Taglines: David before Bowie.
Stardust Movie Storyline. David Bowie legend would like us to believe that Ziggy Stardust beamed to earth fully-formed from some pan-sexual kabuki mothership full of scandalously revealing leggings. Writer-director Gabriel Range, however, proffers a very different Ziggy origin story. Here, rock culture’s defining extra-terrestrial was born out of fear, insecurity, failure and encroaching madness on a disastrous US tour in 1971. A trip, he suggests, when David Bowie realised that being himself might not be enough.
Where we imagine a character like Ziggy could only have been invented in a burst of supreme confidence, Johnny Flynn – singer and burgeoning screen star in Emma, Les Miserables and Lovesick – presents a lost, insecure and fidgety Bowie of ’71, desperate to be recognised but beaten down by numerous chart failures and mocked for his failings by one of the most bricklayerish screen Marc Bolan’s you’ll ever see.
Arriving in America without the visa for his planned solo tour, he hooks up with the only fan of ‘The Man Who Sold To The World’ at his record label, publicist Ron Oberman (Marc Maron), and embarks upon a whirlwind coast-to-coast tour of under-the-radar gigs at sales conferences and open mic nights, shunned by Andy Warhol, wholesome radio DJs and arrogant scumbag music journalists along the way.
Stardust is a 2020 British-Canadian biographical film about English singer-songwriter David Bowie and his alter-ego Ziggy Stardust. It is directed by Gabriel Range, and produced by Paul Van Carter, Nick Taussig and Matt Code, from screenplay co-written by Range with Christopher Bell. Johnny Flynn stars as Bowie, alongside Jena Malone and Marc Maron in supporting roles. It was released on November 25, 2020 by IFC Films.
Stardust (2020)
Directed by: Gabriel Range
Starring: Johnny Flynn, Marc Maron, Jena Malone, Derek Moran, Anthony Flanagan, Julian Richings, Aaron Poole, James Cade, Jeremy Legat, Monica Parker, Roanna Cocharne, Jorja Cadence, Annie Briggs, Ryan Blakley
Screenplay by: Christopher Bell, Gabriel Range
Production Design by: Aidan Leroux
Cinematography by: Nicholas D. Knowland
Film Editing by: Chris Gill
Costume Design by: Julia Patkos
Set Decoration by: Mauro de Souza, Jessica Jerome, Chareese McLaughlin
Art Direction by: Alder Dunlap
Music by: Anne Nikitin
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: IFÇ Films
Release Date: October 16, 2020 (SDIFF), November 25, 2020 (United States)
Visits: 29
