Consider the Starman: 5 Cinematic Moments of David Bowie Fueled Awesomeness

One of the most powerful elements a film can employ is music. A strong soundtrack creates tone, stirs up atmosphere, and reflects the film’s material. Most brilliant directors have a keen ear for what music will compliment and fuel the aesthetic of a cinematic moment. Many, throughout film’s history, have reached into the eclectic, extensive catalogue of David Bowie for a gem that will afford a truly compelling instance. David Bowie’s unique brand of sonic pleasure — flamboyant, psychedelic, starry eyed —  is the kind of thing directors use to inject energy and power into a scene. This strategy continues, as “Space Oddity” plays in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Stiller, 2013) when Ben Stiller spontaneously boards a launching helicopter, and “I’m Afraid of Americans” provides an adrenaline shot to the whimsical mood of The Interview (Goldberg/Rogen, 2014), while Rogen and Franco begin their trip to North Korea. Weaker recent examples aside, to celebrate Ziggy Stardust’s (belated) birthday, here are five classic examples of premiere directors employing the sounds of Bowie to do all those things that music can do for film.

“Life on Mars” in The Life Aquactic with Steve Zissou (Anderson, 2004)

Wes Anderson’s musical collaborator, Randall Poster, uses the music of Bowie to score the entirety of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Many songs are employed as diegetic music as performed by Seu Jorge, a Portuguese cover-artist of Bowie, who plays an onboard crewmember of Zissou’s team. The film contains a few significant moments in which Bowie tunes are employed as non-diegetic music, perhaps most notably when the chorus of “Life on Mars” blares once Steve (Bill Murray) gets news that he has a son (Owen Wilson). Steve walks up to the highest deck on the boat, lights a smoke, and stares up at the sky realizing that there is life of which he was unaware.

“Modern Love” in Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012)

Baumbach’s film represents a female protagonist in a humane light and that, unfortunately, is relatively uncommon in modern cinema. What is also fresh and foreign to our beloved, patriarchal, and historically misogynistic industry is the beauty of a (platonic) relationship between two females. The sisterly love between Frances and her best friend Sophie is powerfully reflected through the film’s use of Bowie’s up-beat, new-wave, pop-rocker, “Modern Love.” Hopefully this love between two women will not be so “modern” to audiences in the future.

“Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” in Inglorious Basterds (Tarantino, 2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM5mTEavepU

All is quiet in the theater at which protagonist Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) works, as she gets ready for the deathly premiere of the Nazis’ triumph-picture. The scene’s calm-before-the-storm mood is complimented by the song’s erotically tense introduction. Bowie’s low growl pierces through as Shosanna determinedly glares at her reflection. She applies make-up to her face as Tarantino’s color-palette reds that parallel violence and sex—Shosanna is well-aware that there is a long-awaited orgasm to come. The foreshadowing is clear, as the song’s chorus chants, “putting out fire with gasoline,” which is literally what these Nazi-fighters are about to do—the fire being the Nazis.

“Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” in Cat People (Schrader, 1982)

Perhaps it is an injustice to include the same Bowie tune in a list of five film employments of his music, as there are so many from which to choose, but both films’ uses of “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” are brilliantly effective in conjuring atmosphere and foreshadowing material. The erotically, foreign, sexual-fueled environment of Schrader’s remake of Tourneur’s 1942, B-horror classic is efficiently established by the African beats and sexily deep, cat-like growl of Bowie’s vocals. Music writer Giorgio Moroder had already created the instrumental composition of movie’s theme-song, but contacting Bowie for lyrical input might have been Schrader’s best bit of direction for this film. “Putting out fire with gasoline” is exactly what one has to do with the film’s ferocious, sexy tigers.

“I’m Deranged” in Lost Highway (Lynch, 1997)

Get ready to lose your mind, because Bowie’s dark, synth-driven rush paired with the haunting grit of 90s Lynch is a serious force to be reckoned with and disturbed by. When the desperation of Bowie’s falsetto comes in over the rapidly erotic, percussive synthesizer, as the dark road is illuminated by headlights, the viewer enters Lynch’s infuriating, overwhelmingly embittering, enraging, jealousy-filled hell. The song’s driving tempo syncs perfectly with the pace in which the road’s yellow lines fly in and out of frame. The synth-part stubbornly repeats, as do the yellow lines evocatively. It seems we are moving fast but not getting anywhere. We are experiencing a reoccurring nightmare from which we cannot seem to awaken. With these first couple of minutes, Lynch teams with Bowie to create an opening credit-sequence that efficiently expresses the main discourse of the entire film.