David Bowie and the Moving Image

Katherine Reed is Assistant Professor of Musicology at California State University, Fullerton, USA. Her research interests include musical semiotics and the use of pre-existing music in film. Reed’s work has appeared in Popular Music & Society, Music and the Moving Image, and the Society for American Music’s Digital Lecture Series.

• List of Figures1. Introduction: Sons of the Silent AgePart I: Bowie as Auteur2. Semiotics and the Creation of “David Bowie”3. Cracked Actor: The Music Video and Bowie as Moving Image4. Screen Dreams: Theatrical Staging, Film, and Diamond DogsPart II: Bowie as Sign5. Hollywood Highs: Acting Roles and Bowie’s Star Image6. “Mass Motivation”: Advertising, Audience, and the Bowie Star Image7. Who Can I Be Now?: Fannish Creation and Depictions of Bowie on Film8. Conclusion: Living OnBibliographyMedia BibliographyAcknowledgmentsIndex

To focus on the music of David Bowie is understandable. But you're only getting half of the story. Bowie the visual artist—actor, director, scenarist, storyboard artist, painter, ‘icon’—is just as essential to his work. Katherine Reed's insightful study goes from the Diamond Dogs tour to Bowie's Vittel and Vuitton TV ads to his afterlife in films and shows how intertwined Bowie the rock musician and Bowie the image (and image-maker) always were.