Cracked Actor: 1975

Bowie's Paranoid Hollywood Portrait

Published in the UK on February 1, 1975, New Musical Express’s article “Cracked Actor” reviewed Alan Yentob's BBC1 documentary on David Bowie, aired as part of "Omnibus" the previous Sunday. The review described Bowie as sitting in a limo with eyes glinting like strobe lights, paranoid about sirens chasing him, looking more like Buster Keaton than a leper messiah, struggling to speak without sniffing, giggling nervously, or losing his thread.

Article Text

CRACKED ACTOR

BOWIE SITTING in a limo with his eyes glinting like strobe lights and getting paranoid

because he hears the sirens behind him and thinks that the cops are chasing him?

Bowie looking more like Buster Keaton than like any kind of leper messiah? Bowie finding it hard to stumble through more than a few sentences at a time without either sniffing loudly, breaking into nervous giggles or losing the thread of what he was saying?

Most marrow-scraping of all, Bowie sitting in his hotel room with a pair of scissors playing intellectual Russian roulette by doing cut-ups of his old lyrics? Yeah, welcome to 1975, fans and funsters.

Alan Yentob's documentary on Bowie, which BBC1 let loose as part of "Omnibus" last Sunday, was an exceptionally slick piece of work.

Juxtaposing a bunch of completely nurded-out Bowiephile kids sitting in their headphones rambling on about Our Dave's fabulous aura of mystery, a guided tour of Hollywood complete with Wax Museum (best bit: a horrifying shot of a waxwork of Shirley Temple which could really have spiced up "The Exorcist"), plus footage of New-Model Bowie on stage, in transit and in conversation played off against sequences of Bowie in a screening room watching excerpts from D.A. Pennebaker's film of Hammersmith, set up against giggling glitterkids at Rrrrrrod-knee's and snatches of Bowie's records.

Bowie himself is seen alternating neurotic speedy exhilaration/irritation and moments of deadpan depression, spouting platitudes and attempts at self-revelation that indicate nothing so much as that he doesn't really have a self to reveal.

The masks are more real than the face; beneath each mask is another one. Bowie is a man who can only function within a role.

His interview material is strange in the extreme. When I knew him reasonably well he was a coherent conversationalist; he'd analyse the ass off anything in sight. Here he rambles inconsequentially, unable to focus his attention on anything.

"Hey, there's a wax museum. How'd they get a bleedin' wax museum out in the middle of a desert? You'd think it'd melt, wouldn't you..."

The documentary borrows its title from one of Bowie's less distinguished songs.

In this context, the title is worth considerably more than the song. A "Cracked Actor" Bowie is indeed, but whereas most actors can keep themselves distinct from their roles, Bowie was forced to create his own principal role from within the warp and woof of his own fantasies to the point that at various points neither Bowie nor his audience was really sure who was playing who.

"What universe is that?" "The Bowie universe".

Bowie's all nerves, like some strange insect trapped in a jar. His conversation runs around in circles like a rat on a treadmill, he radiates cocaine paranoia and his eyes squirm in their sockets.

He says that he's glad to be rid of Ziggy and to start being himself, but that seems to be proving to be his undoing. Ziggy was a stronger and more fascinating creature than David Bowie; Ziggy sucked him dry. What Yentob got in his viewfinder was the dregs.

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