Overview

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.

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9781501370489

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Reviews

"""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) ""The rich and engaging essays Dixon and Black have collected in I'm Not a Film Star treat everything from Bowie's cameos, short films, and videos to his notable starring performances. Together, they teach us that Bowie was more than a rock star dabbling in the movies. Rather, he chose his roles carefully and made thoughtful decisions about acting styles as he rethought his relation to realist acting and Brechtian ideas of gestural performance. The range of approaches represented here, including celebrity studies, close analysis of individual scenes, and performance theory, matches the diversity of Bowie's work in film."" --Glenn Hendler, Professor of English and American Studies, Fordham University, USA, and author of David Bowie's Diamond Dogs (Bloomsbury 2020)"

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) The rich and engaging essays Dixon and Black have collected in I'm Not a Film Star treat everything from Bowie's cameos, short films, and videos to his notable starring performances. Together, they teach us that Bowie was more than a rock star dabbling in the movies. Rather, he chose his roles carefully and made thoughtful decisions about acting styles as he rethought his relation to realist acting and Brechtian ideas of gestural performance. The range of approaches represented here, including celebrity studies, close analysis of individual scenes, and performance theory, matches the diversity of Bowie's work in film. --Glenn Hendler, Professor of English and American Studies, Fordham University, USA, and author of David Bowie's Diamond Dogs (Bloomsbury 2020)

Author Information

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.

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