Man, I’ve had the album (well, EP) for this thing since I was a teenager, but I really didn’t think that I’d ever get to see it — I assumed that it was a stage thing and not a BBC TV thing.
And now here we are! I’m already overwhelmed.
And it’s not just Bowie playing some songs!
I guess this was filmed on video — it’s got that over-sharpened pre-echo thing going on…
In the previous few things, Alan Clarke had started filming things from really far off, using long lenses. He’d done this here too, but with a video camera, so you lose all the details. It’s like he doesn’t update his approach to match the conditions he’s working under at all…
It’s so fascinating — Bowie is really singing on set, and he’s really accompanying himself playing that banjo thing. It’s magical — it’s like watching a force of nature.
When they’re doing these picture-in-picture things the video limitations become even greater — this was presumably filmed on video and then assembled in another video generation, so you get two generations of video artefacts — you can barely tell what’s happening.
I loved watching this. I’ve always kinda wondered why … where it was, really. If David Bowie had starred in a Brecht thing, why wouldn’t that be more available. And now it’s all clear — first of all, it’s on video. And second of all, it’s the most “tv theatre” thing ever — presumably, everybody hated it.
I can’t even imagine what it would be like to encounter this randomly while watching BBC late at night in 1982. Like…
I loved watching this. It was everything and more — just wonderful. So weird, and so vague, and with sudden scenes where Bowie would sing using his entire voice.
Baal. Alan Clarke. 1982. ⚅
