40 years ago Bowie Sr. gave us Space Oddity. Now Bowie Jr. gives us the MOON again.
Remember the early 70's song 'Kooks'? It was written by David Bowie for his son. I'll never forget hearing the news on the radio in the spring of '71, that David had named his first child 'Zowie'. In actual fact, David and his first wife Angie called him Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones.
He grew up in Berlin, London and Switzerland. In 1980, when David and Angela divorced, David Bowie was granted custody of 9-year-old who was enrolled in a prestigious Scottish boarding school. As legend has it, as a kid he had dreams of someday becoming a professional wrestler, and his dad commented that he possessed great "natural strength."
Around the age of 12, Zowie decided that he preferred to be called "Joe Jones" and so adopted that name. His father David has been quoted as saying, "If, when he gets old enough to care about his name, he doesn't like it, he can always change it or give himself a nickname. It's OK by me."
In 1992 he stood up as the best man when David married Iman.
By 1995, when he graduated with a philosophy degree, he was registered under the name Duncan Jones. His independent study thesis was titled How to Kill Your Computer Friend: An Investigation of the Mind/Body Problem and How It Relates to the Hypothetical Creation of a Thinking Machine.
He pursued a PhD degree at Vadnerbilty University in Tennessee but skipped out to attend the London Film School where he graduated as a director.
He was also one of many cameramen at his dad's 50th birthday party at Madison Square Garden.
Duncan recently directed his debut feature film, MOON. Produced by Liberty Films, the film was shot in the UK between January and March 2008. It is a sci-fi thriller starring Sam Rockwell. .
Moon recently premiered at the Sundance film festival, where it was purchased for distribution in the US by Sony Picture Classics. A mid June 2009 theatrical release has been announced by Sony Classics. The film's British premiere is scheduled for July 14, 2009.
Moon was screened at the NASA Space Center in Houston at the request of a professor there. The screening was part of a lecture series. "He'd been reading online that we'd done this film about Helium-3 mining and that's something that people at NASA are working on," says Jones. "We did a Q&A afterward. They asked me why the base looked so sturdy, like a bunker, and not like the kind of stuff they are designing that they are going to transport with them. I said 'Well, in the future I assume you won't want to continue carrying everything with you, you'll want to use the resources on the moon to build things' and a woman in the audience raised her hand and said, 'I'm actually working on something called Mooncrete, which is concrete that mixes lunar regolith and ice water from the moon's polar caps.'"
Jones is currently planning a follow up film, which will serve as an epilogue to MOON. "Sam has agreed to do a little cameo in the next film," says Jones, who ultimately hopes to do three films in the MOON series.
Question now - when will the two Bowie's work together?
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Cheers,
Jeff.