The director who inspired David Bowie’s swansong ‘Blackstar’
There are few superlatives left to laud the inspiring career of David Bowie. An icon of stage and screen, the singer was gifted in a variety of art forms, from music to acting and all the way into mime. There are a number of wonderful accolades and monikers given to Bowie, but more often than not, he is beastialised as a chameleon. A captivating reptile able to change colour, costume and seemingly consciousness and the drop of a finely made hat. However, there is perhaps a better animal more suited to Bowie’s ways — that of the magpie.
The truth is, looking through the back catalogue of the great man’s work will provide you with a treasure trove of glittering inspirations and shiny influences, all gathered and grouped together by a master of the art. While Bowie certainly found inspiration in other musicians for his songs, artists such as John Lennon, Scott Walker and Bob Dylan are routinely referenced in his material, he was also very happy to dip into the world cinema for his foundational moments of creative inspiration.
Perhaps the most famous case of this is when inspired by being “out of his gourd” while watching Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Bowie would go home to write his defining song ‘Space Oddity’. Bowie also routinely cited famed actor Buster Keaton as a continuous source of influence. And, even as he prepared his swansong moments as an artist, with the album and single ‘Blackstar’, Bowie was still looking to film for a spark of creativity.
But rather than dip his hand into the plethora of cinematic directors and their films for inspiration, Bowie kept himself ahead of the fashion and headed towards TV for the spark he needed. There he would find the former director of Breaking Bad, Johan Renck, and his new series The Last Panthers. The six-part crime thriller would present Bowie with the opportunity to create some of his most potent work in years and his first song for an official soundtrack since he wrote ‘I’m Afraid of Americans’ in 1995 for the movie Showgirls.
It was after meeting with director Renck that Bowie began writing the song. Speaking about the otherworldly experience, Renck said: “I was looking for one of the icons of my youth to write the music for the title sequence, but was presented with a god. His first response was precise, engaged and curious. The piece of music he laid before us embodied every aspect of our characters and the series itself – dark, brooding, beautiful and sentimental (in the best possible incarnation of this word).”
He added: “All along, the man inspired and intrigued me, and as the process passed, I was overwhelmed with his generosity. I still can’t fathom what actually happened.” In response, Renck would direct the grimy video for Bowie’s song.
There is no single artist who could have pulled off the way Bowie departed this earth quite like the Starman. The singer’s 2016 release isn’t only a shuddering piece of art but also a working epitaph written by the deceased. Released around the singer’s tragic death, the song is a piece of the artist himself, left behind on the physical plane as he descended upon a new one. It’s a hard song for diehard Bowie fans to listen to and has, therefore, become a bit of a sore point when reflecting on his career. But, is there really a more fitting end to the esteemed career of David Bowie than in a self-referential note delivered largely from the beyond? No. We don’t think so, either.
Watch the Jonathan Renck-directed video for ‘Blackstar’ below.
