David Bowie, known for getting involved with boundary-challenging projects, has just released another odd, grotesque and strangely enchanting video. The bizarre movie for his new track, “The Stars (Are Out Tonight),” (off his forthcoming album “The New Day” due out March 12th) yet again confronts preconceived notions of what fame means. The anxiety, expectation and darkness inherent in a culture that places unlimited value on celebrity are laid bare in this nearly six-minute clip. The video shows Bowie and Tilda Swinton as an average almost 1950’s-esque couple who unwillingly become entangled with a young celebrity couple that drags them down into a strange, semi-sinister world.
Turning a mirror on the usual celebrity-masses dynamic, in this eerie version, it is the celebrities that obsessively stalk the rest of the world. Directed by Floria Sigismondi, the avant-garde video opens with the unusual juxtaposition of mysteriously ominous guitar chords and the too-normal couple shopping in a nondescript market creepily saying, “We have a nice life.” It’s disturbing, weird, and simultaneously captivating- it’s David Bowie.
By: D.D.
