Life on Mars 2016 Mix

A few days ago I reposted the well-known video for “Life on Mars” to illustrate a discussion about Bowie’s music videos, prompted by an article that name it his best and named him as the overall best video-creator. The image of a heavily-made up Bowie, wearing his vermillion Ziggy mullet, in a powder-blue suit that would only have been made in the early 70s, has become one of Bowie’s most iconic looks. Barbie created a doll inspired by this image. It’s a great video for a great song. What is there to add?

Well, Mick Rock, best known as a rock-musician photographer, made the initial video. Bowie apparently gave him the rights to some of the images (see this article). In 2016 he recut the video, using outtakes and what looks like some images from a practice session. The video in this post is the result.

I finally got around to watching the video a few days ago. I was transfixed. The music is the same as the original (which is the same as from the album, Hunky Dory), and the images are similar. There’s the almost clownish Bowie in the blue suit— but it’s different. It’s subtly different, but if you know the original video, the differences jump out. Facial expressions, the absence of makeup in parts, black and white segments— on the whole, this cut feels more intimate. Like we’re seeing something we weren’t supposed to see.

I don’t know. If you’ve never seen the original, look back a few days and watch it. But if you never saw the original I imagine you won’t have any emotional investment in either version. But if you are a Bowie fan, it’s hard to imagine that “Life on Mars” doesn’t do something for you. And if that’s the case, this video will do something for you, too.