We'll leave it to others to eulogise the man and his music, but at SBS On Demand we’re celebrating the life of the late, great David Bowie, by looking at the use of his music in the movies.
We've found a couple of classic examples of how David Bowie inspired storytellers to create profound moments on screen.
C.R.A.Z.Y.
2000, MA15+
Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
Starring: Marc-André Grondin, Michel Cote
What's the Bowie link?
Long before he went onto to make Dallas Buyers Club and Wild, French-Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee celebrated pop culture of the '70s and '80s in C.R.A.Z.Y. The movie is an infectious account of a camp connoisseur of pop culture, Zac, who escapes to a dreamstate to express his fluid sexuality – he finds that method the easiest way to keep everything under wraps from his disapproving dad. One of the film’s standout moments is this full-bodied rendition of ‘Space Oddity’:
Long before he went onto to make Dallas Buyers Club and Wild, French-Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee celebrated pop culture of the '70s and '80s in C.R.A.Z.Y. The movie is an infectious account of a camp connoisseur of pop culture, Zac, who escapes to a dreamstate to express his fluid sexuality – he finds that method the easiest way to keep everything under wraps from his disapproving dad. One of the film’s standout moments is this full-bodied rendition of ‘Space Oddity’:
In an interview, Vallee said of the iconic songs on the soundtrack: “I wanted the right tracks to find the mood in the film. I listened to that music a lot when I was writing the script, and it’s music I grew up listening to. With music like that, Pink Floyd, the Stones and Bowie, it’s International, it belongs to the planet.”
Velvet Goldmine
1998, MA15+
Director: Todd Haynes
Starring: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Christian Bale, Ewan McGregor, Toni Collette
What's the Bowie link?
From the ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’ department… Todd Haynes’ ode to glam rock in the ‘70s was conceived as a glowing tribute to the Starman himself. Haynes sent the script to Bowie, along with a request to populate the soundtrack with seven of his Ziggy-era songs (‘All The Young Dudes’, ‘Lady Stardust’, ‘Velvet Goldmine’, ‘Moonage Daydream’ ‘Sweet Young Thing’ ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’ and ‘Lady Grinning Soul’). Instead, he got a curt ‘thanks but no thanks,’ reportedly with the stinger that if anyone would make a David Bowie biopic, it’d be David Bowie. Haynes had to settle for ‘Ziggy-era’ sounds instead. Still great, though.
From the ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’ department… Todd Haynes’ ode to glam rock in the ‘70s was conceived as a glowing tribute to the Starman himself. Haynes sent the script to Bowie, along with a request to populate the soundtrack with seven of his Ziggy-era songs (‘All The Young Dudes’, ‘Lady Stardust’, ‘Velvet Goldmine’, ‘Moonage Daydream’ ‘Sweet Young Thing’ ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’ and ‘Lady Grinning Soul’). Instead, he got a curt ‘thanks but no thanks,’ reportedly with the stinger that if anyone would make a David Bowie biopic, it’d be David Bowie. Haynes had to settle for ‘Ziggy-era’ sounds instead. Still great, though.
In this great interview from The Movie Show (above), Todd Haynes says, “I wanted the film to be full of all the references that defined glam rock. I wanted it to be about a period that was special and unique but lost to us.” REM’s Michael Stipe talks of the impact of Glam Rock: “it definitely had an impact on me and my band and a lot of our contemporaries. It was a very important era of music that hasn’t been covered very much, certainly not in film.” Legendary indie film producer Cristine Vachon says, ‘Some of the people we talked to, it is almost painful for them to remember it.”
