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David Bowie: The Last Five Years
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David Bowie: The Last Five Years
David Bowie: The Last Five Years is a 2017 British documentary that tells the story of the last five years of David Bowie's career. It was produced and directed by Francis Whately. The film uses unseen footage of Bowie, and commentary from a wide variety of friends and colleagues. It was first broadcast on BBC on 7 January 2017, and was then released on HBO on 8 January 2018. The film received generally positive reviews. In 2019 it was followed by David Bowie: Finding Fame.
The film traces the final five years of David Bowie's career as he came back from a long hiatus to create two new albums, The Next Day in 2013 and Blackstar in 2016, and the off-Broadway musical, Lazarus. The film's story begins in 2004, when Bowie suffered symptoms of a heart attack onstage in Germany, which ended his final world tour. Whately used footage from his first documentary; David Bowie: Five Years, which explored five of Bowie's most iconic albums, from Ziggy Stardust to Let's Dance, and also used behind-the-scenes footage from Bowie's videos for the film. The footage is interspersed with analysis and commentary from friends, colleagues, band members, designers, video directors and the Lazarus creative team. The films title is a nod to the Ziggy Stardust track "Five Years" (halfway through the documentary, the song appears in a 1976 performance from The Dinah Shore Show). Bowie died two days after Blackstar was released in 2016.
Cast in order of appearance
Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being, go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don't feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting.
In November 2016, the BBC announced that the documentary would be screened on the first anniversary of his death. Director Francis Whately said that when he was asked to make the film, the BBC informed him it would have to be completed in a years time, in order for it to air on Bowie's 70th birthday. Whately recalls that he wasn't sure he had it in him, "much as I am a fan, I didn’t know whether we could do anything that would be substantially different to the first film". Whately said he finally decided on using some of Bowie's work that he had produced near the end of his life. He acknowledged that it was going to be a challenge, because at that time in Bowie's life, it was basically undocumented, as Bowie hadn't given any recent media interviews, and there was very little archival footage available to work with. Whately said he experienced sleepless nights thinking, "how am I going to fill 90 minutes without any footage ... I was really worried."
In order to compensate for the lack of documentation, Whately came up with a unique solution. He planned on reuniting the musicians who Bowie had worked with on his last two albums, to recreate what it was like working with Bowie in the studio sessions, and secondly, he shot a performance of Lazarus at the New York Theatre Workshop. He filmed the musicians from the Blackstar album at a New York jazz club called 55 Bar, which happened to be the same place Bowie had first seen them perform, and then eventually asked to play on the album. In addition to the recollections of the musicians and the performance, his archive producer was able to find never-before-seen material, which included Bowie becoming irritated while being filmed talking with artist Damien Hirst at an exhibit in New York City. Whately thought the clip was a very compelling moment "for a man who was desperate for fame, and then had a very ambivalent relationship with fame". His producer also dug up some unseen silent black-and-white footage of Bowie singing "Lady Stardust", and his editor was able to score a bootleg recording of the song, and synced the audio with the visual.
Whately relied on Bowie's long time producer Tony Visconti as well. He had been with the singer from the early days in 1969, clear up to Blackstar. Visconti was able to provide Whately with unheard demos from Bowie's last sessions. Andy Greene from Rolling Stone said that "the most chilling moment comes when Visconti plays the isolated vocals from Lazarus, which allow you to hear each agonized breath Bowie took between lines". Video director Johan Renck is filmed discussing the significance of the skeletal astronaut character Bowie commissioned for Blackstar. Whately ponders whether that character is Major Tom, he admits he has "no way of knowing that, but he certainly wanted you to believe that it was ... it's the character that made him successful, so the idea of one of his last videos having Major Tom absolutely made sense". Whately started production on the documentary in September 2016, and had it finished in four months.
The documentary was released approximately one year after Bowie's death on 7 January 2017, on BBC Two In February 2017, HBO announced they had acquired the rights to the film, and it had its premiere on HBO on 8 January 2018.
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David Bowie: The Last Five Years
David Bowie: The Last Five Years is a 2017 British documentary that tells the story of the last five years of David Bowie's career. It was produced and directed by Francis Whately. The film uses unseen footage of Bowie, and commentary from a wide variety of friends and colleagues. It was first broadcast on BBC on 7 January 2017, and was then released on HBO on 8 January 2018. The film received generally positive reviews. In 2019 it was followed by David Bowie: Finding Fame.
The film traces the final five years of David Bowie's career as he came back from a long hiatus to create two new albums, The Next Day in 2013 and Blackstar in 2016, and the off-Broadway musical, Lazarus. The film's story begins in 2004, when Bowie suffered symptoms of a heart attack onstage in Germany, which ended his final world tour. Whately used footage from his first documentary; David Bowie: Five Years, which explored five of Bowie's most iconic albums, from Ziggy Stardust to Let's Dance, and also used behind-the-scenes footage from Bowie's videos for the film. The footage is interspersed with analysis and commentary from friends, colleagues, band members, designers, video directors and the Lazarus creative team. The films title is a nod to the Ziggy Stardust track "Five Years" (halfway through the documentary, the song appears in a 1976 performance from The Dinah Shore Show). Bowie died two days after Blackstar was released in 2016.
Cast in order of appearance
Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being, go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don't feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting.
In November 2016, the BBC announced that the documentary would be screened on the first anniversary of his death. Director Francis Whately said that when he was asked to make the film, the BBC informed him it would have to be completed in a years time, in order for it to air on Bowie's 70th birthday. Whately recalls that he wasn't sure he had it in him, "much as I am a fan, I didn’t know whether we could do anything that would be substantially different to the first film". Whately said he finally decided on using some of Bowie's work that he had produced near the end of his life. He acknowledged that it was going to be a challenge, because at that time in Bowie's life, it was basically undocumented, as Bowie hadn't given any recent media interviews, and there was very little archival footage available to work with. Whately said he experienced sleepless nights thinking, "how am I going to fill 90 minutes without any footage ... I was really worried."
In order to compensate for the lack of documentation, Whately came up with a unique solution. He planned on reuniting the musicians who Bowie had worked with on his last two albums, to recreate what it was like working with Bowie in the studio sessions, and secondly, he shot a performance of Lazarus at the New York Theatre Workshop. He filmed the musicians from the Blackstar album at a New York jazz club called 55 Bar, which happened to be the same place Bowie had first seen them perform, and then eventually asked to play on the album. In addition to the recollections of the musicians and the performance, his archive producer was able to find never-before-seen material, which included Bowie becoming irritated while being filmed talking with artist Damien Hirst at an exhibit in New York City. Whately thought the clip was a very compelling moment "for a man who was desperate for fame, and then had a very ambivalent relationship with fame". His producer also dug up some unseen silent black-and-white footage of Bowie singing "Lady Stardust", and his editor was able to score a bootleg recording of the song, and synced the audio with the visual.
Whately relied on Bowie's long time producer Tony Visconti as well. He had been with the singer from the early days in 1969, clear up to Blackstar. Visconti was able to provide Whately with unheard demos from Bowie's last sessions. Andy Greene from Rolling Stone said that "the most chilling moment comes when Visconti plays the isolated vocals from Lazarus, which allow you to hear each agonized breath Bowie took between lines". Video director Johan Renck is filmed discussing the significance of the skeletal astronaut character Bowie commissioned for Blackstar. Whately ponders whether that character is Major Tom, he admits he has "no way of knowing that, but he certainly wanted you to believe that it was ... it's the character that made him successful, so the idea of one of his last videos having Major Tom absolutely made sense". Whately started production on the documentary in September 2016, and had it finished in four months.
The documentary was released approximately one year after Bowie's death on 7 January 2017, on BBC Two In February 2017, HBO announced they had acquired the rights to the film, and it had its premiere on HBO on 8 January 2018.