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The Legend of Leigh Bowery (2003)
Runtime: 88 mins
Synopsis: The Legend of Leigh Bowery is an exploration of Leigh Bowery’s outrageous life, a life he lived as a performance. Bowery was a costume/clothing designer, nightclub impresario, performer, and musician whose vision influenced many of today’s important artists. He became known to the world... The Legend of Leigh Bowery is an exploration of Leigh Bowery’s outrageous life, a life he lived as a performance. Bowery was a costume/clothing designer, nightclub impresario, performer, and musician whose vision influenced many of today’s important artists. He became known to the world at large as the muse and subject of preeminent British painter Lucian Freud. Directed by Charles Atlas, the film provides an entertaining, uncensored, and multifaceted portrait of Leigh and of the times in which he lived. With interviews of Boy George, Damien Hirst, Michael Clark, Rifat Ozbek, Bella Freud, Cerith Wyn Evans, and Norman Rosenthal of the Royal Academy of Art, the film paints a fascinating picture of an extraordinary artist and opens a window onto the outrageous fashion, art, and nightclub scenes that defined London in the 1980s. The visual centerpiece of the film is Leigh himself: appearing on British talk show (including a program hosted by Gary Glitter), performing onstage with the Michael Clark Dance Company (for whom he also designed costumes), singing with his band Minty, “giving birth” to a full grown woman at New York’s drag marathon Wigstock, and dancing in London’s underground clubs. The film also treats the viewer to a visual feast of Leigh’s many fantastic outfits as well as the stunning portraits of Leigh painted by one of Britain’s greatest artists, Lucian Freud. The Legend of Leigh Bowery provides an honest, entertaining, and authentic account of Bowery’s work, and explores its impact on a culture of decadence and outrage, an impact that still reverberates in today’s art and fashion world. [More]
Genre: Education/General Interest
Starring: Boy George, Michael Clark, Lucien Freud
DVD Info
Release:
Jan 7, 2005
DVD Features:
- Region 1
- Keep Case
- Full Frame
Audio:
- Dolby Digital Stereo - English
Additional Release Material:
- Audio Commentary - 1. Charles Atlas & Lucy Sexton
- Trailers
- Bonus Interviews
- Bonus Footage
- Minty Multi-angle Performance
- Anthony d'Offay Gallery Performance
Text/Photo Galleries:
- Photographic Fashion Show of Bowery's Styles
DVD-Rom Features:
- Weblinks
Reviews
Boy George seems to be the only person genuinely inspired today to pick up Bowery's fashion torch, but if is that something anybody wants?
The Legend of Leigh Bowery replaces the man within the queer myth to the extent that when it’s over, Bowery seems less a freakish terror than the shrewd art-world transgressive he was.
As tributes go, The Legend of Leigh Bowery is a saucy eye-opener.
Without pushing too hard, the film makes a case for Bowery as a significant artistic catalyst blazing a glittery trail at the intersection of fashion, pop music and surrealist performance.
You may find the film as outrageous as it is outlandish, and Bowery would have taken that as a compliment.
An interesting doc, if only because it serves to introduce the work of a gifted, unique artist to those of us who have found little good to say about the 1980s and the excesses they produced.
More hagiography than critique, smoothing out Bowery's rough edges to paint him as an irrepressibly charming svengali.


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