David Bowie’s Movie Music

Today, January 8, 2021, would’ve been David Bowie’s 74^th birthday. It’s been five years since we lost our patron saint of glam. Five years, what a surprise. He still turns up everywhere, that sound and vision shapeshifter, especially on movie soundtracks. When I’m watching a movie, and a Bowie song comes on, I feel like I’ve run into a long-lost friend, even if it’s performed by somebody else or it’s more Bowie-adjacent than pure Bowie.

Director Wes Anderson excels at selecting impeccable music for his films, as demonstrated by The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. About 10 minutes in, a character teases us with just a bit of “Ziggy Stardust,” playing an acoustic guitar, and singing in Portuguese, and we know we’re in for a treat. That’s Seu Jorge, who beautifully reinterprets several Bowie songs, giving us the pleasure of hearing two different versions of “Life on Mars?” during the film—Seu’s and Bowie’s.

You might expect “Life on Mars?” to show up during the blockbuster hit The Martian, starring Matt Damon, but nope. No “Space Oddity,” either. Instead, you’ll hear “Starman” from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. “There’s a starman, waiting in the sky” plays as the NASA team on Earth scrambles to get their starman home. Songs from the Martian includes “Starman” and some terrific disco music, too. 

Bowie didn’t want anything to do with Velvet Goldmine, the 1998 Todd Haynes tribute to glam rock, loosely based on Bowie and his Ziggy Stardust character, so didn’t allow his music to be used for it. But, Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love”—produced by Bowie and featuring him on backing vocals—was included, and provides the backdrop to joyous scenes of a Bowie-inspired character and an Iggy Pop-inspired character falling for each other. “Satellite of Love” (or is it “Shed a Light on Love”?) also plays a key role in Adventureland, and its soundtrack (available on Hoopla).

In Almost Famous, Bowie’s live cover version of the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting for the Man,” (written by Lou Reed) fuels the festive atmosphere of a hotel lobby where Bowie fans amass before a concert, hoping to catch a glimpse of their hero.

Bowie wrote “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” for Paul Schrader’s 1982 version of Cat People, which was a remake of a 1942 horror film. Added late in the production process, the song plays over the closing credits. Director Quentin Tarantino thought that using such a powerful song at the end was a waste, so he decided to set a pivotal scene of his 2009 film Inglourious Basterds to it. The entire song plays while a perfectly-timed montage of fury and revenge unfolds onscreen.

And, finally, my favorite Bowie movie-music link occurs in 2012’s Perks of Being a Wallflower. Many of us were drawn to Bowie because he welcomedmisfits and made us feel seen and connected and full of possibilities. This film captures that spirit when a trio of teens hears the opening bars of “the perfect song” on their car radio. They don’t know what it is, but it’s “Heroes.” They fall under Bowie’s spell the same way I did 30 years before. “Turn it up!” one of them yells, as she stands up, arms open wide, in the flat bed of a pickup truck, as they drive through a Pittsburgh tunnel. And how do they feel? Infinite.

     ~ Hannah P.