New David Bowie Concert Movie Shows First Time He Performed ‘Without Mask’

Brett Morgen, director of the acclaimed 2022 David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream, said his upcoming concert movie Staged shows the late musician performing without an alter ego for the first time.

After gaining access to Bowie’s personal archive in 2017, he found several cans of film marked “Stage,” which turned out to be footage from two shows at London’s Earls Court in 1978. He spent nine years assembling his own version, which will be shown in arenas, not movie theaters, in 2027.

“I had access to every filmed performance in existence of David Bowie,” Morgen told The Guardian in a recent interview, “but when I saw this one I knew this was without question the greatest filmed performance of his career.”

Asked to speculate why the originally planned movie was never completed, he replied: “He was moving on to other things at the speed of light. So at that point I think the idea of looking backwards was distasteful to him.”

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Near the end of his life, Bowie began considering finally releasing the footage, and the task eventually fell to Morgen. “It became something of an obsession,” he said. “We spent over 1,000 hours colour-grading the footage, which I believe is some sort of record, but we really wanted it to look and feel like something you would experience today.”

Stage takes songs from both nights, thanks to Bowie’s improvisational approach to the shows, with live audio recorded by Tony Visconti. “Different arrangements two nights running,” Morgen pointed out. “You can feel the danger and excitement that it could have gone off the rails at any moment, and David was very charged by that.

Key moments include the first-ever performance of “Sound and Vision,” during which Bowie struggles not to laugh. “He’s cracking up throughout the song because I think the electric violin was trying to do the horn section, which David thought was kind of amusing. It’s a great moment.

“Then the camera stays with David when he goes off to the sides, having a glass of beer or smoking a cigarette, and he’s so engaged, dancing and smiling. It’s very joyous. I think this was the first time he’d performed without a mask or ‘character,’ so to speak.”

Watch the Teaser for David Bowie's 'Stage'

What’s Left Out of David Bowie's 'Stage' Concert Movie

Morgen said he left out one significant part of the raw footage. “I found a lot of footage of a young boy playing David that I was a bit confused by,” he said. “That’s not in the film.”

But that offered more opportunity to focus on Bowie himself. “He looks amazing. I’ve looked at close-ups, and I think, ‘How on Earth is this man not sweating?’

He described his production as “not a movie being shown in arenas,” explaining: “There’s multiple screens, a fully integrated lighting package, a 7.1 sound mix. The performance is 1978, but the presentation is 2027. The audience is invited to gaze where they want to gaze – choose your own adventure. Eleven years after his passing, it makes perfect sense that Bowie will be trailblazing again.”

The concert film Stage will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February before being toured.