Make Me a Miracle Man

Seeing Lazarus rise from the dead I enjoyed the many songs, some of which were unfamiliar, many of which come from The Next Day album, they all sound great, as you can imagine.  No texture is lost in the dense harmony.  The bold brash strokes of chordal movement are sounded precisely as composed.  It seems difficult to identify the levels of creativity (I'm thinking that many great musicians help create the textures of a Bowie song).  There is also the song structures, including all the young dudes, simply a verse pre-chorus and chorus, with asymmetrical repeats, built on a measure of three beats.   

The greatest compositional light appears with the progression of Life on Mars.  The achievement there remains for me off the charts.  I feel hope for the world when I hear the emotional impact of that great musical achievement.  As for other things, how can you fault the unbelievably nice and appealing cast?  The angst level is high, but they are up for it.  The techno level of the production is also off the charts, but that is incidental to the hodgepodge montage of material arising from the bizarrely devoted cast and the commitment they needed to satisfy director Nicholas Roeg.  It seems impossible to imagine actors achieving that intimacy with one another today (yet they must in the Lazurus production).  Perhaps some recent last gasp comedies have also done so.  

The confusion of commitment in the movie (the man who fell to earth) returned with greater confusion here.  “Hello Mary Lou goodbye love” is the song we hear to identify the impact Candy Clark had on the David Bowie character.  She was Mr. Roeg’s girlfriend as she threw herself at the alien.  She and Mr. Bowie are both too cute for words and then Rip Torn picks up the pieces after they tear themselves apart.  The alien forgets about his family mission when he embraces her.  I all too readily confuse her with Anita Palenberg in Performance.  My girlfriend at the time was attentive to the charms of both Ms. Palenberg and Mr. Jaggar and it was somewhat mysterious to me, although I felt grateful for the appeal they radiated for her.   She was basically as off the charts as they were in terms of insouciant beauty.  Her natural beauty image was better than theirs. 

So after Mr. Jaggar and before Art Garfunkel, David Bowie fell into the cinematographer’s world and he, Torn, Clark and Buck Henry, proved themselves worthy.  What I’m suggesting is that the movie became part of their life experience, they were so soaked in it.  And now Bowie is back with his own soundtrack.  I always feel it necessary to mention that John Philips provided the soundtrack for the movie because it accompanies a favorite cinematic continuity sequence from the failed rocket launch to the Icarus drop from the high rise to the rhumba of the wheeled food cart through the rubble into the hidden bedroom.  

Sam mentioned the bullet through the brain coming out through the townhouse onto the sidewalk as Mr. Jaggar takes his walk to the mob car.  There’s a woman soulfully screaming in the musical accompaniment there.  That’s another fun moment of cinematic continuity.

So now this is Bowie’s chance to express the surrealism others created for him from being inspired by him.  He already achieves great emotional intensity in his sometimes obscure lyric songs.   He’s given them a new place to live.