Opens Fri Dec 13 at the Varsity.

You couldn't ask for a more perfect rock 'n' roll opposite to Shane MacGowan than David Bowie. Where one is defiantly Irish, the other is indefatigably British. Where one enjoyed cult success, the other is among the biggest rock stars in history. And where one has drunk himself unto physical dissolution, the other, miraculously, seems to get more handsome with every passing year, despite a famous proclivity for intoxicants of every stripe. That's the first thing you notice while watching this 1973 concert film: How much better Bowie looks now, almost 30 years after his unarguable artistic peak, when he was just a pale, scrawny little ponce with an auburn mullet and legs like swizzle sticks.

The second thing you notice, alas, is how boring it is to watch a rock show in a movie theater. It's jarring, because the songs ("Hang On to Yourself," "Space Oddity," "All the Young Dudes," and many others) are brilliant, the band--especially the late, great Mick Ronson--is on fire, and the setting (the farewell show of the androgynous Ziggy Stardust persona) is seminal. You expect a theatrical, sexually charged freakout. What you get is a rather conventional spectacle, with increasingly hilarious costume changes, vampish poses, and a dash of mime. In short, you get a close-up on Bowie's calculation as a performer, the artifice behind his art--and though the art itself isn't diminished, the artist is unmasked. And while I'm generally a big fan of rock-star demystification, in David Bowie's case (especially in 1973) the mask is everything.

By 1973, D. A. Pennebaker was an old hand at making musicians look interesting, having lensed the greatest rock doc of all time (Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back), its freaky sequel (Eat the Document), and films about Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, the Monterey Pop Festival, and even the recording of a Broadway musical cast album (Company). It's curious, then, that when faced with as flamboyant a showman as Bowie, the great documentarian would turn out such a dull document. Curious until you consider that Bowie's success as a star owed much to the smoke and mirrors of old-time showbiz, whereas Pennebaker's prior subjects were more conspicuously "real," even when putting on a show. Here, a master of surfaces is treated to the camera's gaze, and all we see is the nothing that lurks underneath.