Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, The Thin White Duke – at his height, David Bowie burned through identities like cigarettes, showcasing his wild theatricality and huge range of interests. “Stardust” is a fictionalized portrayal of Bowie just before he decides to don those masks, when his eclecticism is a hurdle, not an asset and writer/director Gabriel Range has as much to say about the artistic process and growing from failure as he does about Bowie specifically.
“Stardust” is the rare biopic that finds failure more interesting than success. Johnny Flynn conjures a Bowie who is primarily frustrated and frustrating. Frustrated because his star isn’t rising and frustrating because he sabotages the opportunities he’s given. Even most Bowie diehards will admit that his first albums are a mixed bag, with flashes of greatness alongside some deeply strange flights of fancy. “Stardust” shows Bowie in 1971, when his one major hit, “Space Oddity,” is fading from memory and his record label is losing patience with his hard to describe talent. When he sets out on what is supposed to be a triumphant tour of America, he’s dealt one setback after another, from a visa mistake that prevents him from playing real gigs, to discovering that instead of red carpet treatment, he’ll have to stay with the parents of Ron Oberman (Marc Maron), the only person at the label that liked his new album, “The Man Who Sold the World.”
Oberman and Bowie set out across America, trying to make Bowie a rock star through interviews and private gigs, including a disastrous vacuum cleaner convention. Flynn gives a complex portrayal of Bowie, charismatic but withdrawn, a firm believer in his talent, yet unable to articulate it. Oberman becomes exasperated that Bowie has written a record about madness, with an asylum on the front, yet deflects every question about the subject (several times by turning to his pantomime training). Range shows through flashbacks that Bowie is haunted by the institutionalization of his brother and artistic mentor Terry, something that he’s processing through music but not willing to speak about publicly, especially because he’s scared mental disease will soon claim him too. In Flynn’s portrayal of Bowie, his talent hides behind fear and passivity, and the film can be seen as an introvert pushing himself to become an extrovert. Oberman eventually gives him the advice, “If you can’t be yourself, be someone else,” and soon, Ziggy Stardust makes his rapturous debut.
Sort of. Unfortunately, “Stardust” doesn’t have the rights to actual Bowie songs, a pretty glaring absence in a movie about his musical talent. Real-life singer/songwriter Flynn performs well, but we have to settle for him singing covers that Bowie sang at the time, instead of hearing the songs that are the film’s raison d’etre.
If there is a silver lining to that absence, it’s that Range is able to give a more interesting take on Bowie than recent officially sanctioned rock hagiographies of Queen and Elton John. “Stardust” shows how Bowie failing was not just possible, but terribly likely. While this is far from a definitive Bowie movie without his songs, Flynn and Maron charm as a dysfunctional road trip duo and the movie is a testament to the power of speaking truth through fiction. [B]