- Clive Owen as a high school English teacher in Words and Pictures
Like many Chicagoans, I’m eagerly looking forward to the David Bowie exhibit that opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art later this month. I’m also excited about the upcoming Doc Films series (copresented by the MCA) of movies featuring Bowie, which occupies the second Thursday-night slot on Doc’s fall calendar. Bowie’s records have always exhibited strong affinities with cinema. Many of them center on Bowie playing a different character (Ziggy Stardust, the soulless soul man of Young Americans and Station to Station), and the production often suggests a sonic equivalent to cinematic spectacle, conjuring up specific environments (like the futuristic noir landscape of Outside) or guiding the listener through little narratives.
“Stars” is much sadder and more bitter than the sonic palette first suggests. A lovely metaphor, the stars in the song represent unshakable memories of people we’ve known who are now dead. “Their jealousy’s spilling down” is one refrain. One exceptional quality of The Next Day is that Bowie sounds more vulnerable here than he’s allowed himself to sound on most of his albums—it’s a record about confronting death just before you lose the energy to rail against it. This theme first becomes apparent on “Stars” (the album’s third track) somewhere around the halfway mark, when the first traces of anger and regret can be heard in Bowie’s performance. It sounds as though the vocals are trying to break free of the song’s steady, albeit comforting groove.
