Bloomsbury Academic

Bloomsbury Academic

English

David Bowie and the Moving Image is an essential starting point for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of this iconic artist. Reed makes a compelling case that Bowie’s entire oeuvre is permeated by an audiovisual and theatrical sensibility, always extending beyond the music through the power of the accompanying images, whether it is the charismatic chameleon that is Bowie himself, music videos that channel his performance personae, films in which brand Bowie is a defining feature, commercial spinoffs in advertising, or elaborate film and stage narratives, some of which disintegrated before they could be realised. Reed's writing is erudite and panoramic in its scope, drawing eclectically from musicology, studies of performance and audiovisuality, cultural theory and semiotics. The value of this book is in how it draws all of this together, offering the reader an approachable overview of Bowie’s unrivalled and enigmatic explorations in sound and vision.