After seven years of digging through archives, digging through piles of recordings and watching untold hours of footage, Brett Morgen has managed to assemble the dazzling Moonage Daydream – the first and only David Bowie film commissioned by the late artist’s estate. Despite its classification as a documentary, the film is hardly an educational or historical vehicle. Rather, it is a vast technicolor experience that allows the viewer to fill in some of the gaps in Bowie’s understanding. And while Moonage Daydream chronicles the life and musical journeys of the iconic musician, it also examines Bowie’s complex and ever-changing philosophies as an artist and as a person. Morgen spoke with The AV Club about the process of creating this cinematic odyssey, its enigmatic theme, and finding inspiration in Disneyland’s Peter Pan ride. MOONAGE DAYDREAM – Official Trailer AV Club: When it came time to edit this film, how did you walk the line between creating an experience that is immersive and not wanting to overwhelm the viewer? Brett Morgen: Well, you see, that didn’t even cross my mind. I like feeling sound rather than hearing sound. I was thinking as I watched the movie in IMAX, “You’re all in my living room right now.” My TV is overloaded. When my own movies are playing on the TV, that’s the only time I have to go and turn the color down. Because my color is already set high. I like to see the world through rose colored glasses and I like to feel the sound. That’s where it all started, from wanting to create an immersive musical experience in IMAX before I knew I was doing David Bowie. My influences and inspirations were The 400 Blows, Peter Pan Disneyland and Pink Floyd. These are all very exciting experiences. Sometimes people say that a work is indulgent as criticism. Art is forgiving. I don’t want an artist to hold back. Sometimes you have to — I think of the movie Jane. I was probably more reticent than ever to honor the subject. But with Bowie, his line is chaos and fragmentation. This is the story. The film was conceived as a broadcast from the 20th century broadcast across the galaxy to a drive-in on a different planet where sentient beings watched one of their own. And in my mind, these people also spoke the language of chaos and fragmentation. When I tried to say that it didn’t go well. It’s hard to make money for this pitch, but that’s how the movie was shown. AVC: When you were going through all that footage, what was the moment where you were like, “Oh, his life is defined by this level of chaos.” BM: From the beginning. He talked about it from the beginning in the recorded interviews I came across. It was an issue and an issue. Bowie only really spoke to the press when he was out promoting an album. My favorite interviews with Bowie were during the Berlin period when he was out promoting Low and Heroes, where he really had a window and an opportunity to talk about chaos theory. I’m listening to this interview with Bowie and he’s talking to a bunch of reporters in a hotel in Holland. He says, 300 years ago all we had to do was think about where we got our food. Most people lived in an agricultural society. Right now, we are inundated with noise, information and ideas. When you’re walking down the street, you hear a car go by, and you hear a car crash, and a plane goes overhead, and someone’s talking as they go by. How has our brain evolved in 300 years to process all this media and information? David was creating a soundtrack for this world. David has this line where he says, “You gotta surf the mess.” Because when you throw yourself into it, it’s not chaotic anymore. You know, it’s like bamboo. You kind of move with it or you’re going to crack. So David just glided through life. Watching the footage, watching the interviews, was far more enlightening and life changing than anything I got out of my undergraduate degree. I went to school with the best: David Bowie. For two years, every day, six days a week. I absorbed these interviews and without going into it, I had a heart attack right before I started. So I was at a point in my life where I was very receptive to some guidance. AVC: What is the greatest lesson you learned from Bowie as his student? BM: How to make every moment as adventurous as possible, and take every moment and see it as an opportunity for some kind of exchange or some kind of growth. Never waste a day. It has changed the way I create. Change what I’m going to do. This movie forced me to let go, forced me to accept that there were no mistakes, just happy accidents. I had to learn how to be spontaneous. And it wasn’t easy. It was traumatic. Watching the footage was beautiful, but I was working in a space that, unfortunately, people assume is part of a genre called a biographical documentary. There is a certain expectation and anticipation of what it will be. I was definitely trying to swim away from it as much as possible because for me the cinema is my church. I don’t really go there for events. I go there to have some kind of experience. So that led me to this point in my career. If it’s in Wikipedia, I don’t want it in my movie. The public can go and do it themselves. And I don’t want—for Bowie—to hear anyone try to explain it to him beyond himself. Because Bowie can’t really be defined. It’s an enigma, it means something different to you and different to me. It really was the ultimate mirror. AVC: When you say you were looking to create this experience, where did you start? What was the track that opened the movie for you? BM: So I had my visual theme, right, then I had to figure out how to figure out Bowie. The thing about Bowie was that he was very clear about his line. I accepted very early on that the film had to have a narrative. It was never going to be 40 minutes – I couldn’t hold it in 40 minutes. It needed to have a narrative, but I didn’t want it to be obvious. I didn’t want the public to come in and have no mystery. I don’t get that on TV documentaries, where they preview what’s going to happen on the show, and you see all these clips. So why did you just give away the entire movie before the movie even started? Because the whole idea of this stuff is to not get lost. The idea of this material is to always maintain some sort of orientation. This whole movie was about getting lost and accepting that there might not be any answers. That’s the beauty of art. The key to the film was when David said, “When I was a kid, I heard Fats Domino on the radio. And I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. And that’s why I found it so interesting. It was the mystery.” I wanted the film to have that kind of mystery, but I know not all audiences want to be lost in the dark for a few hours. This line is very deliberately placed 20 minutes into the film. Because at 20 minutes when he mentions the mystery of art, you’re like, “Oh, this is happening.” If I said it at the top, there would never be any mystery. AVC: What is your favorite clip that you came across during your research? BM: You don’t expect what I’m going to tell you. It was an interview, I think from 1987 with a Canadian journalist who was from Entertainment Tonight or the Canadian version of Entertainment Tonight. He hadn’t done any homework on who David Bowie was. She’s sitting down and he’s sitting down and I’m like, “It’s not going to go well.” It was clear he had no idea who he was at the time. And David starts talking to her about books. “Ah, have you read the new… ? It’s absolutely brilliant.” And he was totally freaking out about somebody, and then David says, “So tell me what you read.” And that was the moment I said: “Every moment is an opportunity for exchange.” If you’re there and I’m here, let’s do something. AVC: What’s the biggest message you want viewers to take away when they leave the theater? BM: I would say the message is: How do I go about my day tomorrow? Am I taking advantage of the limited time I have left? This is the staff. Then the biggest is: What a remarkable life. This is how you do it. This student knew how to do it and did it as well if not better than almost anyone. AVC: As a Bowie fanboy, what’s your favorite song and favorite era? BM: 1995 to 1997 is my favorite era and my favorite song of the day or time because it changes from moment to moment, let’s go with “Cygnet Committee”.
