BackBack to selection

The Editor's Blog

Contemplations and digressions from Filmmaker's Editor-in-Chief by Scott Macaulay

David Bowie, 1947 – 2016

David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth

by
in Columns
on Jan 11, 2016

,

I’ve been listening to David Bowie’s new Blackstar all week, and its lyrical ruminations on mortality — some aching, some cheeky — are inescapable. Still, the idea that these were prompted by anything more than an impending 70th birthday didn’t occur to me. It seemed unbelievable that David Bowie would not be around for a little while longer. So, it’s a sad day to wake up to the news that Bowie has died. So meaningful, influential and vital through so many different periods of our lives. For me, the Berlin trilogy, my first arena show, The Man Who to Earth, so much more….

Others are doing the memorial thing well this morning. David Hudson has an excellent round-up at Keyframe. Tweets and tributes are collected at Vulture. Jon Pareles has the official obit as the lead story in the New York Times.

And here are some of those lyrics from “Dollar Days,” from Bowie’s latest, Blackstar.

Cash girls suffer me, I’ve got no enemies
I’m walking down
It’s nothing to me
It’s nothing to see
If I never see the English evergreens I’m running to
It’s nothing to me
It’s nothing to see

I’m dying to
Push their backs against the grain
And fool them all again and again
I’m trying to
We bitches tear our magazines
Those Oligarchs with foaming mouths come
Now and then
Don’t believe for just one second I’m forgetting you
I’m trying to
I’m dying to

And here is Bowie’s last issued moment on film, clearly a farewell. R.I.P. David Bowie.

© 2024 Filmmaker Magazine. All Rights Reserved. A Publication of The Gotham