Product: Ziggy Stardust [VHS]
Rating: 2.0
Don't Get Me Wrong, I Still Love Bowie
The fatal flaw of this video is not Bowie's performance (he is brilliant), but its inferior production quality. It appears to be a pathetically low-budget production, a pity considering that it was done by the same man, D.A. Pennebaker, who wonderfully documented Bob Dylan's 1965 British tour in "Don't Look Back" (1967). As it is, the sound quality of this Ziggy Stardust performance is quite poor, as if all the mics were positioned 250 yards away from the stage. Moreover, the camera work is at times annoyingly erratic and inappropriate. The whole production, strangely, reeks of amateurism. If this movie would have been made with, for example, the production quality of Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same," it would be well worth watching. Unfortunately, the bizarre sight of Bowie himself in action is its only saving grace.