David Bowie Documentary Director Brett Morgen on His Seven-Yr Odyssey to Make ‘Moonage Daydream’

Brett Morgen went by way of rather a lot to make “Moonage Daydream.” It takes specific amount of obsession to seize on movie the essence of the lifetime of David Bowie, the shapeshifting music visionary, artist and actor. For Morgen, recognized for his work exploring one other singular artist with “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,” in addition to “The Child Stays within the Image” and “Jane,” crafting the primary approved Bowie documentary was a virtually seven-year course of. Till it was time to create the surrounding sound combine with assist from Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti, he labored principally alone, weathering each the pandemic and a critical coronary heart assault.

“Moonage Daydream” is like no different music documentary audiences have seen earlier than. With no speaking heads or Bowie 101 information, it’s geared in the direction of super-fans and probably the Bowie-curious, with sonically-enhanced remixes of greater than 40 of his hits and lesser-played songs interlaced with never-before-seen photographs of his paintings, interviews with the singer and uncommon live performance and film footage. That alone could be a sensory overload and sufficient for a function documentary, however Morgen additionally layers in clips of movies Bowie had referenced in some unspecified time in the future, from “Metropolis” and “A Clockwork Orange,” from “Freaks” and “La Dolce Vita,” making a mind-bending two hour and 15-minute aural and visible expertise.

So how did Morgen, who wrote and edited in addition to directing, handle to wrestle all these sounds and all this imagery into form? A practice experience helped, plus a visit to the “David Bowie is” archival exhibit in Brooklyn and a few intensive sleuthing for uncommon footage.

“Moonage Daydream” opens Friday in an unique IMAX presentation, increasing Sept. 23 to extra theaters.

Morgen detailed some entry factors into his inventive course of for Selection forward of the movie’s theatrical launch.

Did you ever get to fulfill Bowie or inform him about your thought for a movie?

I met David in 2007 to debate a possible collaboration on a hybrid nonfiction undertaking – not “Moonage Daydream,” one thing very completely different that was going to be extra performance-based. That movie that I pitched him imagined that David by no means developed after Ziggy and that we’d discover him in present-day Berlin, and he has been enjoying the identical songs for the previous 40 years at a dive bar in the midst of the night time to the final 4 folks on Earth who’re paying consideration. It was a type of wild presentation. It was going to require a variety of capturing and David was in semi-retirement at that time.

The person who grew to become his executor referred to as afterwards and mentioned, , “David loved the pitch however he’s not at a spot the place he can do that proper now.”

So how did you come again round to doing a Bowie undertaking?

Round 2015 I had executed the 2 music movies — “Crossfire Hurricane” (on the Rolling Stones) and “Montage of Heck,” and I kind of arrived at some extent that I needed to discover different areas – non-biographical non-fiction.

I needed to create a type of Immersive musical expertise for IMAX and for a theatrical setting with these larger-than-life heritage acts. Most of us are accustomed to the Wikipedia of their careers, and I simply needed to create an area for audiences to have an immersive and intimate expertise with their favourite artist — a theme park experience, if you’ll, constructed round The Beatles and Bowie, Hendrix, whoever it may be.

So I began taking place that path with a number of artists. Then in January 2016, Bowie handed.

After his property agreed to the undertaking, what was the next step?

At that time they supplied me the with full entry to discover the archives. The one dictate was David shouldn’t be right here to approve or authorize the undertaking, so it might by no means be Bowie on Bowie. It’ll all the time have to be Brett Morgan on Bowie.

What was the scope of the archive?

It took the higher a part of two years to get that materials digitized and collated, after which two extra years for me to display screen by way of it, six days every week in 12-hour days. I had probably the 2 best years of my profession going to work day-after-day to observe and hearken to David Bowie.

The issue was by the point I acquired to the top, I couldn’t bear in mind what I had seen two years earlier. Usually what occurs by screening issues chronologically is a by way of line will emerge.

So what was the by way of line or the theme for you?

In Bowie’s case it was it was fairly clear. He acknowledged it repeatedly all through his profession: Chaos and fragmentation and transience. These are themes that he explored from his first recordings to his ultimate recordings.

How did you determine to construction the fabric?

Often the script pours out of me after I am going by way of the supplies and it’s a 3 to 5 day course of. So I had in my schedule, , end screening, write a script, begin enhancing in every week. Often, I write earlier than I get to the edit room and I lay down the narrative that’s written notes monitoring the through-line.

And really rapidly it was revealed that I don’t know write an expertise. I didn’t have a biographical narrative to lock onto.

And one week was two weeks, was 4 weeks, was six weeks and nothing is going on. It took eight months – going to work day-after-day and coming house empty handed. I might begin to write concepts — not about scenes, however concepts about Bowie on spirituality, Bowie on the inventive course of, Bowie on growing old. Not likely serving to me advance the plot, however it was an train.

What was your breakthrough when it comes to cracking the script?

I drove to work at some point and I didn’t wish to go into my workplace. It was like a coffin. Nothing was taking place in there. So I I flew to Albuquerque on a whim and acquired on an Amtrak and I mentioned I’m not coming house till I crack this.

One of many nice classes from Bowie is get out of your consolation zone. And one of many issues that the movie offers with head on is how Bowie preferred to be in transit, to create and be a type of cultural anthropologist.

So I acquired to Albuquerque, I acquired on a practice, and the second the practice began transferring, the floodgates opened. By the second I had arrived I had settled on the by way of line — transience. And so I then mentioned let’s take three songs from every album that relate again to that theme, and curate a playlist that’s the basis of them, nearly like a jukebox musical.

So when the practice pulled into L.A., I had one thing to function from.

Along with the pandemic, you confronted one other big hurdle throughout manufacturing.

The opposite main factor that had occurred throughout this era was I had a coronary heart assault and so I used to be in a coma for a number of days. I used to be 47. I’ve three teenage kids. The best way that I’ve been going about my life had led me to this, working nonstop and never exercising and never dwelling a wholesome life, not dwelling life in steadiness. And so I wanted to learn to create extra concord and equilibrium in my life.

It appeared that David was offering me with a highway map or a information, a blueprint for lead a balanced and fulfilled life in an age of chaos and fragmentation. So whereas I had got down to make a theme park experience, I ended up seeing a possibility for one thing extra life-affirming.

How did you determine to combine so many alternative movie clips?

Bowie was a tradition vulture. He was my cultural passport to the world, my introduction to William Burroughs. So I needed the movie to have nearly no separation between Bowie’s personal constructions and the work that impressed and influenced him. Any time he would reference one thing, I might write it down. Once we began chopping, I had an enormous folder of all of his reference factors.

The clips that we see within the movie, are they stunning a lot all based mostly on one thing he’s talked about? I didn’t notice that going into the screening.

All the things relies on one thing that he’s talked about in some unspecified time in the future. However right here’s the factor — the identical manner you hearken to Bowie songs and there’s no footnotes or Cliffs Notes. If what the reference is, that’s nice. If you happen to don’t know, that’s nice too.

So how do you put together the viewers for the truth that they’re not going to obtain a variety of biographical data?

If you happen to’re opening with a quote about Nietzsche and concerning the seek for that means in life as the very first thing, you’re most likely not going to listen to “the primary time I heard my report on the radio.” It’s designed to be mysterious, designed to be enigmatic, designed to really feel like there’s no compass.

It was superb to see a lot of Bowie’s personal paintings, how did you get entry to it?

I went to go to the David Bowie exhibit in Brooklyn. It felt like we had been strolling by way of the film as a result of the exhibit was equal measures David’s artwork and the artwork that influenced and impressed him.

However they didn’t have all of his work within the exhibit. The property had transparencies that they supplied us and a few of it has been bought to collectors so we needed to chase it down.

Was there anybody from his property or elsewhere giving enter through the course of?

No, no.

This was actually the essentially the most troublesome factor. So I’ve the center assault. I used to be self producing. It’s simply me, I had ultimate reduce, so the financiers weren’t concerned in any inventive discussions.

And I had no editor, there was no employees. After which the pandemic hit, and there was no person within the constructing. So, aside from my my spouse, Debra Eisenstadt, who’s an unimaginable filmmaker who I might come house at night time and throw concepts round to, I used to be utterly remoted.

How did it work out to do all of it your self?

Via circumstances, some monetary, some health-related due to the pandemic and since with my coronary heart situation I can’t be round different folks, all of it labored. In a manner I needed to uncover this alone.

There most likely was a neater path. I most likely wouldn’t have been on the movie for seven years. However I used to be type of egocentric and grasping and like, I needed to be there. I needed to make these errors, I needed to determine this out.

It was a bit daunting, , it was like if I didn’t go to work, nothing was taking place on the movie. So the stress to carry out every day simply so we will get by way of this was immense.

Did you all the time wish to make it in in IMAX or when did that concept come about?

It was all the time there from conception. It was the concept of turning an IMAX area right into a musical theme park and actually turning on the entire audio system.

What had been essentially the most difficult components to assemble?

I used to be restricted to David’s voiceover, and I couldn’t get a phrase that I wanted to get to the following scene. Proper earlier than, when he was making the flip to Iman, I didn’t have a transitional line. For every inch, it was prefer it was like trench warfare. Nevertheless it was essentially the most alive I’ve ever felt as an artist.

What was essentially the most satisfying footage to trace down?

Early on, I got here throughout a VHS tape of a 1984 film that David launched referred to as “Ricochet,” that was like a travelogue movie. It was pretty dismissed on the time. It was David strolling round Southeast Asia. I noticed an terrible VHS copy. There wasn’t something on YouTube.

There was like nowhere to entry this factor and I used to be like, oh my God, it’s the Holy Grail. It’s a stranger in a wierd land. It’s the visible metaphor that I’ve been I have to anchor this movie. And I referred to as the property and I mentioned I have to get it as a result of it wasn’t in our stock checklist.

We seemed for a 12 months and a half. Nobody might discover it, after which our archivist, Jessica Berman-Bogdan, stumbled throughout it by chance, filed below the flawed title. That to me was extra precious than any unseen, never-before-released stuff as a result of I simply knew how integral it was to the expertise I needed to current.

I used to be additionally capable of see the entire Diamond Canines present for which David had made a tape for himself. When David acquired to L.A. with the Diamond Canines tour, he determined to desert his units and return on the highway because the Soul Tour with Luther Vandross and Mike Garson because the musical director. I had by no means seen or heard of any materials from that and I got here throughout two tapes of that tour.

How would you like viewers to observe it at house after the theatrical run?

People, whether or not you’re watching it in your telephone, otherwise you’re watching it in your lounge, watch with headphones on.

What was it like to depart the enhancing room and eventually exit into the world with the movie?

It was principally simply me sitting right here on a laptop computer. After which subsequent factor , you’re on the Cannes Movie Pageant, within the Palais, with 2300 folks. And it’s like, I can’t consider this occurred, that is so bizarre. It’s like an arts and crafts undertaking that’s now being introduced in IMAX – around the globe.

You talked about considering of doing the same therapy for different music artists – who could be subsequent in your wishlist?

One of many takeaways from my work with Bowie was the necessity to proceed to problem myself and transfer out of my consolation zone. I’ve determined to step away from archival filmmaking for some time and am creating one thing that’s extra rooted in direct cinema.

(This interview has been edited and condensed.)