David Bowie: Five Years (2013)

David Bowie released his first album in 1967, and released his last in 2016. Across those 49 years, he released 27 studio albums, 9 live albums, 49 compilation albums, 6 EPs, 121 singles, 3 soundtracks, 14 video albums, and 59 music videos. His artistic output is epic, and narrowing things down to just five years came with benefits and drawbacks.

The most obvious positive that comes from a five year window is that otherwise, Bowie's career would just be too immense to cover in one documentary. These filmmakers chose the five years that best showed off what made David Bowie who he was. The music, the costumes, the characters, the style, all came together. The past influenced the future, the future reflected on the past. The interviews with Bowie were fascinating looks into how he viewed himself, his music, his image, the nature of celebrity. The musicians he played with through the years gave great interviews as well, and you could tell that each of them truly cherished the time they were able to spend working with him.

As with any artist, there are arguments as to which five years should have been chosen; some landmark albums were ignored, but to stick to the theme of just five years, you can't expect to hit every album. The timeline did try to hit each of his biggest themes, the biggest shifts in his artistic direction. When Ziggy Stardust "died", a part of David Bowie "died" along with him, only to be reborn. The metamorphoses that Bowie would undergo were amazing, and was highlighted by selecting just a few years from his life.

One of the things I enjoy about documentaries (specifically music or movie-themed ones) is hearing from the people that surrounded the star. It's one thing to listen to David Bowie talk about David Bowie, but when you bring in his collaborators (Mick Ronson, Brian Eno, Nile Rodgers, Rick Wakeman, Carlos Alomar, just to name a few) it's a different perspective. Bowie was the focus, he was the character, he was the leader. These other guys were the producers, the arrangers, the side-men. By no means is that an insult to any of them, they all played valuable roles, helping Bowie change his sound or fashion. To hear Nile Rodgers tell the story of walking into a club with Billy Idol, seeing Bowie sitting at the bar, striking up a conversation then going on to make "Let's Dance" is just awesome.

I am a huge fan of Bowie, so any chance I get to learn something new about him, I take. Being just a one-hour documentary, I did feel a bit let down in terms of the amount of content. The quality was great, but the quantity was lacking. A full retrospective of his career would be a huge undertaking, and hopefully someone will be up to the task. Until then, "Five Years" is a great glimpse into what made a legend.