A Labyrinth Obsession

Jareth

Exactly thirteen years ago tonight, on the 17th March 1990, I saw Labyrinth for the first time. This began an obsession which lasted very strongly for a year and a half, and extends even til now.

The first time I saw it I fell totally in love with David Bowie. I still believe he looked in best in the mid eighties. This also became an obsession :)

After seeing the movie for the first time, I hired it from the local video store and watched it a couple more times. After this I knew I had to purchase my own copy so that I could watch it whenever I wanted. I watched it pretty much every Friday afternoon for the next year or so. I learnt the entire script off by heart (I can still recite it all while watching it). I taped the movie to audio tape so I could listen to it, and used this to write the entire script out in hard copy (14 double sided lined A4 pages of my handwriting). One time I wrote out "Dance Magic" after an exam in high school when I was waiting for the exam to finish.

I found a photo-storybook version of the book and borrowed it for a couple of months straight, drooling over all of the beautiful pictures of Jareth in it. I even did a couple of drawings of them using lead, and also colour pencils (see the scans below). I'd love to find that book again and buy it, but I haven't seen it since 1990 and don't even know who it was by or what it was called.

I also found the soundtrack CD and bought it - even before I had a CD player. I had to get a friend to tape it for me so I could listen to it! I then proceeded to collect most of David Bowie's CDs as they were released by EMI through 1990 and 1991.

So here I am watching it again. I now make a point of watching the movie every year around the 17th of March just for fun and to drool all over Mr Bowie all over again :)~ It's just finishing now.. and for the life of me I could never understand why she didn't say "yes" when he said "Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your *slave*" - I would have LOL ;)

Below are scans of the pencil drawings I did during the height of my Bowie obsession. The first one obviously is not Jareth, it was in another biography book I borrowed from Sutherland Library at the same time as the Labyrinth book. The original scans are on conspiracy.

David Bowie Jareth Jareth Jareth