A lot of well deserved praise has been heaped on the work and life of David Bowie since his very sad death in January this year. One of his great gifts was spotting trends and seeing the way the wind was blowing before anyone else, a facility he retained right up till he passed on. This great documentary uses personal quotes from the legend, as well as his songs.. It was released just three years before he died, and there are some unexpected highlights, like a sequence of Bowie filmed at Andy Warhol's Factory, which suggested that Bowie's talent for mime wasn't all it's cracked up to be. The structure of Five Years makes it a lot more interesting than your usual pop documentary. Rather than try to talk about 50 years of pop super-stardom in two hours, the movie gives us five year-long snapshots. Things are brought up to speed at the end with a snippet of what we could call The Next Year. The follow up "David Bowie "The Last Five Years" is out next year

First of all I wanted to mention one thing -- during one scene, a sort of a cappella version of "Starman" is part of the soundtrack. If somebody knows where I can find a copy of that beautiful remix, I would be most grateful! Still I almost doubt it was ever done to completion.... I hope I'm wrong because it is truly sublime.I enjoyed watching this mainly for the clips of David Bowie himself, as tends to be the case. I wasn't thrilled by the omission of certain eras, but the media tends to focus most heavily on the Ziggy Stardust stuff anyway. I thought the production quality was really fine, and I enjoyed the relatively quick summary of his career. Really a great thing for an introduction to him as an artist, but not a whole lot of new information for anyone who has seen video clips online, read about him, and pieced together the personal history from their own "research."

Great movie, but it never mentioned the fact that Stevie Ray Vaughn (all time Texas blues great)contributed to the writing and played lead guitar on the biggest hits, "Lets Dance" and "China Girl" amongst other songs. Why? In the movie Carlos Alomar seems to take credit for writing the key riff for Lets Dance. Bowie plays the guitar solos in the videos. Any one who knows Vaughn's music can clearly hear it's a S. R. Vaughn opening he learned from one of the "Kings" (Albert, Freddie, or B. B.) Bowie fell in love with Stevie R. Vaughn's playing when he heard him at the Montreux Jazz festival. He convinced him to play on his current album and tour with him to support the album. He also agreed to let Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble open some of the shows. Bowie didn't Honor his agreement and Vaugh walked soon after the tour started.Wasted opportunity for both artist.

This music documentary about David Bowies five most important and drug free years in the late 70'ies and start of the eighties is a must see for lovers of music, even for those not infatuated by Bowie and his music.Amazing background interviews, time warp interviews and great music samples with video and concert clippings makes this amazing. Not too long either, though it could have lasted 2 hours without tiring me.With songs like Heroes, China Girl, Let's Dance and all the other hits from he period, making him the best paid superstar in England, making EMI Records paying a record amount for signing on for five more albums, is interesting. I think I became more of a Bowie fan after watching this. Great documentary making!