The Man Who Fell to Earth gains its vision by losing sight of the stars.
It is subtle, ethereal and a wholly human story.
Indeed, David Bowies Thomas Jerome Newton is the most human character in the film.
If not more human, certainly one with more humanity.
This is an environmentally conscious film with an avaricious heart.
You get thirsty watching the movie and you dont know why.
In the beginning of the film, Tommy savors his first sips of water from a stream.
By the end hes replaced it with gin and, even worse, ice cubes.
Star Wars, the space opera set in a galaxy far away, wouldnt land for another year.
Newton wasnt a threatening invader from Mars.
Bridges baseball-capped alien takes home the idea that humans are at their best when things are at their worst.
Tommy learns that when people are at their worst, you’re able to never go home again.
Deeley and Spikings were not afraid to put their money into harsh cinema or risk blowback.
Roeg elicits very naturalistic acting.
Some scenes play out like a documentary, others aquatic aerial ballet.
The scientists who probe the wealthy spaceman dont only shut down Newtons vision.
They solder his contact lenses to his eyes so that he can never prove his life beyond the clouds.
further reading: Exploring David Bowies Sci-Fi Fascination
The more Newton sees of the world the less he sees.
His perception is limited long before the X-rays do their damage.
Its not that hes jaded.
He bravely walks past his first impressions.
The first person to get a good look at the otherworldly traveler has extreme astigmatism.
But the attorneys old man was no sage and he is adrift in uncharted territory.
Alcoholic Actors and Spaced-Out Spaceman
Buck Henry is funny.
He wrote classic comedy likeGet Smartand the stuff he got away with onSaturday Night Liveis still unbelievable.
Oliver V. Farnsworth is a tragic character, stuck behind those eight inches or so of frame.
Those arent regular bifocals.
His eyewear looks like its part magnifying glass and part telescope.
As funny as he is, when Farnsworth pleads dont take my eyes, I gasp.
They are a part of your face.
Sometimes you cant when youre not wearing them either.
It is everything you ever want in a Buck Henry performance in a microsecond of celluloid.
It so completely encapsulates everything we expect because its a part of all of us.
Even on the brink of death, Farnsworth never loses his curiosity.
He wants the intruders to take off their masks and show their faces.
At least let me see your face, he shrieks.
He wants to get to the bottom of the mystery.
He cant die with a known unknown on his intellects conscience.
The people around Newton never lose their quest for more information.
No one needs more data than a disillusioned scientist.
Hes not playing a lecherous old man.
Hes playing to lecherous little college girls.
He wasnt afraid to get labeled Judas inKing of Kings.
Bryce is a perfect part for Torn.
Even the bug crawling on the papers on his desk arouses his grey matter.
But he learns that not every problem needs a solution.
Although he is relieved that hes not working on a weapon, Bryce isnt fooled for a moment.
He knows Newton is Lithuanian and an explorer.
Life is exploration inThe Man Who Fell to Earth.
Even Tommys sexual approach is exploration.
He discovers Mary-Lou during sex.
His fingers go where no man has gone before when they caress her face.
This is no mere carnal hunger, this is a thirst for spiritual juice as much as any liquid.
Candy Clarks Mary-Lou is so fluid in her almost liquid diet.
Shes there and shes not there.
Newton doesnt appear to be the best candidate for space travel.
He crash lands his vehicle.
His chauffer cant go over 20 miles per hour.
Newton gets motion sickness after two flights on a hand-operated elevator.
Bowie goes completely cardboard for this.
He probably used that Hermetic Golden Dawn shit to make himself lighter.
Loving the Alien
Mary-Lou sees Tommy as a freak but she doesnt mean that unkindly.
She is also the first to learn that he is the extraterrestrial with nothing extra.
Every stage of that decision crosses Clarks face before she tries to love the alien.
Not only her face, Mary-Lous entire body resonds.
She is so scared of what Tommy is that she wets herself and disassociates.
Mary-Lou forces herself to caress the nude spaceman until he leaks and when he does, its a flood.
His biology appears strange.
His anatomy responds differently.
Newtons organs get played externally and respond to touch in unexpected ways.
Newton is quite a squirter for a guy.
His whole body leaks during sex.
looks like alien sex is a fully immersive experience.
I looked it up and can find no reference.
Newton doesnt keep everything under his reptilian lids.
He admits from the very beginning that hes an overstay.
Overlapping frames and disjointed scenes make it appear there is more than to him than meets the eye.
Does he hear the voiceovers?
The editing makes it seem as he can hear it all, like the angels inWings of Desire.
But he doesnt get it all.
Get out of my mind, he yells at the TV screens.
His moods darken and lighten at the movements of characters far from view.
Yet, he cant see the dangers in front of him.
Director Roeg frames the scene in the shape of telescopic lens.
The spaceman isnt always kind.
Look at the malevolent grin he gives Mary-Lou when she tells him not to turn on the TVs.
It is a kindness.
Newton knows that Mary-Lou wouldnt be able to handle the truth and the look says if you only knew.
But some things arent that different out there in the southwestern sky.
The children on Newtons home planet are exactly like children.
It is a universal.
The alien came so far and is preparing to get back to where he once belonged.
He is a personification of alienation.
Tell my wife I love her very much, she knows, Major Tom sang in Bowies breakthrough hit.
The loneliness is palpable in the film.
Newton is light years from his home and even further distanced from the people around him.
Newton isnt secretive, just private, especially his privates.
He prefers to live in the semi-isolation of New Mexico over the dense masses of New York City.
There have always been visitors, Newton tells Bryce.
Earth is no different than any other planet.
World Industries becomes a power player in the financials.
World Enterprises even has its own corporate community where employees travel to meeting by speed boat.
How cool is that?
Thats rock star living on a scientists wage.
It is the military contractors who stop the launch.
Betrayals layer every relationship.
Oliver V. Farnsworth doesnt plead for his life.
People will know, he warns the executive enforcers.
But no one knows and no one tells.
Nothing is ever said about their relationship.
It is all done through the eyes and they probably should have gotten their own sex scene.
I dont quite understand why the thugs would also toss out the bar bells.
Maybe to prove the point that exercise is worthless in the long run, or fall.
Arthur (Tony Mascia) goes with the highest bidder and he is probably Newtons most expensive commodity.
The man was more than a chauffeur and a personal assistant.
He knows more about the alien than anyone else.
He has as much access as a fly on the wall and is the ultimate abductor.
To see him working for the competition Mr. Peters (Bernie Casey) is a shock.
The film has great humor, but is so damned sad.
The movie is about loneliness and thirst and Newton solves neither.
Yet, the alien completely understands.
He forgives his imprisoners by admitting that humans would probably have been treated no better on his own planet.
Time passes without remark.
Roeg lets the characters age lines fill in the chronology.
Except Bowie looks too much like himself in his golden years.
Roeg explores a little future tech with the available cutting-edge gadgets.
Newton wears self-darkening sunglasses before they hit the market.
As befitting alien machinery, it is globe-shaped.
The Visitor
David Bowieas Thomas Jerome Newton is no singer.
He cant even keep in tune.
Roeg also used music from Japanese composer Stomu Yamashta and songs from Louis Armstrong and The Kingston Trio.
Its like a new film.
Okay, so some of the restored scenes are a little off character.
Thats why they were taken out.
But Im glad to have them.
They offer counterweight to each other and cancel the problems out.
There is so much betrayal in the movie but it is much clearer with the restoration.
Lovell is no spaced out space man, though.
Satirist Terry Southern, who wrote screenplays forDr.
Strangelove,The Cincinnati Kid,Casino Royale,Barbarella,CandyandThe Magic Christian, plays a reporter.
BowiesYoung Americansalbum puts in an appearance next to the BeatlesAbbey Road.
Astronauts are basket cases.
Major Tom was a junkie.
Bowie had been preparing for this role since Space Oddity and before.
