Cracked Actor
I’ve been on a Bowie kick this week since Lily of the Valley and Justin Bond’s performance of “Under Pressure” at the Squeezebox After-Party (see previous post). I pulled out my old Bowie Singles collection and have been listening to it all week. Then I went and read the Bowie listing on Wikipedia. Did you know that David Bowie donated 10,000 bucks to the Jena Six Defense Fund?
One of the other things I remembered when reading about Bowie was that I’d always heard about this strange BBC bio documentary called “Cracked Actor.” In the half-hour doc, you’re supposed to see Bowie in a real coked-up, mentally unstable, emotionally exhausted state as he tries to eradicate the Ziggy Stardust character from his psyche. I’d always heard it was really rare, hard-to-find, etc. But of course it’s on Youtube and I found it and watched it this morning.
It’s quite fascinating. It’s not nearly as insane as I’d been led to believe. Sure Bowie is coked up. You can see him sniffing throughout, and he’s clearly being a prick to the interviewers - at one point he starts joking about how he can really come up with those perfect quotable things to say. The film, by Alan Yentob, takes place during the Diamond Dogs tour, as Bowie preps for his Los Angeles gig. It includes footage of the Ziggy Stardust and Alladin Sane tours also, moving around with an admittedly old-fashioned, but still engrossing style. There’s amazing footage of Bowie singing songs like Cracked Actor, Ziggy Stardust, My Death, Diamond Dogs, and Sweet Thing. At the end Bowie’s clearly morphing into the Philly Soul - Young Americans Bowie as he rehearses a trio of soul back-up singers on a new funky arrangement of John, I’m Only Dancing. The Thin White Duke Bowie is not far off. It’s easy to see where Todd Haynes got the documentary element for Velvet Goldmine - I know, I know - obviously it’s Citizen Kane too, but this is also in there in a big way.
Hope you enjoy it. It’s divided into five parts.