Moonage Daydream

Duncan Jones, David Bowie's BAFTA-winning film director son from his first marriage with Angie Bowie, had toyed with the idea about making an official biographical film about his father. However, he found it difficult to focus on the topic, as he was too close to the subject matter and too emotionally involved to make such a film and would rather concentrate on continuing to make fiction films. However, he did tell Iman (Bowie's wife and his step-mother at the time of his passing) that he wouldn't stand in the way of this film, provided that it was respectful, truthful, and she was happy with it.

Near the beginning there is a fragment of Roy Batty's "Tears In Rain" speech from the end of Blade Runner (1982). In that film Roy Batty's "Incept Date" is January 8, 2016 (David Bowie's 69th birthday). This was also the date when it was released Bowie's final studio album Blackstar (which deals with the subject of death). Bowie died two days later, January 10, 2016.

The documentary includes a lot of David Bowie's unpublished personal material, including photos, home videos and some interviews on TV. Director Brett Morgen talked in person with Bowie's widow, top model Iman, for asking permission to use the material as tribute to Bowie. Although in a first moment she was reluctant to this idea, she was convinced by Morgen's previous works Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015) and Jane (2017) about singer Kurt Cobain and scientist Jane Goodall, where Morgen used personal material from each other to create artistic collages as tribute to them, instead to use in the way to make a classic biographic documentary.

In the documentary Terry Burns, David Bowie's half-brother through their mother, is mentioned. Born November 5, 1937, Burns was ten years older than Bowie and was a strong influence to Bowie, introducing his younger brother to the Beat poetry of William S. Burroughs, Buddhism, jazz, and even magic and the occult. However, Burns suffered schizophrenia, which worsened while he served in the Royal Air Force. In the late 60s Burns was admitted to a psychiatric hospital; After release, Burns abandoned his medication by the mid-70s and was admitted to the Cane Hill psychiatric hospital. Bowie and Burns last met in 1981, and four years later, on January 16, 1985, Burns committed suicide at 47 years old after escaping from the hospital.

The TV interviewer who questions David Bowie about his shoes is the TV host and journalist Russell Harty. The interview in question was shown on UK television on January 17, 1973. His second interview with Harty (where he questions Bowie about his still kept English accent despite to live two years in Los Angeles) was broadcast on November 28, 1975. The others interviews seen in the documentary are with Dick Cavett (who questions to him if he practiced black magic and why his continuous changes of look) on November 2, 1974, and with Mavis Nicholson (who talks to him about solitude, sexuality, love and marriage) on February 16, 1979.