Customer Reviews:
A New Career.......2007-11-23
A film about an alien, Thomas Newton, played by David Bowie who crashes on Earth in a search for water for his home planet. The narrative takes place over many years during which Newton builds a corporation that makes him extremely rich. He also becomes emotionally lost and, amid a deluge of alcohol and the paranoia of humans, is unable to get home.
Bowie has never been better as an actor and these 'stranger in a strange land' type roles suit him, see also Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence.
Beautiful photography, a haunting soundtrack and a great screenplay laced with a bitter humour make this a film you can watch more than once. Indeed, on a personal level I understood it more the second time I saw it.
Outstanding Criterion Release.......2007-07-16
The Man Who Fell to Earth is a science fiction cult film from director Nicolas Roeg (Walkabout, Don't Look Now). It stars David Bowie as an alien who visits Earth seeking water for his home world which is barren. It is based on the Walter Tevis novel of the same name and this Criterion release of The Man Who Fell to Earth comes with the book as well. There are significant enough differences between the novel and the film that the novel is a worthy supplement to the experience of watching this movie. You will also want to check out the DVD extras in the same regard.
David Bowie is the title character in his only feature role. He is Thomas Newton and he only has to adjust his appearance a little bit to look somewhat human. That is if you think David Bowie even looks human because I don't, but I do realize he is...I think? Anyway, Thomas Newton rises to great wealth due to his society's advances in technology and his ability to create enterprises based on his patenting compilations of ideas that his world produced, nonexistent on Earth. He is trying of course to fund the shipment of water back to his home world. Thomas soon meets Mary-Lou (played by Candy Clark). Mary-Lou is your typical girl who introduces him to many of Earth's temptations. Thomas is soon inhibited by his aberrant consumption of alcohol and his fixation with television. It all has a very negative effect on him. Mary-Lou and his friend Nathan (Rip Torn) both eventually discover separately that Thomas is indeed an alien. After being revealed and after the government imprisons him, Thomas's inevitable downfall becomes apparent. We see him gradually accept failure in his task and grow increasingly negative in his disposition. He has truly fallen to Earth I suppose.
The big strengths in this film are primarily its cinematography. I like Nicholas Roeg's other films a lot so I'm aware that this is to be expected. I like the idea of a science fiction art film and overall I can really appreciate the fact that The Man Who Fell to Earth is not as in your face as most science fiction is today and was even back then in the mid 70s. However, this is almost too surreal and sedated for me. It was convincing but there were some long and boring stretches and I couldn't figure out why exactly, beyond the photography alone. It just seemed a lot longer than the story warranted. Also, I think I can draw the line between gratuitous nudity and appropriate nudity and I'm grown up enough to accept both. The Man Who Fell to Earth has much gratuitous nudity, but that was a sign of the times I guess so it's partially forgivable. There is more emotion and drive behind Newton in the Tevis novel and it seemed a bit more controlled as an existential piece of work. It doesn't matter though because with the Criterion release you are getting both and if you like to collect interesting and unique films that will have you talking then this set is worth owning. The film itself would probably get three stars from me but the Criterion release justifies four. It really is an exceptional package. The extras are outstanding and should help answer most questions you will have. Provoking movies like this one, whether they be good or bad, deserve the royal treatment so kudos to Criterion once again.
bowie's best.......2007-03-23
this is definitely bowie's best ever performance and he looks amazing - a superb casting choice. i really loved this film and i suspect you will too - especially if you are a fan of david bowie.
for the record, the soundtrack that bowie wrote for the film, but wasn't used as the film company didn't want to pay the cost that such an artist demands, became the album we know and love as "LOW" and not "STATION TO STATION" as a previous reviewer suggested. This is why LOW contains so many (brilliant) instrumentals.
Both albums used stills from the film but LOW contains the music that would have been the soundtrack - and what an opportunity missed! most long standing bowie fans hail LOW as his best album and THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH as his best film so imagine the two combined.
i wish the powers that be would release a version of this film with the original soundtrack that bowie intended it to have - now that would be something very special!
PLEASE - somebody make it happen :)
It's supposed to be disjointed.......2007-03-09
Ah, the joys of non-linear narrative. Nicolas Roeg takes the plot back and forward until the audience either surrenders to the fractured consciousness of the alien or turns off the dvd and watches Eastenders instead. As with any great director, Roeg simply refuses to believe there's only one way to communicate a story. Kubrick had shattered that illusion with 2001 anyway. This film, along with much of Roeg's work, does for film narrative what Picasso and Braque did for perspective. Is that too much? I suppose the very least you could say about The Man Who Fell To Earth is that it's a film that dared to be genuinely different and remains a glorious testament to an age when substantive difference meant more than a stylish alternative. For those who are tempted, I can say it's much easier to follow than a more recent gem like Mulholland Drive, though equally challenging. It's not really 'sci-fi' - I think the film is far more concerned with alienation than with aliens. Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver was broke and out of luck, but here we have a film made around the same time expoloring the same sense from a position of incredible wealth and success. In '76 Bowie was the perfect choice and the rest of the casting is equally impeccable.
Customer Reviews:
David Bowie Is Brilliant.......2007-12-29
This is my favourite film of all-time. I have seen it on the big screen, on video and many times on TV...and now three times in 24 hours on DVD.
This has got to be a moderrn masterpiece. It is a film that can be compared with nothing else...it is the movie that only ZIGGY STARDUST or David Bowie could star in.
There is not a wasted scene in this movie...BOWIE is brilliant and Candy Clark also gives the performance of her career.
BUT THIS FILM IS A TRIBUTE TO DAVID BOWIE - THE GREATEST ENTERTAINER IN THE HISTORY OF SHOWBIZ.
Amazon.co.uk Review
While other films directed by Nicolas Roeg have attained similar cult status (including Walkabout and Don't Look Now), none has been as hotly debated as this languid but oddly fascinating adaptation of the science fiction novel by Walter Tevis. In The Man Who Fell to Earth, David Bowie plays the alien of the title, who arrives on Earth with hopes of finding a way to save his own planet from turning into an arid wasteland. He funds this effort by capitalising on several highly lucrative inventions, and in so doing becomes the powerful leader of an international corporate conglomerate. But his success has negative consequences as well--his contact with Earth has a disintegrating effect that sends him into a tailspin of disorientation and metaphysical despair. The sexual attention of a cheerful young woman (Candy Clark) doesn't do much to change his outlook, and his introduction to liquor proves even more devastating, until, finally, it looks as though his visit to Earth may be a permanent one. The Man Who Fell to Earth is definitely not for every taste--it's a highly contemplative, primarily visual experience that Roeg directs as an abstract treatise on (among other things) the alienating effects of an over-commercialised society. Stimulating and hypnotic or frightfully dull, depending on your receptivity to its loosely knit ideas, it's at least in part about not belonging, about being disconnected from the world--about being a stranger in a strange land when there's really no place like home. --Jeff Shannon.
Customer Reviews:
Serious Sci-Fi!.......2006-05-26
Fact is stranger than fiction, so when it comes to sci-fi the best films are those which are more "down to earth".
The Man Who Fell to Earth is, in my opinion, one of the best sci-fi films I have ever seen. Forget all those who describe the plot as being complicated or confused - this is really easy to understand. It is simply the way Roeg mixes flashbacks and unexpected, out of the blue snippets. Don't try to decipher this film as there are no underlying "messages" to find.
This film is basically about an alien who comes to Earth to swap his advanced technological knowledge for water. His family are dying on his home planet so he doesn't have much time. Disguised as a human for his own protection, the alien pawns gold jewellery (we guess that gold might be as common as muck on his home planet) to fund the hire of a top lawyer to take on the patenting of his designs. This all takes time, of course, and time seems to take its toll on the alien as he soon discovers that he cannot avoid small temptations such as women and alcohol, even though he locks himself away from everyday life. We soon learn that the alien can watch multiple TV screens at the same time, that he can look into the past and that people from the past can see him. His life on Earth slowly pushes him to the verge of insanity, which seems to have an equal effect on his "girlfriend" as she goes insane with him.
What happens when an alien visits Earth? Watch this film!
An allegory.......2005-01-08
This is a powerful film, with striking images that stick with one forever.
It is an allegory of alcoholism. Those who succumb to it in the film 'fall to earth' - they can no longer achieve anything of value. Very sad, considering Roeg's own professional decline.
Roeg himself might not leave a huge catalogue of great films. But this is special. And, like all boys of that era, I thank him for leaving the image of Jenny Agutter swimming in that waterhole in Walkabout. (And she did that before The Railway Children!)
I hope you feel the same way too.
Roeg's Double Bluff is a Win! Win!.......2003-06-25
It was a teasing double bluff by Nicholas Roeg, the British film director, to cast David Bowie in the title role of his mind-bending masterpiece "The Man Who Fell To Earth".
Having created his androgynous Ziggy Stardust persona during the early 1970's, Bowie on the face of it was a perfect choice for the part. But, was there a danger that Bowie had stamped on us a too indelible image of himself as Glam Rock fashion icon? Would we, the cinema-visiting public, be able to accept him and see him properly in the different guise of Mr Newton the self-contained, bespectacled, business-suited alien visitor from space?
Roeg had gambled and won a few years earlier, when he put the pop star Mick Jagger into the co-lead role of "Performance" (1970). Jagger was convincing in his then unaccustomed role of a movie actor - and like Bowie he portrayed an ambiguous and confused character. "Performance" was the film that put Roeg on the map. It was followed by "Walkabout" (1971), "Don't Look Now" (1973) and then "The Man Who Fell To Earth" (1976). All of these startling and vividly colourful films have become legends of post-war British cinema. The films share the same ingredients and qualities: they are breathtaking, disjointed, distracting, disturbing, hallucinating, haunting, provocative, refractive and spellbinding.
Bowie has no cutlass, parrot or pigtails, but as he wanders through Middle America he is the epicene, emaciated, marmalade-haired space-pirate. What is the purpose of his mission on Earth? His laconic mumbling betrays few secrets, but occasional clues are provided. We learn that his own planet will soon be doomed, because of drought. He states that he is interested in energy. But the plot is largely baffling, and hard to follow. (One critic has called all of Roeg's plots "infuriating").
In all four of his above-mentioned films, and particularly in "The Man Who Fell To Earth", Roeg juxtaposes time and place. Within the numerous, often bewildering flashbacks and flashforwards in time, we see dreamy glimpses of Bowie, his wife and two children shrouded in a chrysalis-like gauze, hugging and walking on their arid and flat planet. The soundtrack hisses silently, like gas escaping from the twin-canisters that are strapped to their backs. These little interludes exemplify a Roeg trademark: the discordant chapters and scenes in his films are paradoxically interspersed with serene, picturesque moments where Roeg allows the camera to linger on a visually-stunning image (tall buildings, lakes, landscapes, mountains, wildlife, sky).
My instinct tells me that a painstaking study and understanding of the plot-puzzle wouldn't be an essential task, to secure enjoyment of "The Man Who Fell To Earth". Better perhaps to allow the vivid images and impressions to sear into my brain, and to overlook the obscure, rambling and apparently inconsequential sequences of action and dialogue that elongate this strange, uneven film. Better too, I suggest, to enjoy the performances of the two main characters. It's an open question: does Candy Clark, the hotel maid and eventual consort of Mr Newton, steal the show from Bowie with her compelling portrayal of the booze-addicted, simple-minded Southern gal, Mary Lou? I suspect that she does.
The first time that I saw this film, I was entranced from the opening minute. But the first sequence that really blew my mind was Bowie stacking the multiple television sets in his hotel room, all tuned to different channels. In fact, there are two such sequences in the film. Another electrifying moment is when Clark jumps out of her skin, and so do we, when Bowie appears to unpeel his eye, in front of the bathroom mirror, and he then transmogrifies into his true, hitherto hidden body. But my candidate for perhaps the most arresting sequence of all in the film is Bowie and Clark's sex-romp to the blaring soundtrack remix of Ricky Nelson's "Hello Mary Lou". A shooting pistol and a banana serve as sex-symbols here, but the real shock-effect of this episode is its stark and saddening revelation that Bowie and Clark are going to end the story as hopeless alcoholics and losers. She has become a bloated, befuddled lush: and he has become a fading, failing Icarus.
This explosive sequence is immediately followed by a bizarre one in which Bowie and Clark, dressed in whites, calmly play table tennis in a room that seems to be a forest. This surreal scene seems to belong more in a Ken Russell movie: Roeg and Russell of course were contemporary enfant terribles of British cinema in the 'seventies. Their controversial, barrier-breaking movies were feted with praise or condemned from the pulpits. Russell, too, raided the pop world: Roger Daltrey played the lead in two of his films.
When Ziggy Stardust, glittering costume, orange-streaked hair, was at his zenith, I had to credit my wife Nancy for some gentle debunking of the Bowie myth. Nancy imagined him backstage, the audience's adulation ringing in his ears after another spectacular god-like performance. "Oh gawd, Angie, help me off with these bloody Space Boots, they don't half pinch my feet. I could die for a cup of tea, luv". Curiously, there are moments in "The Man Who Fell To Earth" when Mr Newton relaxes with Mary Lou, puts his feet up, lets down his inscrutable mask and becomes an ordinary bloke for a moment or two. It's yet another tantalising facet of this extraordinary, nervous, unforgettable movie.
A TRIUMPH FOR DAVID BOWIE..........2002-11-11
I first saw this film when it was released in the mid nineteen seventies. I recalled how much I had enjoyed it, when I saw that it was available in DVD. I wasted no time in adding it to my personal collection.
The film itself, though somewhat abstract, is terrific, as it is not just a science fiction film with a twist. It is a film that explores themes that are timeless: desolation, alienation (no pun intended), and loneliness. At times, these themes are palpable, due to David Bowie's wondrously androgynous performance which is heartbreakingly moving at times.
The plot is fairly simple. An alien, Davie Bowie, leaves his family on his dying and arid planet in search for water. He lands on earth and begins his project to send water to his devasted planet by amassing the wealth that he needs to do this. He patents numerous lucrative inventions which eventually find him at the head of a world wide conglomerate. He joins up with a kindly, though stupid and vapid woman who drinks gin like a fish, Candy Clark, with whom he begins a liaison of sorts. Yet, he is always lonely and melancholic, and like her, begins to spiral into an alcoholic haze, sometimes sidetracking him from his purpose here.
At some point, excruciatingly sad and lonely, longing for his family, he reveals himself to her for who he truly is, shedding his earthly appearance, only to be met with absolute horror and repugnance by her at the sight of him. She ultimately tries to understand him, but it is truly beyond her ken. He is infinitely sad at this and longs all the more for home.
On the threshhold of returning to his planet and loved ones, he is kidnapped by corporate raiders who take over his holdings, and it is here that the movie begins to disintergrate somewhat. Yet, it remains strangely hypnotic and compelling, and becomes a sort of "Lost Weekend" of betrayal, booze, and promises which will never be kept. A parable of wanting to belong, yet knowing that you truly never will. A story about wanting to go home, but knowing on some level that you truly can never go home again.
Loving the Alien..........2002-08-03
I've been a long term appreciator of this film since it was regularly shown late at night on BBC2 in the 70's and 80's. Seeing it on DVD at its full aspect ratio is a revelation though, the composition of the images is wonderful and I kind of missed that on a 4:3 TV all those years ago. This is a quality movie with excellent performances from all the actors, even the bit parts. Anyone who ever claims that David Bowie cannot act should be forced to watch this and then to eat their words because he is quite frankly superb in the part of Thomas Newton. He conveys more 'other-worldliness' in a simple gesture than most actors achieve with the full Stan Winston latex treatment. Despite this being an SF film (with no major SFX, just intelligent scripting) it could just as easily be about anyone out of their environment and feeling alone and paranoid. They quite literally don't make em like this anymore. Instead we get MIB:2. Help!
Amazon.co.uk Review
While other films directed by Nicolas Roeg have attained similar cult status (including Walkabout and Don't Look Now), none has been as hotly debated as this languid but oddly fascinating adaptation of the science fiction novel by Walter Tevis. In The Man Who Fell to Earth, David Bowie plays the alien of the title, who arrives on Earth with hopes of finding a way to save his own planet from turning into an arid wasteland. He funds this effort by capitalising on several highly lucrative inventions, and in so doing becomes the powerful leader of an international corporate conglomerate. But his success has negative consequences as well--his contact with Earth has a disintegrating effect that sends him into a tailspin of disorientation and metaphysical despair. The sexual attention of a cheerful young woman (Candy Clark) doesn't do much to change his outlook, and his introduction to liquor proves even more devastating, until, finally, it looks as though his visit to Earth may be a permanent one. The Man Who Fell to Earth is definitely not for every taste--it's a highly contemplative, primarily visual experience that Roeg directs as an abstract treatise on (among other things) the alienating effects of an over-commercialised society. Stimulating and hypnotic or frightfully dull, depending on your receptivity to its loosely knit ideas, it's at least in part about not belonging, about being disconnected from the world--about being a stranger in a strange land when there's really no place like home. --Jeff Shannon.
Customer Reviews:
Serious Sci-Fi!.......2006-05-26
Fact is stranger than fiction, so when it comes to sci-fi the best films are those which are more "down to earth".
The Man Who Fell to Earth is, in my opinion, one of the best sci-fi films I have ever seen. Forget all those who describe the plot as being complicated or confused - this is really easy to understand. It is simply the way Roeg mixes flashbacks and unexpected, out of the blue snippets. Don't try to decipher this film as there are no underlying "messages" to find.
This film is basically about an alien who comes to Earth to swap his advanced technological knowledge for water. His family are dying on his home planet so he doesn't have much time. Disguised as a human for his own protection, the alien pawns gold jewellery (we guess that gold might be as common as muck on his home planet) to fund the hire of a top lawyer to take on the patenting of his designs. This all takes time, of course, and time seems to take its toll on the alien as he soon discovers that he cannot avoid small temptations such as women and alcohol, even though he locks himself away from everyday life. We soon learn that the alien can watch multiple TV screens at the same time, that he can look into the past and that people from the past can see him. His life on Earth slowly pushes him to the verge of insanity, which seems to have an equal effect on his "girlfriend" as she goes insane with him.
What happens when an alien visits Earth? Watch this film!
An allegory.......2005-01-08
This is a powerful film, with striking images that stick with one forever.
It is an allegory of alcoholism. Those who succumb to it in the film 'fall to earth' - they can no longer achieve anything of value. Very sad, considering Roeg's own professional decline.
Roeg himself might not leave a huge catalogue of great films. But this is special. And, like all boys of that era, I thank him for leaving the image of Jenny Agutter swimming in that waterhole in Walkabout. (And she did that before The Railway Children!)
I hope you feel the same way too.
Roeg's Double Bluff is a Win! Win!.......2003-06-25
It was a teasing double bluff by Nicholas Roeg, the British film director, to cast David Bowie in the title role of his mind-bending masterpiece "The Man Who Fell To Earth".
Having created his androgynous Ziggy Stardust persona during the early 1970's, Bowie on the face of it was a perfect choice for the part. But, was there a danger that Bowie had stamped on us a too indelible image of himself as Glam Rock fashion icon? Would we, the cinema-visiting public, be able to accept him and see him properly in the different guise of Mr Newton the self-contained, bespectacled, business-suited alien visitor from space?
Roeg had gambled and won a few years earlier, when he put the pop star Mick Jagger into the co-lead role of "Performance" (1970). Jagger was convincing in his then unaccustomed role of a movie actor - and like Bowie he portrayed an ambiguous and confused character. "Performance" was the film that put Roeg on the map. It was followed by "Walkabout" (1971), "Don't Look Now" (1973) and then "The Man Who Fell To Earth" (1976). All of these startling and vividly colourful films have become legends of post-war British cinema. The films share the same ingredients and qualities: they are breathtaking, disjointed, distracting, disturbing, hallucinating, haunting, provocative, refractive and spellbinding.
Bowie has no cutlass, parrot or pigtails, but as he wanders through Middle America he is the epicene, emaciated, marmalade-haired space-pirate. What is the purpose of his mission on Earth? His laconic mumbling betrays few secrets, but occasional clues are provided. We learn that his own planet will soon be doomed, because of drought. He states that he is interested in energy. But the plot is largely baffling, and hard to follow. (One critic has called all of Roeg's plots "infuriating").
In all four of his above-mentioned films, and particularly in "The Man Who Fell To Earth", Roeg juxtaposes time and place. Within the numerous, often bewildering flashbacks and flashforwards in time, we see dreamy glimpses of Bowie, his wife and two children shrouded in a chrysalis-like gauze, hugging and walking on their arid and flat planet. The soundtrack hisses silently, like gas escaping from the twin-canisters that are strapped to their backs. These little interludes exemplify a Roeg trademark: the discordant chapters and scenes in his films are paradoxically interspersed with serene, picturesque moments where Roeg allows the camera to linger on a visually-stunning image (tall buildings, lakes, landscapes, mountains, wildlife, sky).
My instinct tells me that a painstaking study and understanding of the plot-puzzle wouldn't be an essential task, to secure enjoyment of "The Man Who Fell To Earth". Better perhaps to allow the vivid images and impressions to sear into my brain, and to overlook the obscure, rambling and apparently inconsequential sequences of action and dialogue that elongate this strange, uneven film. Better too, I suggest, to enjoy the performances of the two main characters. It's an open question: does Candy Clark, the hotel maid and eventual consort of Mr Newton, steal the show from Bowie with her compelling portrayal of the booze-addicted, simple-minded Southern gal, Mary Lou? I suspect that she does.
The first time that I saw this film, I was entranced from the opening minute. But the first sequence that really blew my mind was Bowie stacking the multiple television sets in his hotel room, all tuned to different channels. In fact, there are two such sequences in the film. Another electrifying moment is when Clark jumps out of her skin, and so do we, when Bowie appears to unpeel his eye, in front of the bathroom mirror, and he then transmogrifies into his true, hitherto hidden body. But my candidate for perhaps the most arresting sequence of all in the film is Bowie and Clark's sex-romp to the blaring soundtrack remix of Ricky Nelson's "Hello Mary Lou". A shooting pistol and a banana serve as sex-symbols here, but the real shock-effect of this episode is its stark and saddening revelation that Bowie and Clark are going to end the story as hopeless alcoholics and losers. She has become a bloated, befuddled lush: and he has become a fading, failing Icarus.
This explosive sequence is immediately followed by a bizarre one in which Bowie and Clark, dressed in whites, calmly play table tennis in a room that seems to be a forest. This surreal scene seems to belong more in a Ken Russell movie: Roeg and Russell of course were contemporary enfant terribles of British cinema in the 'seventies. Their controversial, barrier-breaking movies were feted with praise or condemned from the pulpits. Russell, too, raided the pop world: Roger Daltrey played the lead in two of his films.
When Ziggy Stardust, glittering costume, orange-streaked hair, was at his zenith, I had to credit my wife Nancy for some gentle debunking of the Bowie myth. Nancy imagined him backstage, the audience's adulation ringing in his ears after another spectacular god-like performance. "Oh gawd, Angie, help me off with these bloody Space Boots, they don't half pinch my feet. I could die for a cup of tea, luv". Curiously, there are moments in "The Man Who Fell To Earth" when Mr Newton relaxes with Mary Lou, puts his feet up, lets down his inscrutable mask and becomes an ordinary bloke for a moment or two. It's yet another tantalising facet of this extraordinary, nervous, unforgettable movie.
A TRIUMPH FOR DAVID BOWIE..........2002-11-11
I first saw this film when it was released in the mid nineteen seventies. I recalled how much I had enjoyed it, when I saw that it was available in DVD. I wasted no time in adding it to my personal collection.
The film itself, though somewhat abstract, is terrific, as it is not just a science fiction film with a twist. It is a film that explores themes that are timeless: desolation, alienation (no pun intended), and loneliness. At times, these themes are palpable, due to David Bowie's wondrously androgynous performance which is heartbreakingly moving at times.
The plot is fairly simple. An alien, Davie Bowie, leaves his family on his dying and arid planet in search for water. He lands on earth and begins his project to send water to his devasted planet by amassing the wealth that he needs to do this. He patents numerous lucrative inventions which eventually find him at the head of a world wide conglomerate. He joins up with a kindly, though stupid and vapid woman who drinks gin like a fish, Candy Clark, with whom he begins a liaison of sorts. Yet, he is always lonely and melancholic, and like her, begins to spiral into an alcoholic haze, sometimes sidetracking him from his purpose here.
At some point, excruciatingly sad and lonely, longing for his family, he reveals himself to her for who he truly is, shedding his earthly appearance, only to be met with absolute horror and repugnance by her at the sight of him. She ultimately tries to understand him, but it is truly beyond her ken. He is infinitely sad at this and longs all the more for home.
On the threshhold of returning to his planet and loved ones, he is kidnapped by corporate raiders who take over his holdings, and it is here that the movie begins to disintergrate somewhat. Yet, it remains strangely hypnotic and compelling, and becomes a sort of "Lost Weekend" of betrayal, booze, and promises which will never be kept. A parable of wanting to belong, yet knowing that you truly never will. A story about wanting to go home, but knowing on some level that you truly can never go home again.
Loving the Alien..........2002-08-03
I've been a long term appreciator of this film since it was regularly shown late at night on BBC2 in the 70's and 80's. Seeing it on DVD at its full aspect ratio is a revelation though, the composition of the images is wonderful and I kind of missed that on a 4:3 TV all those years ago. This is a quality movie with excellent performances from all the actors, even the bit parts. Anyone who ever claims that David Bowie cannot act should be forced to watch this and then to eat their words because he is quite frankly superb in the part of Thomas Newton. He conveys more 'other-worldliness' in a simple gesture than most actors achieve with the full Stan Winston latex treatment. Despite this being an SF film (with no major SFX, just intelligent scripting) it could just as easily be about anyone out of their environment and feeling alone and paranoid. They quite literally don't make em like this anymore. Instead we get MIB:2. Help!
Amazon.co.uk Review
While other films directed by Nicolas Roeg have attained similar cult status (including Walkabout and Don't Look Now), none has been as hotly debated as this languid but oddly fascinating adaptation of the science fiction novel by Walter Tevis. In The Man Who Fell to Earth, David Bowie plays the alien of the title, who arrives on Earth with hopes of finding a way to save his own planet from turning into an arid wasteland. He funds this effort by capitalising on several highly lucrative inventions, and in so doing becomes the powerful leader of an international corporate conglomerate. But his success has negative consequences as well--his contact with Earth has a disintegrating effect that sends him into a tailspin of disorientation and metaphysical despair. The sexual attention of a cheerful young woman (Candy Clark) doesn't do much to change his outlook, and his introduction to liquor proves even more devastating, until, finally, it looks as though his visit to Earth may be a permanent one. The Man Who Fell to Earth is definitely not for every taste--it's a highly contemplative, primarily visual experience that Roeg directs as an abstract treatise on (among other things) the alienating effects of an over-commercialised society. Stimulating and hypnotic or frightfully dull, depending on your receptivity to its loosely knit ideas, it's at least in part about not belonging, about being disconnected from the world--about being a stranger in a strange land when there's really no place like home. --Jeff Shannon.
Customer Reviews:
Serious Sci-Fi!.......2006-05-26
Fact is stranger than fiction, so when it comes to sci-fi the best films are those which are more "down to earth".
The Man Who Fell to Earth is, in my opinion, one of the best sci-fi films I have ever seen. Forget all those who describe the plot as being complicated or confused - this is really easy to understand. It is simply the way Roeg mixes flashbacks and unexpected, out of the blue snippets. Don't try to decipher this film as there are no underlying "messages" to find.
This film is basically about an alien who comes to Earth to swap his advanced technological knowledge for water. His family are dying on his home planet so he doesn't have much time. Disguised as a human for his own protection, the alien pawns gold jewellery (we guess that gold might be as common as muck on his home planet) to fund the hire of a top lawyer to take on the patenting of his designs. This all takes time, of course, and time seems to take its toll on the alien as he soon discovers that he cannot avoid small temptations such as women and alcohol, even though he locks himself away from everyday life. We soon learn that the alien can watch multiple TV screens at the same time, that he can look into the past and that people from the past can see him. His life on Earth slowly pushes him to the verge of insanity, which seems to have an equal effect on his "girlfriend" as she goes insane with him.
What happens when an alien visits Earth? Watch this film!
An allegory.......2005-01-08
This is a powerful film, with striking images that stick with one forever.
It is an allegory of alcoholism. Those who succumb to it in the film 'fall to earth' - they can no longer achieve anything of value. Very sad, considering Roeg's own professional decline.
Roeg himself might not leave a huge catalogue of great films. But this is special. And, like all boys of that era, I thank him for leaving the image of Jenny Agutter swimming in that waterhole in Walkabout. (And she did that before The Railway Children!)
I hope you feel the same way too.
Roeg's Double Bluff is a Win! Win!.......2003-06-25
It was a teasing double bluff by Nicholas Roeg, the British film director, to cast David Bowie in the title role of his mind-bending masterpiece "The Man Who Fell To Earth".
Having created his androgynous Ziggy Stardust persona during the early 1970's, Bowie on the face of it was a perfect choice for the part. But, was there a danger that Bowie had stamped on us a too indelible image of himself as Glam Rock fashion icon? Would we, the cinema-visiting public, be able to accept him and see him properly in the different guise of Mr Newton the self-contained, bespectacled, business-suited alien visitor from space?
Roeg had gambled and won a few years earlier, when he put the pop star Mick Jagger into the co-lead role of "Performance" (1970). Jagger was convincing in his then unaccustomed role of a movie actor - and like Bowie he portrayed an ambiguous and confused character. "Performance" was the film that put Roeg on the map. It was followed by "Walkabout" (1971), "Don't Look Now" (1973) and then "The Man Who Fell To Earth" (1976). All of these startling and vividly colourful films have become legends of post-war British cinema. The films share the same ingredients and qualities: they are breathtaking, disjointed, distracting, disturbing, hallucinating, haunting, provocative, refractive and spellbinding.
Bowie has no cutlass, parrot or pigtails, but as he wanders through Middle America he is the epicene, emaciated, marmalade-haired space-pirate. What is the purpose of his mission on Earth? His laconic mumbling betrays few secrets, but occasional clues are provided. We learn that his own planet will soon be doomed, because of drought. He states that he is interested in energy. But the plot is largely baffling, and hard to follow. (One critic has called all of Roeg's plots "infuriating").
In all four of his above-mentioned films, and particularly in "The Man Who Fell To Earth", Roeg juxtaposes time and place. Within the numerous, often bewildering flashbacks and flashforwards in time, we see dreamy glimpses of Bowie, his wife and two children shrouded in a chrysalis-like gauze, hugging and walking on their arid and flat planet. The soundtrack hisses silently, like gas escaping from the twin-canisters that are strapped to their backs. These little interludes exemplify a Roeg trademark: the discordant chapters and scenes in his films are paradoxically interspersed with serene, picturesque moments where Roeg allows the camera to linger on a visually-stunning image (tall buildings, lakes, landscapes, mountains, wildlife, sky).
My instinct tells me that a painstaking study and understanding of the plot-puzzle wouldn't be an essential task, to secure enjoyment of "The Man Who Fell To Earth". Better perhaps to allow the vivid images and impressions to sear into my brain, and to overlook the obscure, rambling and apparently inconsequential sequences of action and dialogue that elongate this strange, uneven film. Better too, I suggest, to enjoy the performances of the two main characters. It's an open question: does Candy Clark, the hotel maid and eventual consort of Mr Newton, steal the show from Bowie with her compelling portrayal of the booze-addicted, simple-minded Southern gal, Mary Lou? I suspect that she does.
The first time that I saw this film, I was entranced from the opening minute. But the first sequence that really blew my mind was Bowie stacking the multiple television sets in his hotel room, all tuned to different channels. In fact, there are two such sequences in the film. Another electrifying moment is when Clark jumps out of her skin, and so do we, when Bowie appears to unpeel his eye, in front of the bathroom mirror, and he then transmogrifies into his true, hitherto hidden body. But my candidate for perhaps the most arresting sequence of all in the film is Bowie and Clark's sex-romp to the blaring soundtrack remix of Ricky Nelson's "Hello Mary Lou". A shooting pistol and a banana serve as sex-symbols here, but the real shock-effect of this episode is its stark and saddening revelation that Bowie and Clark are going to end the story as hopeless alcoholics and losers. She has become a bloated, befuddled lush: and he has become a fading, failing Icarus.
This explosive sequence is immediately followed by a bizarre one in which Bowie and Clark, dressed in whites, calmly play table tennis in a room that seems to be a forest. This surreal scene seems to belong more in a Ken Russell movie: Roeg and Russell of course were contemporary enfant terribles of British cinema in the 'seventies. Their controversial, barrier-breaking movies were feted with praise or condemned from the pulpits. Russell, too, raided the pop world: Roger Daltrey played the lead in two of his films.
When Ziggy Stardust, glittering costume, orange-streaked hair, was at his zenith, I had to credit my wife Nancy for some gentle debunking of the Bowie myth. Nancy imagined him backstage, the audience's adulation ringing in his ears after another spectacular god-like performance. "Oh gawd, Angie, help me off with these bloody Space Boots, they don't half pinch my feet. I could die for a cup of tea, luv". Curiously, there are moments in "The Man Who Fell To Earth" when Mr Newton relaxes with Mary Lou, puts his feet up, lets down his inscrutable mask and becomes an ordinary bloke for a moment or two. It's yet another tantalising facet of this extraordinary, nervous, unforgettable movie.
A TRIUMPH FOR DAVID BOWIE..........2002-11-11
I first saw this film when it was released in the mid nineteen seventies. I recalled how much I had enjoyed it, when I saw that it was available in DVD. I wasted no time in adding it to my personal collection.
The film itself, though somewhat abstract, is terrific, as it is not just a science fiction film with a twist. It is a film that explores themes that are timeless: desolation, alienation (no pun intended), and loneliness. At times, these themes are palpable, due to David Bowie's wondrously androgynous performance which is heartbreakingly moving at times.
The plot is fairly simple. An alien, Davie Bowie, leaves his family on his dying and arid planet in search for water. He lands on earth and begins his project to send water to his devasted planet by amassing the wealth that he needs to do this. He patents numerous lucrative inventions which eventually find him at the head of a world wide conglomerate. He joins up with a kindly, though stupid and vapid woman who drinks gin like a fish, Candy Clark, with whom he begins a liaison of sorts. Yet, he is always lonely and melancholic, and like her, begins to spiral into an alcoholic haze, sometimes sidetracking him from his purpose here.
At some point, excruciatingly sad and lonely, longing for his family, he reveals himself to her for who he truly is, shedding his earthly appearance, only to be met with absolute horror and repugnance by her at the sight of him. She ultimately tries to understand him, but it is truly beyond her ken. He is infinitely sad at this and longs all the more for home.
On the threshhold of returning to his planet and loved ones, he is kidnapped by corporate raiders who take over his holdings, and it is here that the movie begins to disintergrate somewhat. Yet, it remains strangely hypnotic and compelling, and becomes a sort of "Lost Weekend" of betrayal, booze, and promises which will never be kept. A parable of wanting to belong, yet knowing that you truly never will. A story about wanting to go home, but knowing on some level that you truly can never go home again.
Loving the Alien..........2002-08-03
I've been a long term appreciator of this film since it was regularly shown late at night on BBC2 in the 70's and 80's. Seeing it on DVD at its full aspect ratio is a revelation though, the composition of the images is wonderful and I kind of missed that on a 4:3 TV all those years ago. This is a quality movie with excellent performances from all the actors, even the bit parts. Anyone who ever claims that David Bowie cannot act should be forced to watch this and then to eat their words because he is quite frankly superb in the part of Thomas Newton. He conveys more 'other-worldliness' in a simple gesture than most actors achieve with the full Stan Winston latex treatment. Despite this being an SF film (with no major SFX, just intelligent scripting) it could just as easily be about anyone out of their environment and feeling alone and paranoid. They quite literally don't make em like this anymore. Instead we get MIB:2. Help!
Amazon.co.uk Review
While other films directed by Nicolas Roeg have attained similar cult status (including Walkabout and Don't Look Now), none has been as hotly debated as this languid but oddly fascinating adaptation of the science fiction novel by Walter Tevis. In The Man Who Fell to Earth, David Bowie plays the alien of the title, who arrives on Earth with hopes of finding a way to save his own planet from turning into an arid wasteland. He funds this effort by capitalising on several highly lucrative inventions, and in so doing becomes the powerful leader of an international corporate conglomerate. But his success has negative consequences as well--his contact with Earth has a disintegrating effect that sends him into a tailspin of disorientation and metaphysical despair. The sexual attention of a cheerful young woman (Candy Clark) doesn't do much to change his outlook, and his introduction to liquor proves even more devastating, until, finally, it looks as though his visit to Earth may be a permanent one. The Man Who Fell to Earth is definitely not for every taste--it's a highly contemplative, primarily visual experience that Roeg directs as an abstract treatise on (among other things) the alienating effects of an over-commercialised society. Stimulating and hypnotic or frightfully dull, depending on your receptivity to its loosely knit ideas, it's at least in part about not belonging, about being disconnected from the world--about being a stranger in a strange land when there's really no place like home. --Jeff Shannon.
Customer Reviews:
Serious Sci-Fi!.......2006-05-26
Fact is stranger than fiction, so when it comes to sci-fi the best films are those which are more "down to earth".
The Man Who Fell to Earth is, in my opinion, one of the best sci-fi films I have ever seen. Forget all those who describe the plot as being complicated or confused - this is really easy to understand. It is simply the way Roeg mixes flashbacks and unexpected, out of the blue snippets. Don't try to decipher this film as there are no underlying "messages" to find.
This film is basically about an alien who comes to Earth to swap his advanced technological knowledge for water. His family are dying on his home planet so he doesn't have much time. Disguised as a human for his own protection, the alien pawns gold jewellery (we guess that gold might be as common as muck on his home planet) to fund the hire of a top lawyer to take on the patenting of his designs. This all takes time, of course, and time seems to take its toll on the alien as he soon discovers that he cannot avoid small temptations such as women and alcohol, even though he locks himself away from everyday life. We soon learn that the alien can watch multiple TV screens at the same time, that he can look into the past and that people from the past can see him. His life on Earth slowly pushes him to the verge of insanity, which seems to have an equal effect on his "girlfriend" as she goes insane with him.
What happens when an alien visits Earth? Watch this film!
An allegory.......2005-01-08
This is a powerful film, with striking images that stick with one forever.
It is an allegory of alcoholism. Those who succumb to it in the film 'fall to earth' - they can no longer achieve anything of value. Very sad, considering Roeg's own professional decline.
Roeg himself might not leave a huge catalogue of great films. But this is special. And, like all boys of that era, I thank him for leaving the image of Jenny Agutter swimming in that waterhole in Walkabout. (And she did that before The Railway Children!)
I hope you feel the same way too.
Roeg's Double Bluff is a Win! Win!.......2003-06-25
It was a teasing double bluff by Nicholas Roeg, the British film director, to cast David Bowie in the title role of his mind-bending masterpiece "The Man Who Fell To Earth".
Having created his androgynous Ziggy Stardust persona during the early 1970's, Bowie on the face of it was a perfect choice for the part. But, was there a danger that Bowie had stamped on us a too indelible image of himself as Glam Rock fashion icon? Would we, the cinema-visiting public, be able to accept him and see him properly in the different guise of Mr Newton the self-contained, bespectacled, business-suited alien visitor from space?
Roeg had gambled and won a few years earlier, when he put the pop star Mick Jagger into the co-lead role of "Performance" (1970). Jagger was convincing in his then unaccustomed role of a movie actor - and like Bowie he portrayed an ambiguous and confused character. "Performance" was the film that put Roeg on the map. It was followed by "Walkabout" (1971), "Don't Look Now" (1973) and then "The Man Who Fell To Earth" (1976). All of these startling and vividly colourful films have become legends of post-war British cinema. The films share the same ingredients and qualities: they are breathtaking, disjointed, distracting, disturbing, hallucinating, haunting, provocative, refractive and spellbinding.
Bowie has no cutlass, parrot or pigtails, but as he wanders through Middle America he is the epicene, emaciated, marmalade-haired space-pirate. What is the purpose of his mission on Earth? His laconic mumbling betrays few secrets, but occasional clues are provided. We learn that his own planet will soon be doomed, because of drought. He states that he is interested in energy. But the plot is largely baffling, and hard to follow. (One critic has called all of Roeg's plots "infuriating").
In all four of his above-mentioned films, and particularly in "The Man Who Fell To Earth", Roeg juxtaposes time and place. Within the numerous, often bewildering flashbacks and flashforwards in time, we see dreamy glimpses of Bowie, his wife and two children shrouded in a chrysalis-like gauze, hugging and walking on their arid and flat planet. The soundtrack hisses silently, like gas escaping from the twin-canisters that are strapped to their backs. These little interludes exemplify a Roeg trademark: the discordant chapters and scenes in his films are paradoxically interspersed with serene, picturesque moments where Roeg allows the camera to linger on a visually-stunning image (tall buildings, lakes, landscapes, mountains, wildlife, sky).
My instinct tells me that a painstaking study and understanding of the plot-puzzle wouldn't be an essential task, to secure enjoyment of "The Man Who Fell To Earth". Better perhaps to allow the vivid images and impressions to sear into my brain, and to overlook the obscure, rambling and apparently inconsequential sequences of action and dialogue that elongate this strange, uneven film. Better too, I suggest, to enjoy the performances of the two main characters. It's an open question: does Candy Clark, the hotel maid and eventual consort of Mr Newton, steal the show from Bowie with her compelling portrayal of the booze-addicted, simple-minded Southern gal, Mary Lou? I suspect that she does.
The first time that I saw this film, I was entranced from the opening minute. But the first sequence that really blew my mind was Bowie stacking the multiple television sets in his hotel room, all tuned to different channels. In fact, there are two such sequences in the film. Another electrifying moment is when Clark jumps out of her skin, and so do we, when Bowie appears to unpeel his eye, in front of the bathroom mirror, and he then transmogrifies into his true, hitherto hidden body. But my candidate for perhaps the most arresting sequence of all in the film is Bowie and Clark's sex-romp to the blaring soundtrack remix of Ricky Nelson's "Hello Mary Lou". A shooting pistol and a banana serve as sex-symbols here, but the real shock-effect of this episode is its stark and saddening revelation that Bowie and Clark are going to end the story as hopeless alcoholics and losers. She has become a bloated, befuddled lush: and he has become a fading, failing Icarus.
This explosive sequence is immediately followed by a bizarre one in which Bowie and Clark, dressed in whites, calmly play table tennis in a room that seems to be a forest. This surreal scene seems to belong more in a Ken Russell movie: Roeg and Russell of course were contemporary enfant terribles of British cinema in the 'seventies. Their controversial, barrier-breaking movies were feted with praise or condemned from the pulpits. Russell, too, raided the pop world: Roger Daltrey played the lead in two of his films.
When Ziggy Stardust, glittering costume, orange-streaked hair, was at his zenith, I had to credit my wife Nancy for some gentle debunking of the Bowie myth. Nancy imagined him backstage, the audience's adulation ringing in his ears after another spectacular god-like performance. "Oh gawd, Angie, help me off with these bloody Space Boots, they don't half pinch my feet. I could die for a cup of tea, luv". Curiously, there are moments in "The Man Who Fell To Earth" when Mr Newton relaxes with Mary Lou, puts his feet up, lets down his inscrutable mask and becomes an ordinary bloke for a moment or two. It's yet another tantalising facet of this extraordinary, nervous, unforgettable movie.
A TRIUMPH FOR DAVID BOWIE..........2002-11-11
I first saw this film when it was released in the mid nineteen seventies. I recalled how much I had enjoyed it, when I saw that it was available in DVD. I wasted no time in adding it to my personal collection.
The film itself, though somewhat abstract, is terrific, as it is not just a science fiction film with a twist. It is a film that explores themes that are timeless: desolation, alienation (no pun intended), and loneliness. At times, these themes are palpable, due to David Bowie's wondrously androgynous performance which is heartbreakingly moving at times.
The plot is fairly simple. An alien, Davie Bowie, leaves his family on his dying and arid planet in search for water. He lands on earth and begins his project to send water to his devasted planet by amassing the wealth that he needs to do this. He patents numerous lucrative inventions which eventually find him at the head of a world wide conglomerate. He joins up with a kindly, though stupid and vapid woman who drinks gin like a fish, Candy Clark, with whom he begins a liaison of sorts. Yet, he is always lonely and melancholic, and like her, begins to spiral into an alcoholic haze, sometimes sidetracking him from his purpose here.
At some point, excruciatingly sad and lonely, longing for his family, he reveals himself to her for who he truly is, shedding his earthly appearance, only to be met with absolute horror and repugnance by her at the sight of him. She ultimately tries to understand him, but it is truly beyond her ken. He is infinitely sad at this and longs all the more for home.
On the threshhold of returning to his planet and loved ones, he is kidnapped by corporate raiders who take over his holdings, and it is here that the movie begins to disintergrate somewhat. Yet, it remains strangely hypnotic and compelling, and becomes a sort of "Lost Weekend" of betrayal, booze, and promises which will never be kept. A parable of wanting to belong, yet knowing that you truly never will. A story about wanting to go home, but knowing on some level that you truly can never go home again.
Loving the Alien..........2002-08-03
I've been a long term appreciator of this film since it was regularly shown late at night on BBC2 in the 70's and 80's. Seeing it on DVD at its full aspect ratio is a revelation though, the composition of the images is wonderful and I kind of missed that on a 4:3 TV all those years ago. This is a quality movie with excellent performances from all the actors, even the bit parts. Anyone who ever claims that David Bowie cannot act should be forced to watch this and then to eat their words because he is quite frankly superb in the part of Thomas Newton. He conveys more 'other-worldliness' in a simple gesture than most actors achieve with the full Stan Winston latex treatment. Despite this being an SF film (with no major SFX, just intelligent scripting) it could just as easily be about anyone out of their environment and feeling alone and paranoid. They quite literally don't make em like this anymore. Instead we get MIB:2. Help!
Amazon.co.uk Review
While other films directed by Nicolas Roeg have attained similar cult status (including Walkabout and Don't Look Now), none has been as hotly debated as this languid but oddly fascinating adaptation of the science fiction novel by Walter Tevis. In The Man Who Fell to Earth, David Bowie plays the alien of the title, who arrives on Earth with hopes of finding a way to save his own planet from turning into an arid wasteland. He funds this effort by capitalising on several highly lucrative inventions, and in so doing becomes the powerful leader of an international corporate conglomerate. But his success has negative consequences as well--his contact with Earth has a disintegrating effect that sends him into a tailspin of disorientation and metaphysical despair. The sexual attention of a cheerful young woman (Candy Clark) doesn't do much to change his outlook, and his introduction to liquor proves even more devastating, until, finally, it looks as though his visit to Earth may be a permanent one. The Man Who Fell to Earth is definitely not for every taste--it's a highly contemplative, primarily visual experience that Roeg directs as an abstract treatise on (among other things) the alienating effects of an over-commercialised society. Stimulating and hypnotic or frightfully dull, depending on your receptivity to its loosely knit ideas, it's at least in part about not belonging, about being disconnected from the world--about being a stranger in a strange land when there's really no place like home. --Jeff Shannon.
Customer Reviews:
Serious Sci-Fi!.......2006-05-26
Fact is stranger than fiction, so when it comes to sci-fi the best films are those which are more "down to earth".
The Man Who Fell to Earth is, in my opinion, one of the best sci-fi films I have ever seen. Forget all those who describe the plot as being complicated or confused - this is really easy to understand. It is simply the way Roeg mixes flashbacks and unexpected, out of the blue snippets. Don't try to decipher this film as there are no underlying "messages" to find.
This film is basically about an alien who comes to Earth to swap his advanced technological knowledge for water. His family are dying on his home planet so he doesn't have much time. Disguised as a human for his own protection, the alien pawns gold jewellery (we guess that gold might be as common as muck on his home planet) to fund the hire of a top lawyer to take on the patenting of his designs. This all takes time, of course, and time seems to take its toll on the alien as he soon discovers that he cannot avoid small temptations such as women and alcohol, even though he locks himself away from everyday life. We soon learn that the alien can watch multiple TV screens at the same time, that he can look into the past and that people from the past can see him. His life on Earth slowly pushes him to the verge of insanity, which seems to have an equal effect on his "girlfriend" as she goes insane with him.
What happens when an alien visits Earth? Watch this film!
An allegory.......2005-01-08
This is a powerful film, with striking images that stick with one forever.
It is an allegory of alcoholism. Those who succumb to it in the film 'fall to earth' - they can no longer achieve anything of value. Very sad, considering Roeg's own professional decline.
Roeg himself might not leave a huge catalogue of great films. But this is special. And, like all boys of that era, I thank him for leaving the image of Jenny Agutter swimming in that waterhole in Walkabout. (And she did that before The Railway Children!)
I hope you feel the same way too.
Roeg's Double Bluff is a Win! Win!.......2003-06-25
It was a teasing double bluff by Nicholas Roeg, the British film director, to cast David Bowie in the title role of his mind-bending masterpiece "The Man Who Fell To Earth".
Having created his androgynous Ziggy Stardust persona during the early 1970's, Bowie on the face of it was a perfect choice for the part. But, was there a danger that Bowie had stamped on us a too indelible image of himself as Glam Rock fashion icon? Would we, the cinema-visiting public, be able to accept him and see him properly in the different guise of Mr Newton the self-contained, bespectacled, business-suited alien visitor from space?
Roeg had gambled and won a few years earlier, when he put the pop star Mick Jagger into the co-lead role of "Performance" (1970). Jagger was convincing in his then unaccustomed role of a movie actor - and like Bowie he portrayed an ambiguous and confused character. "Performance" was the film that put Roeg on the map. It was followed by "Walkabout" (1971), "Don't Look Now" (1973) and then "The Man Who Fell To Earth" (1976). All of these startling and vividly colourful films have become legends of post-war British cinema. The films share the same ingredients and qualities: they are breathtaking, disjointed, distracting, disturbing, hallucinating, haunting, provocative, refractive and spellbinding.
Bowie has no cutlass, parrot or pigtails, but as he wanders through Middle America he is the epicene, emaciated, marmalade-haired space-pirate. What is the purpose of his mission on Earth? His laconic mumbling betrays few secrets, but occasional clues are provided. We learn that his own planet will soon be doomed, because of drought. He states that he is interested in energy. But the plot is largely baffling, and hard to follow. (One critic has called all of Roeg's plots "infuriating").
In all four of his above-mentioned films, and particularly in "The Man Who Fell To Earth", Roeg juxtaposes time and place. Within the numerous, often bewildering flashbacks and flashforwards in time, we see dreamy glimpses of Bowie, his wife and two children shrouded in a chrysalis-like gauze, hugging and walking on their arid and flat planet. The soundtrack hisses silently, like gas escaping from the twin-canisters that are strapped to their backs. These little interludes exemplify a Roeg trademark: the discordant chapters and scenes in his films are paradoxically interspersed with serene, picturesque moments where Roeg allows the camera to linger on a visually-stunning image (tall buildings, lakes, landscapes, mountains, wildlife, sky).
My instinct tells me that a painstaking study and understanding of the plot-puzzle wouldn't be an essential task, to secure enjoyment of "The Man Who Fell To Earth". Better perhaps to allow the vivid images and impressions to sear into my brain, and to overlook the obscure, rambling and apparently inconsequential sequences of action and dialogue that elongate this strange, uneven film. Better too, I suggest, to enjoy the performances of the two main characters. It's an open question: does Candy Clark, the hotel maid and eventual consort of Mr Newton, steal the show from Bowie with her compelling portrayal of the booze-addicted, simple-minded Southern gal, Mary Lou? I suspect that she does.
The first time that I saw this film, I was entranced from the opening minute. But the first sequence that really blew my mind was Bowie stacking the multiple television sets in his hotel room, all tuned to different channels. In fact, there are two such sequences in the film. Another electrifying moment is when Clark jumps out of her skin, and so do we, when Bowie appears to unpeel his eye, in front of the bathroom mirror, and he then transmogrifies into his true, hitherto hidden body. But my candidate for perhaps the most arresting sequence of all in the film is Bowie and Clark's sex-romp to the blaring soundtrack remix of Ricky Nelson's "Hello Mary Lou". A shooting pistol and a banana serve as sex-symbols here, but the real shock-effect of this episode is its stark and saddening revelation that Bowie and Clark are going to end the story as hopeless alcoholics and losers. She has become a bloated, befuddled lush: and he has become a fading, failing Icarus.
This explosive sequence is immediately followed by a bizarre one in which Bowie and Clark, dressed in whites, calmly play table tennis in a room that seems to be a forest. This surreal scene seems to belong more in a Ken Russell movie: Roeg and Russell of course were contemporary enfant terribles of British cinema in the 'seventies. Their controversial, barrier-breaking movies were feted with praise or condemned from the pulpits. Russell, too, raided the pop world: Roger Daltrey played the lead in two of his films.
When Ziggy Stardust, glittering costume, orange-streaked hair, was at his zenith, I had to credit my wife Nancy for some gentle debunking of the Bowie myth. Nancy imagined him backstage, the audience's adulation ringing in his ears after another spectacular god-like performance. "Oh gawd, Angie, help me off with these bloody Space Boots, they don't half pinch my feet. I could die for a cup of tea, luv". Curiously, there are moments in "The Man Who Fell To Earth" when Mr Newton relaxes with Mary Lou, puts his feet up, lets down his inscrutable mask and becomes an ordinary bloke for a moment or two. It's yet another tantalising facet of this extraordinary, nervous, unforgettable movie.
A TRIUMPH FOR DAVID BOWIE..........2002-11-11
I first saw this film when it was released in the mid nineteen seventies. I recalled how much I had enjoyed it, when I saw that it was available in DVD. I wasted no time in adding it to my personal collection.
The film itself, though somewhat abstract, is terrific, as it is not just a science fiction film with a twist. It is a film that explores themes that are timeless: desolation, alienation (no pun intended), and loneliness. At times, these themes are palpable, due to David Bowie's wondrously androgynous performance which is heartbreakingly moving at times.
The plot is fairly simple. An alien, Davie Bowie, leaves his family on his dying and arid planet in search for water. He lands on earth and begins his project to send water to his devasted planet by amassing the wealth that he needs to do this. He patents numerous lucrative inventions which eventually find him at the head of a world wide conglomerate. He joins up with a kindly, though stupid and vapid woman who drinks gin like a fish, Candy Clark, with whom he begins a liaison of sorts. Yet, he is always lonely and melancholic, and like her, begins to spiral into an alcoholic haze, sometimes sidetracking him from his purpose here.
At some point, excruciatingly sad and lonely, longing for his family, he reveals himself to her for who he truly is, shedding his earthly appearance, only to be met with absolute horror and repugnance by her at the sight of him. She ultimately tries to understand him, but it is truly beyond her ken. He is infinitely sad at this and longs all the more for home.
On the threshhold of returning to his planet and loved ones, he is kidnapped by corporate raiders who take over his holdings, and it is here that the movie begins to disintergrate somewhat. Yet, it remains strangely hypnotic and compelling, and becomes a sort of "Lost Weekend" of betrayal, booze, and promises which will never be kept. A parable of wanting to belong, yet knowing that you truly never will. A story about wanting to go home, but knowing on some level that you truly can never go home again.
Loving the Alien..........2002-08-03
I've been a long term appreciator of this film since it was regularly shown late at night on BBC2 in the 70's and 80's. Seeing it on DVD at its full aspect ratio is a revelation though, the composition of the images is wonderful and I kind of missed that on a 4:3 TV all those years ago. This is a quality movie with excellent performances from all the actors, even the bit parts. Anyone who ever claims that David Bowie cannot act should be forced to watch this and then to eat their words because he is quite frankly superb in the part of Thomas Newton. He conveys more 'other-worldliness' in a simple gesture than most actors achieve with the full Stan Winston latex treatment. Despite this being an SF film (with no major SFX, just intelligent scripting) it could just as easily be about anyone out of their environment and feeling alone and paranoid. They quite literally don't make em like this anymore. Instead we get MIB:2. Help!
DVD Review:
- The Outer Limits - Sex And Science Fiction Collection
- The Outer Limits - The Original Series - Vol. 1
- The Outer Limits - The Original Series - Vol. 2
- The Tenth Kingdom - The Entire Series [1999] (NTSC)
- The Thirteenth Floor [1999]
- The Tribe - Season 2
- The Tribe - Season 3
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Young Americans: +DVD
![The Man Who Fell To Earth (2 Disc Special Edition) [1976]](http://www.bill88.com/buy.gif)
![The Man Who Fell To Earth [1976]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21toiP7ZuVL.jpg)
![Track 29 [1987]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000MZGWCS.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence [1983]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00022VMJE.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![Dog Day Afternoon [1975]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00004CX8B.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![The Man Who Fell To Earth [1976]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21NZKTYRKBL.jpg)
![The Pornographers - Criterion Collection [1966] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00009MEA0.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![Bad Timing [1980] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00005JMVQ.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![Le Trou [1960] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00005NFZA.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![Eyes Without a Face [1960] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0002V7O0Q.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![L' Army of Shadows [1978] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000NOK0HG.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![The Man Who Fell to Earth [1976] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/2147RZNNWWL.jpg)
![The Man Who Fell to Earth [1976] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31y4N2fj3tL.jpg)
![The Man Who Fell to Earth [1976] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://www.germanelectronics88.com/noimage.gif)
![The Man Who Fell to Earth [1976]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21WZ14SHS3L.jpg)
![Cult Fiction: The Man Who Fell to Earth [1976] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/314KW%2BWKjwL.jpg)