“Blackstar” Music Video (Prophet)

Button Eyes was not the only character Bowie played in “Blackstar”. The video’s director, Johan Renck, went as far as to distinguish two further distinct characters (though they all wear virtually the same outfit), the “prophet” holding the Blackstar book, and the “trickster” who sang the song’s middle portion. The Guardian’s Andrew Pulver noted that the arrangement of Bowie standing in front of a huddled group with the book held aloft is similar to Soviet and Maoist imagery.