seven-year-old kid, trick-or-treating for Halloween in his neighbourhood of Studio City in the San Fernando Valley in 1975. “My next-door neighbour was dressed as Ziggy Stardust. I didn’t know what that was.
“That was how I thought of David Bowie: as a Halloween costume. Then when I was around 12, [his albums] Ashes to Ashes and Scary Monsters were out. I like to joke that I don’t know what came first, puberty or Bowie, but they arrived at around the same time, and they both changed my life.”
By the time Morgen was a teenager, his Bowie indoctrination was well advanced: “I think David is a kind of rite of passage for a lot of young people, for several generations, where you arrive at a point where you’re like, ‘Who am I? What am I? Why do I have these feelings?’
“And there’s Bowie, sitting there saying, ‘it’s OK’. For my generation, in 1981, there wasn’t anyone else to do that.
“Now we have a plethora of artists – whether it’s Lizzo or Harry Styles – all telling us, ‘It’s OK to be me’. But that was not the case when Bowie came onto the scene. If you were gay or bisexual, you weren’t turning on the television and seeing anyone openly embracing that. So, he had a huge impact.”
Bowie continued to appear through pivotal moments in Morgen’s life, such as when he was walking the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, and Bowie’s Let’s Dance started playing on the speakers. Morgen’s reaction? He busted out several massive dance moves. “I just lost it for three minutes like a maniac. I was so in the moment. My friend Andy Goldman [who worked on the film] is my friend from Junior High. He said, ‘I haven’t seen those moves since my bar mitzvah!’”
While Morgen’s days in synagogue are long behind him, he is still attached to some of the tenets of Judaism, explaining that he follows Reconstructionist Judaism (which combines tradition and meaningful life, with an emphasis on building the future of Jewish people).
“I became a Reconstructionist in 2010 because I felt it was more apropos for the world that we lived in, and it was an interpretation of Judaism that was optimal to modern life. The books of Deuteronomy and Numbers - I get why they’re there, but I can’t really relate.”
In the end, Morgen says, that is largely why Bowie held so much appeal for him. “I relate to Bowie. These are things that he’s telling me that are applicable to this world, this moment in time and what I’m going through.”
Moonage Daydream opens nationally in cinemas on September 15.
Photo: Brett Morgen poses for photographers at the London premiere of 'Moonage Daydream' (Scott Garfitt/Invision/AP)
