Product: Ziggy Stardust [VHS]
Rating: 5.0
Still brilliant and edgy over 30 years later
In this day of "Will and Grace," where homoerotic humor has made it to prime time, some people might find it difficult to remember just how tight the closet still was in 1973. As his sparkling-intense "Ziggy Stardust" alter ego, David Bowie didn't just sing songs about outer-space, he was FROM outer space as far as mainstream society was concerned.The magic of this concert is multi-fold. There is the poignancy of its being the last show. The musical mastery that came from a long tour of live playing. Then there is David himself, who as Ziggy Stardust is the embodiment of true freedom and liberation; who emanates the full sphere of his being as both a masculine and feminine individual in one body.Even today there are places in America where a man in makeup risks being beaten to death with rocks. In 1973 there were a lot more of those places; this film captures the full brilliance and courage of of David Bowie's talent as a counterweight to the "normal" of his time, which all too often was nothing more than a thin veil of civilization over a lurking, violent ignorance.