The first collection dedicated to David Bowie's acting career shows that his film characterisations and performance styles shift and reform as decoratively as his musical personas. Though he was described as the most influential pop artist of the 20th century, whose work became synonymous with mask, mystery, sexual excess and ch-ch-ch-changing genres, Bowie also applied his genius to the craft of acting.
Bowie’s considerable filmography is systematically examined in 12 scholarly essays that include tributes to Bowie's performance craft in other media forms. Classic films such as The Prestige and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, cult hits Labyrinth and The Man Who Fell To Earth, as well as lesser-known roles in The Image, Christiane F. and Broadway hit The Elephant Man are viewed, not simply through the lens of Bowie’s mega-stardom, but as the work of a serious actor with inimitable talent. This compelling analysis celebrates the risk-taking intelligence and bravura of David Bowie: actor, mime, mimic and icon.
List of Contributor Bios List of Figures Acknowledgements Preface Shelton Waldrep, University of Southern Maine, USA Introduction Ian Dixon (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) and Brendan Black (Independent Scholar, Australia) 1. Ziggy Stardust, Direct Cinema and the Multi-modal Performance of Gesamtkunstwerk Lisa Perrot (University of Waikato, New Zealand) 2. David Bowie Is…Actor, Star and Character: Entangled Agencies in The Man Who Fell To Earth Dene October (University of the Arts, London, UK) 3. The Posed and the Unposed: Inhabited Clowns and Grotesques in Bowie’s Scary Monsters and The Elephant Man Amedeo d’Adamo (American Film Institute, USA) 4. Consuming Bowie: Christiane F’ and the Transgressive Allure of Anglo-American Pop Culture in Cold-War West Berlin Susanne Hillman (San Diego State University, USA) 5. Gesturing Dust: Sensing David Bowie’s Performance in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence Sean Redmond (Deakin University, Australia) 6. The Hunger’s deathly shadow: The sweet annihilation of David Bowie, NYC, circa. 1980-83 Mitch Goodwin (University of Melbourne, Australia) 7. ‘Who Can I Be Now?’: Codpieces, carnival and the blurring of identity in Labyrinth Brendan Black (Independent Scholar, Australia) 8. Bowie as Actor/Bowie as Icon: Authenticity versus Iconography in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ Ian Dixon (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) 9. The Surveillant Power of the (A)Temporal Cameo In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) Tyne Daile Sumner (The University of Melbourne, Australia) 10. Loving the Alienation: Bowie, Basquiat, Brecht Glenn D’Cruz (Deakin University, Australia) 11. Performative Emotional Symbolism and Stylistic Gesture in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige Toija Cinque (Deakin University, Australia) 12. ‘Just Like the Films’: Lazarus and Cinematic Melancholia Denis Flannery (University of Leeds, UK) Filmography/Discography Bibliography Index
Ian Dixon completed his PhD at The University of Melbourne, Australia, in 2011 and currently lectures at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Ian publishes on Bowie, celebrity studies, cultural studies and film theory and delivers academic papers internationally. He also acts and directs for film and television and writes funded screenplays and novels. Brendan Black is a Melbourne, Australia-based filmmaker, playwright and writer, with a Masters in Applied Linguistics. He has written widely on wine, food, travel and film for titles such as Gourmet Traveller Wine, RoyalAuto and Senses of Cinema. He has premiered three plays through the Melbourne International Comedy Festival: Trotsky and Friends in 2016, The Business of God in 2021, and Empathy Training in 2022.
Reviews for I’m Not a Film Star: David Bowie as Actor
A lively, welcome and often surprising addition to our knowledge of the mercurial David Bowie and his place in popular culture. This is a wide-ranging and significant stimulus to Bowie studies. * Rodney Hall, Former Distinguished Visiting Professor at Victoria University, Australia, and author of Captivity Captive (1988) * I'm Not a Film Star: David Bowie as Actor succeeds in being not only scholarly, thorough and enlightening, but also highly readable. Whilst it covers perhaps the least explored facet of Bowie's career, the authors weave in-depth analyses across his entire film (and stage) career intertwined with his better known (other) work and life. Bowie was an artist who resisted being pigeonholed concerning what it was to be one, and this book follows, thereby shedding new light on his whole oeuvre. I wish the research had been published when we were developing the exhibition David Bowie is. * Victoria Broackes, Director, London Design Biennale, UK, and co-curator of David Bowie is (2013-2016) *
