More Bowie DVDs and WTF SEAN BEAN AS NED STARK, REALLY?
I watched two more Bowie DVDs: Black Tie White Noise (1993) and VH1 Storytellers (1999).
The thing is, Bowie as an older man is wise, funny, cultured, entertaining, charismatic, and… just not 1/10 as interesting as crazy fucked up genius 70s Bowie. You get the sense that he uses his charm and sense of humor to deflect his interviewers and avoid revealing anything particularly personal, whereas in the early years of his fame he was often quite passionate and sincere about whatever disturbing, odd, interesting things happened to be going on in his head.
(Or maybe he just grew up and mellowed out. *shrug*)
Black Tie White Noise is just videos and live footage from the album of the same name, intermixed with interview footage of a genial Bowie chatting about the genesis of the songs and about his artistic philosophies. It's all interesting and cute if you're a Bowie fan, but I don't think there's anything in there that would make you a Bowie fan if you weren't one already. The music is... I guess the kind of music that middle-aged people listen to? It's very jazzy. I don't know, sorry. It's not my thing.
I love one song (and its video): "Jump They Say," which is dark and interesting in a way that just highlights how not interesting the rest of the songs are. I wasn't surprised to see that the video was directed by Mark Romanek, a bit before he did NIN's "Closer"--it's brighter but similarly eerie. And I do like one other song/video, "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday," which is awesome mostly for meta reasons: it's 1993!Bowie doing an impression of 1974!Bowie doing a cover of a Morrissey song inspired by 1972!Bowie. (Mostly it's just fun to watch 1993!Bowie sing in the over-the-top plastic soul Young Americans style.)
The rest is forgettable. Not an essential DVD--I returned it to Netflix and don't intend to buy a copy.
VH1 Storytellers is better, but not as good as I hoped--I was disappointed by the ratio of talk to music. I really wanted to hear more stories! Bowie's between-song chat was the interesting part--he tells little anecdotes about the eras the songs are from, which are interesting and thoughtful and usually funny. The performances are... fine... but mostly it's, y'know, like something you'd see on VH1. Too staid, toned-down, middle-aged, bland.
The song selection was hit or mix, and it seems like some of the better choices got left off the TV show and only appear here as bonuses with the between-song chat cut out (no fair!!!) -- "Always Crashing In The Same Car" in particular is one of the best and shouldn't have been treated like an afterthought. A lot of the songs are bland ones from "...hours," and even with the interesting choices, the arrangements aren't ambitious ("Drive-In Saturday" should've been a lot better).
But there are some really cool bits. It's great to see Bowie at this age covering 1965's "Can't Help Thinking About Me," the first single he released under the name David Bowie. He introduces it by mocking some of the hilariously bad lyrics, but hey, he wrote them at, what, 18? Anything you do at that age is forgivable. And actually, the song is a wonderful choice to perform at this kind of career-retrospective event, because it's all about the uncertainty of growing up, being torn between childhood and adulthood, and wondering if you're going to make it on your own in the world. You've got to figure the kid who wrote that never would've imagined where he'd end up, as one of the most successful musicians in the world, performing that song to an adoring crowd 35 years later.
I was also surprised at how good the cover of "China Girl" was, and at how thoughtful his intro was (it was a story about Iggy Pop in a Berlin punk club at the anniversary of the building of the Wall that segued perfectly into the invasion/exploitation theme of "China Girl"). But my favorite was "Word on a Wing," which is particularly effective because it's such a sincere song from an artist usually known for his ironic distance. His intro to it is great because of its honesty (couched in the protective mechanism of humor but clearly heartfelt and a bit uncomfortably revealing). He explains that the mid-70s was the darkest period of his life and that "Word on a Wing" was a cry for help, and then performs a wonderful version that makes me glad I bought this DVD. "Word on a Wing" embodies a sense of the longing for transcendence that underlies a lot of Bowie's work, but it's never more explicit than here.
(Although, hey VH1, I could really do without the distraction of the closing credits over the song! :P)
And in other news, Sean Bean has been cast as Ned Stark in HBO's adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire.
I'm... confused.
On the one hand, I love A Song of Ice and Fire and I love Sean Bean, so... yay!
But... but... Ned Stark? Does he have to be Ned Stark? Can he shave his head and be Tywin Lannister instead? Can we get him a TARDIS and have 30-year-old Sean Bean play Jaime Lannister? Ned Stark is a boring goody-two-shoes loser! Sean Bean is better than Ned Stark. Bean's whole schtick is being able to play dark, disturbing, complicated characters, the opposite of humorless honor-bound Ned. Does this mean they're going to change Ned? Because I don't want to have to like Ned Stark!
The only reason I got into the books was because I was so surprised and happy that grrm killed off Ned! The whole point is that he's the typical righteous fantasy hero and this isn't a typical fantasy. If they make Ned interesting, they destroy the reason I fell for the series. But if they don't make him interesting, they're wasting Sean Bean!
And then there's the fact that I've always pictured Jaime Lannister as very similar to young Sean Bean (thanks to queenofthorns who helped get me into the series in the first place). Ned and Jaime are opposites and enemies, but if Sean Bean is Ned, then am I going to side with him or with Jaime? And how can I picture Jaime like Sean Bean if Ned is Sean Bean? And that's not even getting into the fact that Sean Bean is way too old to play Ned Stark!
And... and...
*does not compute*
*brain explodes*
Current Mood:
confused &
confused
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