The young dude
BOWIE BIOPIC STARDUST FOCUSES ON A SINGULAR MOMENT IN TIME
Wednesday night saw one of the weirdest film festival world premieres in history, as the director and stars of Stardust, the new David Bowie biopic, took to Zoom in a video conference introduction.
“Welcome everyone,” said director and co- writer Gabriel Range, as Johnny Flynn, Jena Malone and Marc Maron beamed at the unseen audience of journalists and industry types crowded on the virtual red carpet. “I thought I’d be on my way to New York right now to watch the film with some of you in Tribeca.”
That festival, like so many others, has been shelved in the wake of the pandemic, but organizers put together the online introduction, followed by select access for 24 hours to a virtual screening room to watch the film. By Zoom’s tally there were 156 participants during the opening remarks, though none was visible and all were muted.
Stardust features British musician and actor Johnny Flynn ( Emma), as Bowie in 1971, a time when the 24- year- old travelled to America on a “tour” that did little for his career, given that his paperwork didn’t allow him to perform to any but the smallest venues while there.
This works out perfectly for the film, which did not have the participation of the Bowie family ( filmmaker Duncan Jones, Bowie’s son, has been notably cool on the project), and was not able to license any of his music. This leads to the oddity of Bowie performing covers of other people’s music, and in one case a song written by Flynn himself.
This omission wasn’t mentioned directly by Range or the actors. No one was addressing the elephant in the chatroom.
Said Flynn: “I’m a bit skeptical about biopics generally, but I couldn’t imagine how anyone would want to try to play David Bowie. I asked some friends and they were like, ‘ You’re f---ing crazy. No way. Delete!’
“And then I read it. It’s really specific. It’s really about this moment. It’s one moment that acts as a prism to see their whole life.”
Malone, who plays Bowie’s first wife, said she was “a giant Bowie fan” but in a roundabout way, meeting him through Labyrinth as a young girl and then discovering his music later on in life. That would be the 1986 fantasy film, which had a young Malone crushing on its star and asking: “Who was this incredible wild entity?”
The movie is an imperfect beast, focusing on Bowie’s relationship with his half- brother Terry Burns ( Derek Moran), whose mental illness ran in the family and had Bowie fearful of becoming similarly afflicted. It doesn’t help that the album he’s promoting, The Man Who Sold the World, features a picture of a mental asylum on the jacket and includes
It’s one moment that acts as a prism ...
the song All the Madmen. Journalists keep asking about that, causing Bowie to shy away.
And it’s a little convenient to have publicist Ron Oberman ( Maron), telling Bowie at the end of their cross-country road trip: “If you can’t be yourself, then be someone else.” This after the musician had already released Space Oddity, dabbled in mime and taken to wearing dresses and heels. It’s arguable that he had already discovered the art of reinvention.
Stardust doesn’t have a release date set, but will likely arrive on screens — small or large yet to be determined — before the year is out.