Rating: 
Summary: Great Sound, Bad Picture
Review: D.A. Pennebaker's filming of the final concert by David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust incarnation is a great piece of rock history. Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars is considered to Mr. Bowie's masterpiece. Mr. Bowie not only created a classic album, but in adopting the androgynstic persona, he blurred the lines between male and female and spearheaded the glam rock movement. Unfortunately, this disk is a major disappointment from the visual side. The songs and performance are first rate, but the picture is horrible. The disk does not clean up the blemishes. It is grainy, blurry and just plain tough to look at. The camera work doesn't help matters either as Mr. Pennebaker keeps the camera locked on Mr. Bowie most of the time and many times in close-ups. This takes away from the full experience of the show. The producers did do a great job in remixing the sound and the 5.1 Surround Sound mode is clean and clear. You are better off buying the cd soundtrack version than the DVD. This is for diehard David Bowie fans only because of the atrocious picture quality not because of content.
Rating: 
Summary: A peek back in time
Review: I think you're missing the point if you view this as a "concert" film. This movie is a time capsule; it is a relic from the past. It's a train wreck that you just can't stop looking at. David Bowie is unearthly...he seems to glow from within and I couldn't take my eyes off of him. He could be so ugly and threatening and then so unbelievable humane, transitioning from song to song. He was so compelling at this stage in his career as this junkie-that-fell-to-Earth with the fantastic songs. What happened? Is it the same thing that happens to all of us as we age and accumulate responsibilities? We used to think nothing of this epic, beautiful oddness but now it looks somewhat pathetic and it makes me a little bit sad. This movie captured a fragile moment in time and I am so glad that it's here to share with the upcoming generation of music and culture students. I hope they can appreciate it.
Rating:
Summary: The FabMOST!
Review: I was knocked out of my socks when I first watched this film - and the thrill is hardly less whenever I watch it again. If David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust don't rub you the right way, you'll hate this movie, but if they're in your bag it should be a real treat.
David/Ziggy is singing with the full force of his voice throughout, which you don't get to experience on the ZS album, making these versions of the songs some of my favourites. The filming style is absolutely perfect as well: stark-raving bright blocks of colour on pitch black, with a sort of rough, glittery feel. Gives it an air of fantasy and urgency that you wouldn't get with regular filming. Mick Ronson is a wonderful part of the film, completing the sound with his amazing guitar playing and complementing Ziggy visually. David/Zig is at his sexiest and most teasing here, and the costumes he uses have only been beat by the ones he wore in the 1980 Floor Show.
It is gorgeous, glittering, sex-in-a-back-alley Rock and Roll! Buy it!
Rating: 
Summary: Better than its reputation
Review: Documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker who gave us a sometimes unflattering look at Bob Dylan in "Don't Look Back," focused his camera on David Bowie during the then orange-haired musician's July 3, 1972 concert with The Spiders From Mars at London's Hammersmith Odeon.
Much ballyhooed due to Bowie's surprise announcement at show's end that it would be the band's final concert, the film, though released briefly as a theatrical feature in 1983, first reached American audiences a decade earlier on ABC-TV's "Wide World of Entertainment," a hodge-podge of programming (specials, TV movies, and the like) that replaced Dick Cavett as a late night alternative to Johnny Carson.
Less polished than the Dylan film, this concert film is nonetheless more entertaining than most critic's reviews suggest. The performances, especially of material from "Ziggy Stardust," are lackluster in comparison to the album but that's hardly surprising. But there are some fine moments unavailable elsewhere, including versions of Bowie's own "All the Young Dudes," and Jacques Brel's melodramatic but affecting "My Death."
There are occasional backstage glimpses of Bowie, but this is a concert film, not a behind-the-scenes look at the star, so it doesn't fascinate in the same way Pennebaker's Dylan film does. But Bowie fans should find this of more than passing interest.
Brian W. Fairbanks
Rating:
Summary: Still brilliant and edgy over 30 years later
Review: In this day of "Will and Grace," where homoerotic humor has made it to prime time, some people might find it difficult to remember just how tight the closet still was in 1973. As his sparkling-intense "Ziggy Stardust" alter ego, David Bowie didn't just sing songs about outer-space, he was FROM outer space as far as mainstream society was concerned.
The magic of this concert is multi-fold. There is the poignancy of its being the last show. The musical mastery that came from a long tour of live playing. Then there is David himself, who as Ziggy Stardust is the embodiment of true freedom and liberation; who emanates the full sphere of his being as both a masculine and feminine individual in one body.
Even today there are places in America where a man in makeup risks being beaten to death with rocks. In 1973 there were a lot more of those places; this film captures the full brilliance and courage of of David Bowie's talent as a counterweight to the "normal" of his time, which all too often was nothing more than a thin veil of civilization over a lurking, violent ignorance.
Rating:
Summary: Five stars for the improvement over my laserdisc
Review: First of all, the film source they had to work with wasn't that good, so my expectations were guarded. My old laserdisc showed a great performance with horrible audio and video. The DVD restoration of the video is a considerable improvement over the laserdisc, but the audio improvement is incredible. At least you can listen to it now. When somebody re-releases something and I already have the laserdisc pressing, I have to justify buying the DVD. The uncompressed PCM of the laserdisc is often better than the DVD's audio even though the picture might be better (and that's not always to be assumed). I bought the DVD used for $16 from one of my favorite stores(after running back home first to read the mixed Amazon reviews). I'm pleased with my decision to buy this. My only audio complaint is that Mick Ronson's guitar is a bit to dominant in the mix, competing with Bowie's voice. Having said that, I've always appreciated the performance documented here. As a side note, the best restoration I've ever seen from a 70s concert film is the 2-dvd Ledzeppelin compilation. That is my new gold standard. Enjoy.
|
