Seven years, thousands of hours of David Bowie footage and an inspiring train journey later, Brett Morgen has finally achieved his 'Moonage Daydream'

Brett Morgen went through a lot to make "Moonage Daydream". It takes a certain amount of obsession to capture on film the essence of the life of David Bowie, visionary, artist and metamorphosed actor of music. For Morgen, known for his work exploring another singular artist with "Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck," as well as "The Kid Stays in the Picture" and "Jane," making the first authorized Bowie documentary took nearly seven years. . Until it was time to create the all-encompassing sound mix with the help of Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti, he worked mostly alone, weathering both the pandemic and a severe heart attack.

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"Moonage Daydream" is like no other music documentary has been seen before. With no talking heads or facts about Bowie 101, it's aimed at superfans and perhaps the Bowie curious, with sound-enhanced remixes of over 40 of his hits and less-played songs intertwined with unpublished images of his work. , interviews with the singer, and rare concert and film footage. That alone would be sensory overload and enough for a feature-length documentary, but Morgen also superimposed clips from films that Bowie had once referred to, from "Metropolis" and "A Clockwork Orange," to "Freaks" and " La Dolce Vita,” creating a stunning two-hour, 15-minute sound and visual experience.

So how did Morgen, who wrote and edited as well as directed, manage to struggle with all those sounds and images in form? A train ride helped, as well as a trip to the "David Bowie Is" archival exhibit in Brooklyn and an intensive search for rare footage.

"Moonage Daydream" opens Friday in an exclusive IMAX presentation, extending September 23 to more theaters. < /p>

Morgen detailed some entry points into his creative process for Variety before the theatrical release of the film.

Have you ever met Bowie or told him about your movie idea?

I met David in 2007 to discuss a potential collaboration on a hybrid non- fiction - not “Moonage Daydream,” something very different that was going to be more performance-based. today, and he plays the same songs for 40 years in a bar in the middle of the night until the last four people on Earth pay attention. It was kind of a wild presentation. It was going to take a lot of shooting and David was in semi-retirement at the time.

The man who became her executor called afterwards and said, you know, "David enjoyed the pitch but he's not in a place where he can do that now."

So how did you get back to doing a Bowie project?

Around 2015 I had done both musical films - "Crossfire Hurricane" (about the Rolling Stones ) and "Montage of Heck", and I kind of got to a point where I wanted to explore other areas - non-biographical non-fiction.

I wanted to create a sort of immersive musical experience for IMAX and for a theatrical setting with these greats - deeds of heritage more than nature. Most of us know Wikipedia from our careers, and I just wanted to create a space for the public to have an immersive and intimate experience with their favorite artist - a theme park, if you will, built around the Beatles and Bowie , Hendrix, whoever.

So I started down this path with several artists. Then in January 2016, Bowie passed away.

Once his estate agreed to the project, what was your next step?

At that time they provided me full access to explore the archives. The only diktat was that David is not here to approve...