Most documentaries about musicians are artist-endorsed puff pieces — like, for example, that Justin Bieber thing the kids seem to like. But there are some more interesting oddballs out there: banned Rolling Stones doc Cocksucker Blues shows Mick snorting a line of cocaine, among other bad behavior, and many have noted that just about everyone comes out looking like a prick in Penelope Spheeris’s The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years.
Part of that canon of music docs that incriminate or embarrass their subject is Cracked Actor, a 53-minute BBC production from 1975. It follows David Bowie at the height of his coke addiction and contains some frightening moments of truly paranoid rambling — but as, Dangerous Minds points out, the performance footage from his legendarily elaborate Diamond Dogs tour still shows a rocker at the top of his game. The film is currently unavailable on DVD, but it has surfaced on Vimeo. Watch it in full (while it’s still up) after the jump.
[via The Daily Swarm]