The Legend of Leigh Bowery

A very captivating documentary about a visionary icon of his time and craft. If you know nothing of Leigh Bowery, he was a rather unusual bloke who grew up in a laid back suburb of Australia called Sunshine. Probably feeling stifled, he then left to make his mark in the world, ending up in London, England. This was basically as far as he could get from his upbringing without leaving the planet. But "otherworldly" was exactly what Leigh was. Leigh was and is described as "living art"; that is to say that Leigh wore his own masterpieces in the form of bizarrely, fantastic outfits. This was his lifestyle. Usually he wore them out to clubs and such, living a mostly nocturnal life as a kind of grandam in the London scene. With regard to his outfits, some say Leigh wore them to shock people, keeping them in the limbo of not knowing whether to feel embarrassed, stare, or just plain run in the other direction. One thing is for sure, Leigh was never ignored and basked in this somewhat perverted reality of emotions. Phantasmagorical, is the one word I can think to best describe Leigh Bowery.

Leigh's life and work are still celebrated today and have to come to the forefront as of late. He was definitely one of those cats who was ahead of their time.

If your interested in observing an awesome life, lived very, very differently, then this documentary is for you.

The best attempt so far to capture the life and work of Leigh Bowery in film. Particularly interesting are clips from the early Eighties - ie the South of Watford sequence - showing Bowery with four key figures in his life - Trojan, Michael Clark, Rachel Auburn and the legendary flat itself complete with Star Trek wallpaper. A must see for anyone interested in this artist or 80's club land in London.

The notion that his life culminated in portraits by Lucien Freud (featured in the film) is bizarre and laughable. The man had established himself as an international icon and darling of the avant garde years earlier.

I want to start out by saying that I just happened by accident to catch this piece. I was also unaware of who Leigh Bowery was, being that I'm not into the "clubscene", and I'm not gay or into design. That being said, this is a truly remarkable film. If you haven't seen Leigh Bowery before, what he does is truly art. I was disturbed the entire way through the film. The costumes were disturbing, the subject matter pertaining to his life is disturbing, and the fact that something and someone so interesting could go seemingly unnoticed, by me at least, was disturbing. On a side note it also occurred to me that Marylyn Manson really isn't so original after seeing this as well. This documentary style film is definitely worth checking out, if nothing else but to see some of the amazing costumes that this artist put together.

A stunning documentary about a one of a kind personality, the late 20th century impresario Leigh Bowery.

This absolutely fabulous documentary - which I've seen at least three time - is so compelling that once you start watching it you can not stop. It's like watching a living train wreck of creative artistry and art that is pushing every boundary, the biggest being living in the moment. I'm just stunned each time watching Leigh in all his wild outfits and thinking what it must have been like to see him on the streets of London or in the club scene of the 1980's and 1990's. Then, as your watching it and hearing Leigh and his cadre of friends, collaborators, hanger ons, you are floored considering the amount of work, the craftsmanship and the sheer effort that went in to creating not just the outward skin of each iteration, yet the personas that Leigh seemed to transform in to with each one.

A stunning, and at its ending, poignant documentary that tries to captures the essence of a person and personality that must have been ten times as intense in real life.

This short film, coming a decade after Bowery's untimely death from AIDS-related meningitis at the age of 33, presents an honest and interesting portrait of a clearly complex figure under all the glitter, high energy, and mad costumes. A larger than life image took him from Australia to the London gay clubland, costume design, and performance art (including a long association with the superb Michael Clark Dance Company), eventually culminating in the series of astonishing and touching portraits painted of him by Lucien Freud in 1990.

This film attempts to give a balanced view of its subject through interviews with his family, friends, colleagues and widow Nicola (a lady with odd fashion sense!). I think it does the job pretty well, and the chance to see so many clips (including interviews, bits from Because We Must, and footage of Minty) and so many costumes more than justifies an entire film on this bizarre kid from Down Under.