Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (sometimes called Bowie 1973) is a 1979 British documentary/concert film by D. A. Pennebaker. It features English singer-songwriter David Bowie and his backing group the Spiders from Mars performing at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 3 July 1973, the final date of his Ziggy Stardust Tour. At this show, Bowie made the sudden surprise announcement that the show would be "the last show that we'll ever do", later understood to mean that he was retiring his Ziggy Stardust persona.
The full-length 90-minute film spent years in post-production before finally having its theatrical premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival on 31 August 1979. Prior to the premiere, the 35 mm film had been shown in 16 mm format a few times, mostly in United States college towns. A shortened 60-minute version was broadcast once in the USA on ABC-TV in October 1974.
In 1983, the film was finally theatrically released worldwide, corresponding with the release of its soundtrack album entitled Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture. The following year, in 1984, the film was released to home video under the title, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: The Motion Picture. It was first released on DVD in 1998. A digitally remastered 30th Anniversary Edition DVD, including additional material from the live show and extras, was released in 2003.
A 4K remaster, which re-incorporates Jeff Beck's performances, was released in July 2023.
Background
Early in 1972, Bowie had taken the stage persona of Ziggy Stardust, a science fiction-based, theatrical, enigmatic, androgynous character, and produced two hit albums during this period. By July 1973, the Ziggy Stardust Tour had taken Bowie to promote his albums for nearly a year without a break. The 3 July show at the Hammersmith Odeon was the last show on the tour, which also promoted his 1973 album Aladdin Sane and the 60th gig in a tour of Britain that had started on 12 May, though an American tour was already being booked for the autumn. Very few people knew that Bowie had decided to drop the Ziggy persona and stop performing for a while. Within his own entourage, Bowie had told only his then-manager Tony DeFries and one member of his band, Mick Ronson.
Near the end of the evening, in a "Farewell Speech" aptly just before the song "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide", Bowie announced, "Of all the shows on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest, because not only is it the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do." The phrasing was deliberately ambiguous, but most of the audience and many newspapers and magazines took it to mean that Bowie was retiring from music. In fact, he had killed off his Ziggy persona but not his music career.
Production
Pennebaker had previously directed several well-received music documentaries, including the concert film Monterey Pop (1968) and the Bob Dylan tour documentary Dont Look Back (1967). According to Pennebaker, RCA had sent him to film part of the show as a promo for a new video disc product the company was developing, and he had originally intended to film a few songs for approximately 20 minutes. Pennebaker had only scant knowledge of Bowie's music, apart from Space Oddity, and initially thought he was going to be filming Marc Bolan. After seeing Bowie's 2 July London show and the next morning's rehearsal, Pennebaker was impressed by Bowie's onstage charisma and the range of his songs. He quickly prepared to film the entire 3 July show, realising that "there was a full-length film here asking to be made". MainMan, Bowie's management company, reportedly "paid a small fortune" to finance the film, which they hoped to recoup through a theatrical release soon after the tour.
Pennebaker stated in a 2016 interview and on the commentary track for the 2003 DVD film release that he did not have advance knowledge of Bowie's "last show" announcement (called the "Farewell Speech" in the track lists for the film and soundtrack album). However, Dylan Jones in his 2012 book When Ziggy Played Guitar: David Bowie and the Four Minutes That Shook the World quoted Pennebaker as saying that "RCA said, we have this guy and he's going to do a concert, maybe the last one he's going to do, and you've got to go make a film."