I’m Not a Film Star

Ian Dixon completed his PhD at The University of Melbourne, Australia, in 2011 and currently lectures at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Ian publishes on Bowie, celebrity studies, cultural studies and film theory and delivers academic papers internationally. He also acts and directs for film and television and writes funded screenplays and novels.Brendan Black is a Melbourne, Australia-based filmmaker, playwright and writer, with a Masters in Applied Linguistics. He has written widely on wine, food, travel and film for titles such as Gourmet Traveller Wine, RoyalAuto and Senses of Cinema. He has premiered three plays through the Melbourne International Comedy Festival: Trotsky and Friends in 2016, The Business of God in 2021, and Empathy Training in 2022.

A lively, welcome and often surprising addition to our knowledge of the mercurial David Bowie and his place in popular culture. This is a wide-ranging and significant stimulus to Bowie studies.

• List of Contributor BiosList of FiguresAcknowledgementsPrefaceShelton Waldrep, University of Southern Maine, USAIntroductionIan Dixon (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) and Brendan Black (Independent Scholar, Australia)1. Ziggy Stardust, Direct Cinema and the Multi-modal Performance of Gesamtkunstwerk Lisa Perrot (University of Waikato, New Zealand)2. David Bowie Is…Actor, Star and Character: Entangled Agencies in The Man Who Fell To EarthDene October (University of the Arts, London, UK)3. The Posed and the Unposed: Inhabited Clowns and Grotesques in Bowie’s Scary Monsters and The Elephant ManAmedeo d’Adamo (American Film Institute, USA)4. Consuming Bowie: Christiane F’ and the Transgressive Allure of Anglo-American Pop Culture in Cold-War West BerlinSusanne Hillman (San Diego State University, USA)5. Gesturing Dust: Sensing David Bowie’s Performance in Merry Christmas Mr. LawrenceSean Redmond (Deakin University, Australia)6. The Hunger’s deathly shadow: The sweet annihilation of David Bowie, NYC, circa. 1980-83 Mitch Goodwin (University of Melbourne, Australia)7. ‘Who Can I Be Now?’: Codpieces, carnival and the blurring of identity in LabyrinthBrendan Black (Independent Scholar, Australia)8. Bowie as Actor/Bowie as Icon: Authenticity versus Iconography in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of ChristIan Dixon (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)9. The Surveillant Power of the (A)Temporal Cameo In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) Tyne Daile Sumner (The University of Melbourne, Australia)10. Loving the Alienation: Bowie, Basquiat, Brecht Glenn D’Cruz (Deakin University, Australia)11. Performative Emotional Symbolism and Stylistic Gesture in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige Toija Cinque (Deakin University, Australia) 12. ‘Just Like the Films’: Lazarus and Cinematic MelancholiaDenis Flannery (University of Leeds, UK)Filmography/DiscographyBibliographyIndex