"Tell them they can laugh at me"

 

On this first anniversary of the passing of David Bowie, a loss still felt profoundly by all of us here at Night Flight, we’re taking an opportunity to reflect on his underappreciated capacity for self-deprecation and comedy.

David Bowie constantly tried new things, resisted coasting on familiar credits, and earned enormous respect that continues in his absence. He took his artistic process very seriously.

What he rarely took seriously was himself. In his music videos, in movie cameos, and in the media, he exercised comic gifts that delivered big laughs, often at his own expense.

In the formative years of his career, Bowie compensated for his intense shyness by disappearing into his stage personas and substance abuse. He spent a long sojourn in Berlin to kick his addictions and find perspective, and emerged in the ‘80s with a more positive demeanor.

A key incident that shaped this philosophical turn took place as he was making the video for “Ashes to Ashes” in 1980 with director David Mallet. Bowie recounted the story to technician Michael Dignum during a break in filming for the “Miracle Goodnight” video from Blackstar:

“[I] had quite the attitude as a young pop star, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype. It changes you. So I was on the set [of] ‘Ashes to Ashes’… I’m dressed from head to toe in a clown suit…I hear playback and the music starts. So off I go, I start singing and walking, but as soon as I do this old geezer with an old dog walks right between me and the camera…knowing this is gonna take a while I walked past the old guy and sat next to camera in my full costume waiting for him to pass. As he is walking by camera, the director said, ‘Excuse me, [sir] do you know who this is?’ The old guy looks at me from bottom to top and looks back to the director and said, ‘Of course I do! It’s some cunt in a clown suit.’ That was a huge moment for me, it put me back in my place and made me realize, yes, I’m just a cunt in a clown suit. I think about that old guy all the time.”

Bowie proceeded to engage in what the British call “taking the piss out” of himself for years thereafter.

With director Julien Temple, he conceived a twenty minute short, Jazzin’ for Blue Jean, where he played both a hapless pickup artist trying to woo a resistant girl, and her favorite rock star, “Screaming Lord Byron,” a stand-in for himself.

There are frequent jokes about Bowie’s real-life bad behavior, and in one instance, the would-be suitor insults Byron with, “Your record sleeves are better than your songs!” The video won a Grammy for Best Short Form Video in 1985.

That same year, Bowie played a sleazy hitman in John Landis’ comic mystery Into the Night. In the film, he has a knock-down fight with a bodyguard played by rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins, a sequence that surely amused him since, as a teenager, he had been inspired to be a musician by listening to 45s by Perkins and his contemporaries.

Bowie’s aforementioned need for artistic freshness became a subject of his mordant humor.

During his 1990 “Sound+Vision” tour, he declared that he was retiring his previous hit catalog from then on, vowing only to do new material in future shows. After the disappointing reception for his band Tin Machine and the solo albums that followed, he began to walk back that promise.

In a promo spot for their joint appearance on the season premiere of “Saturday Night Live” on October 2, 1999, Bowie’s about-face was referenced in an exchange of barbs between himself and host Jerry Seinfeld on their mutual reliance on the tried-and-true.

It wouldn’t be the only time he fired his wit at another target.

In 2006, he played himself on Ricky Gervais’ “Extras,” where, after being annoyed by the self-aggrandizing behavior of Andy Millman, he composes a song on the spot to cut him down to size.

When making the talk show rounds, Bowie was always an urbane and gracious guest, and often participated in sketches.

Here he is sharing a bevy of ludicrous revelations for “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”:

And, in this clip from a 1999 interview on the French Canadian MusiquePlus channel, he shared his love of early internet celebrity Mahir “I Kiss You” Çağrı:

Just before the end of 2016, Bowie’s son Duncan Jones posted a screencap from this interview, calling it his favorite photo of his father.

Having a laugh was also important to Bowie in his private moments.

He released a list of his “Top 100 Reads” in 2013 as part of the touring exhibition “David Bowie Is,” which showcased cherished items from his life.

Amid highbrow fare such as political non-fiction and classics like In Cold Blood, he included the British humor periodical Viz, a Mad-magazine style parody of UK tabloid and music press with a punk rock bent.

While the creators were grateful for his fandom, Bowie himself was not immune from their scathing jokes, as shown in this full-page lampoon from the early ‘90s:

In one of his earliest compositions, “When I Live My Dream,” he wrote, “Tell them they can laugh at me / But don’t forget your date with me / When I live my dream.”

Over five decades after that song emerged, it can be said he lived his dream to the fullest and happiest, and we got to enjoy it with him.

So today, though we’re sad he’s not around, let’s put on one of his immortal songs, and have our own Zoolander & Hansel-style walk-off, and imagine that he’s watching us and smiling at it all.

Night Flight’s video profile of David Bowie from December 4th, 1987, features “Ashes to Ashes” and other dynamic videos from three decades of his career, and is available to watch as part of our special David Bowie collection at Night Flight Plus.

(This essay was originally written for Night Flight Plus. It has been recreated in the style it was presented in at the site, and matched to its original date of publication. Tremendous thanks to Stuart Shapiro and Bryan Thomas for the platform.)

There's Just a Song for All the Movies and the Rife

 

Night Flight’s video profile of Dire Straits — originally airing on August 15, 1986, and now available on Night Flight Plus — offers a look at both the UK and the US videos for “Walk of Life,” a song which was not only one of the band’s biggest hits, but which one nervy editor suggests can improve the ending of any movie!

Dire Straits had earned plenty of critical and commercial respect for their first four records, with songs like “Sultans of Swing” and “Industrial Disease” becoming album rock radio staples.

The release of Brothers in Arms in the spring of 1985, however, catapulted the band to their biggest level of success.

The album debuted at #1 on the UK charts, spent nine weeks at #1 on the US Billboard chart, and even set a Guinness World Record for being the first album in the nascent CD format to sell a million copies.

Its lead US single, “Money for Nothing,” was the band’s first #1 Top 40 hit, won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and its accompanying music video won Video of the Year at the third MTV Video Music Awards.

In this profile, broadcast after the band’s two Grammy wins, you will be treated to many unique videos created for the band’s songs, along with exclusive interview footage with Knopfler, where he addressed some of his feelings about the art form.

In one segment, he stated that he would leave directors alone to dramatize his music as they liked, since they should be accorded the same artistic freedom as filmmakers that he enjoyed as a musician.

The three videos from the Making Movies album directed by photographer and commercial artist Lester Bookbinder — “Romeo and Juliet,” “Tunnel of Love,” and “Skateaway” — are a prime example of this cooperative mindset. This trio was packaged into a twenty minute short that played in theaters and was an early home video success.

However, upon the release of Brothers in Arms, Knopfler had soured on the process.

Where he had been an active dramatic participant in clips for “Tunnel of Love” and “Private Investigations,” for the singles from Brothers, he chose only to appear in performance footage or occasional candid moments.

Steve Barron, who directed two videos for the album, said,

“The problem was that Mark Knopfler was very anti-videos. All he wanted to do was perform, and he thought that videos would destroy the purity of songwriters and performers.”

“Walk of Life” was the first video offered to American television outlets, though it was not the first single released from the album.

Filmed in the tunnel that runs under the Thames from London Docklands to Greenwich, it depicted a young busker portrayed by Tom Jennings, dressed as Knopfler often dressed in concert, playing the iconic 1937 silver steel guitar from the cover of the album, performing for change from London commuters, with some cutaways to a daylight concert by the band.

After the smash success of “Money for Nothing,” “Walk of Life” was earmarked as the followup single, but record executives requested another video to be made for the song, feeling the first version wasn’t clicking. A recent USC Film School graduate, Stephen R. Johnson, got the assignment.

The new clip featured another performance of the band, this time intercut with dozens of moments from American sporting events.

In the book I Want My MTV, Johnson described how the incongruous concept came from Knopfler himself:

“I went on tour with them to shoot live footage, and Mark Knopfler told me he wanted the video to have sports in it. So I wrangled all this funny sports footage, with bloopers and the like. Mark’s other edict was that he didn’t want to be photographed from the side, because he didn’t like the fact he had a prominent proboscis. Everyone in the crew was running into each other, trying to avoid that angle.”

The new video proved very effective. “Walk of Life” became the band’s biggest UK hit, reaching #2 on their singles chart, and peaking respectably at #7 on the US singles chart.

The original busker video for “Walk” was not included in the band’s home video anthology; Johnson’s sports-themed video has effectively become the default version.

This episode of “Night Flight” offers fans a rare opportunity to watch them back to back and decide for themselves which they prefer. The two videos are a study in contrasts.

The first narrative clip uses the song for poignance, as its hard-working protagonist is often ignored by travelers, barely gets any money, and ends up being forced by cops to pack up and leave.

The second clip uses the song for lighthearted buoyance, at first underscoring missed plays and embarrassing moments, then ending with moments of triumphant victories.

One curious detail both videos share in common though are prominent shots of replacement guitarist Jack Sonni’s bare feet.

Each video ultimately suits the song well, since its message is that Johnny’s struggle is our struggle.

As sports blogger “CJ” observed, “[While] Mark Knopfler’s lyrics are clearly about a street musician busking in subway stations, his working class platitudes are general enough that we can easily apply them to an athlete doggedly pursuing his dreams, on and off the field. Indeed, even the title hints at something greater…Listening to the song feels like receiving one giant ‘attaboy’ from your radio.”

It was that spirit of universality that drove freelance editor Peter Salamone this past March to create The Walk of Life Project, asserting that the song was perfect for the ending of any movie.

Through 52 different examples, running multiple decades and genres, all available to view at his website, Salamone demonstrated his point. His playful exercise received widespread media coverage, inspiring dozens of fans and imitators to continue the experiment.

Here is one of the recent fan-made responses we particularly enjoyed, with the maxim applied to Point Break:

Mark Knopfler dismantled Dire Straits and went his own way a long time ago, and newer generations may derisively refer to the band as “dad rock” today.

However, when those first few organ notes waft into your ears, whether you’re recalling those videos from before, or maybe living the movie of your life right now, we’re sure you’ll think the moment plays better with that great song underneath.

See both “Walk of Life” interpretations, along with other classic Dire Straits videos and exclusive interview footage with Mark Knopfler, right now on Night Flight Plus!

(This essay was originally written for Night Flight Plus. It has been recreated in the style it was presented in at the site, and matched to its original date of publication. Tremendous thanks to Stuart Shapiro and Bryan Thomas for the platform.)

History is Made in Cha-Cha Heels

 

Shortly after the release of his biggest hit, Hairspray, and his untimely death at age 42, Night Flight paid tribute to the groundbreaking midnight movie icon Divine — featuring choice portions from the thoughtful interview we did with him two years earlier — in a profile that originally aired on April 4, 1988. Watch it now on Night Flight Plus.

When Glenn Milstead first met filmmaker John Waters in Baltimore, Maryland in the ‘60s, it sparked a lifelong artistic collaboration and friendship.

Both of them were from conservative households, and as gay men, had no intention of leading the kind of quiet, closeted lives others resigned themselves to back then.

Waters bestowed the stage name “Divine” to Milstead, and borrowing elements from the exploitation movies and melodramas they loved, they became the public faces of a gleefully shocking series of films.

Waters with Divine on the set of their first movie with synch sound, Multiple Maniacs. (photo by Nelson Giles)

Divine lived the early part of his professional life very much like the loud and strong-willed characters he played in Waters’ films.

When not making movies, he acted in avant-garde plays and made wild nightclub appearances where he attempted bizarre stunts. He indulged in expensive tastes that his income could not sustain, and after repeated clashes with his parents over his debts, spent many years estranged from them.

The Divine we hear from in 1986 was a much more relaxed, soft-spoken individual. By this time, he had received positive reviews from mainstream critics for his role in Waters’ romantic satire Polyester, and had reconciled with his family.

If you’re used to seeing Polyester on high-quality widescreen DVD or streaming channels, you’ll get a kick out of seeing the old clips in this episode, as they reveal boom microphones and lighting grids that were meant to be cropped out in theater projection.

For early generations of home video viewers, this was how they had to watch Polyester, wondering if the exposed equipment was an intentional directorial decision!

Divine also addresses his foray into dance music, and you’ll get to see music videos for two of his songs, “I’m So Beautiful” and “Hard Magic.”

“I’m So Beautiful” is particularly notable as an early credit for producer Pete Waterman and songwriters Mike Stock and Matt Aiken, who, as Stock Aiken Waterman, created worldwide hit singles like Dead Or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record),” and the immortal “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley.

Imagine the possibilities if they had thought to team up Rick and Divine on a duet!

The most exciting, and retroactively poignant, part of the interview comes as Divine discusses his recent work with other filmmakers and his growing mainstream popularity, along with clips from those movies.

The actor talks with particular pleasure about his serious, non-campy role of gangster Hilly Blue in writer/director Alan Rudolph’s ethereal noir drama Trouble in Mind.

Rudolph specifically created the character for Divine, casting him opposite Academy Award nominees Kris Kristofferson and Keith Carradine. Divine enjoyed playing a dramatic male character and demonstrating his ability to act in roles that did not require female drag.

America seemed to be more receptive to Divine at this time, but they still weren’t quite ready for the movies that made him famous.

In his 1983 book of essays Crackpot, John Waters talked about how, after New Line Cinema had partnered with video label Media to create the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, they had planned to reissue his early films:

“[They] had the package designed, a great ad campaign ready ('Let’s get trash back into the homes where it belongs!') and I was all set to go on a promotional tour. When the company’s salesmen and jobbers in the Midwest saw the product they reportedly flipped out and refused to sell them. Mutiny. I was crushed. But because they had already sent out the press releases announcing the cassettes, the video reviewers had a better story than if the videos had been released without a hitch. So another [label] offered more money than we had with the first deal.”

One of those titles, Waters’ and Divine’s first feature Mondo Trasho, has never been reissued on DVD, and likely won’t be, due to its heavy use of unlicensed music. So if you see that tape in a thrift or second hand store, you’d better grab it!

Another long-unavailable title from that package, Multiple Maniacs, is currently back in theaters in a state-of-the-art restoration from Janus Films, with a Criterion BluRay and DVD release to follow.

You can see the original unrestored clips from the movie in this episode, and compare them to the footage in this new trailer for the reissue:

After initially taping this interview, Waters and Divine would make their most successful collaboration, 1988’s Hairspray.

Divine played in drag once more, as the mother of heroine Tracy Turnblad, played by Ricki Lake, a chubby girl who becomes the most popular dancer on an early ‘60s Baltimore teen show, and uses her fame to get the show integrated.

The most shocking aspect of the movie was its family-friendly PG rating, though it still had Waters’ trademark grotesque humor.

Hairspray brought Divine the most glowing reviews of his career, and before the film had been released, he had booked more projects. The film did modest business in its theatrical run, but later became a frequently rented home video title, and was adapted into a smash 2002 Broadway musical, which itself was turned into a 2007 film.

Sadly, Divine did not live long enough to fully enjoy his achievement. Three weeks after the film’s release, on the eve of taping a guest appearance on “Married…with Children” in Hollywood, the actor died from an enlarged heart on March 7, 1988.

Watch Divine talk about his colorful career, and revisit its highlights, right now, on Night Flight Plus, and look for the restored Multiple Maniacs in theaters and on home video this fall!

(This essay was originally written for Night Flight Plus. It has been recreated in the style it was presented in at the site, and matched to its original date of publication. Tremendous thanks to Stuart Shapiro and Bryan Thomas for the platform.)