Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Pierrot, the Fine White Duke, Blind Prophet, the alien rocker Christ’slight, an alcoholic astronaut, a neo-expressionist painter, and an omnivorous lover — all these masks and more converge in the elusive signifier Bowie. His death marked the end of a lifetime spent reinventing himself again and again.
Moonage Daydream, a bold cinematic tribute presented out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival, surveys four and a half years of continual metamorphosis. The filmmaker sifted through thousands of hours of archival material over five years. Brett Morgen, known for Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, builds on his interest in the artist’s continuously shifting self-image and presents a stream of moments rather than a straightforward bio.
atomized information
Moonage Daydream does not unfold as a linear biography. Instead, it offers fragments and conversations that reveal Bowie as a restless thinker. The musician reflects on changes in beliefs and moods, noting that Tuesday found him as a Buddhist and Friday found him curious about Nietzsche. The film becomes an ever-changing collage, with abstract animations and visual nods to filmmakers and painters across eras, including Méliès, Kubrick, Murnau, Eisenstein, Oshima, Kandinsky, Pollock, and Bacon. These images layer one another, creating a fluid tapestry of influence and identity.
There are numerous musical clips embedded throughout. The documentary traces the arc from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars in the early seventies to the collaborative journeys during the mid and late nineties linked to the albums Outside and Earthlings.
music treasure
In total, forty-eight songs appear in the compilation, with Hello Spaceboy opening the suite and Memory of a Free Festival closing it. Morgen’s selection diverges from fan favorites in some corners, yet it remains impeccably crafted. The tempo carries the audience through a two-hour and twenty-minute runtime without forcing a halt. Die-hard fans will likely wish for more, while casual listeners may feel the pace moves quickly. The film frames Bowie’s music as an operating idea, a constant experiment that aimed to usher in a new century even as early as the 1970s, a stark reminder of the artist’s willingness to push boundaries.
As the artist explains in the documentary, his music resembled an idea pudding — a collage of impulses and concepts that defied easy categorization. The approach captures Bowie’s self-proclaimed mission to provoke thought while entertaining audiences with captivating soundscapes and theatrical personas.
The central thesis of the film is a pendulum running through Bowie’s life. It oscillates between the desire to connect with listeners and the impulse to withdraw and redefine himself. This tension explains moments when collaborations with Brian Eno in Berlin led him toward populist songs that broadened his reach, such as Let’s Dance and Modern Love. The narrative suggests that after years of insisting on personal taste, he began offering what the public wanted, sometimes redefining his own boundaries in the process.
personal life
The document preserves the artist’s continual willingness to explore while staying focused on his work. Personal details are kept intentionally light, emphasizing the spirit of Bowie’s career more than intimate disclosures. The result is a consciously incomplete portrait that captures the essence of a figure who embodied multiple personas — Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, the Blind Prophet, and beyond — and suggests that this sprawling constellation stands for a larger achievement: an era of cinema, music, and fashion that refused to stay still.