When documentary filmmaker Brett Morgen hit his eighth month of writer¡¯s block on an epic project about David Bowie, he decided it was time to hit the road. With just a few hours¡¯ notice, he left his home in Los Angeles one morning and grabbed the first flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Bowie had filmed ¡°The Man Who Fell to Earth¡± (1976). When Morgen arrived, he took a cab to the train station and hopped aboard an Amtrak, heading west.
¡°Being in transit was an important theme in David¡¯s life,¡± he says. ¡°He talked a lot about riding the rails through the West. And a lot of songs that he wrote happened during some of his trips across America.¡±
Morgen pulled out his notes; his phone, packed with all the albums; and his copy of ¡°The Hero With a Thousand Faces¡± by Joseph Campbell. ¡°I was thinking about ¡®The Iliad,¡¯¡± he says, ¡°and I started to see David¡¯s journey. Not all that dissimilar ¡ª but he was creating the storms for himself.¡± Suddenly, the script for his film, already three years in the making, began flowing.
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