The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
"And then he looked around him
again, at the big hotel room, the almost untouched tray of liquor, and back at
Newton, reclining in bed. 'My God,' he said. 'It's hard to believe. To sit in
this room and believe that I'm talking to a man from another planet.'
"'Yes,' Newton said, 'I've thought that myself. I'm talking to a man from
another planet too, you know.'"
-from Walter Tevis’ novel, “The Man Who Fell to Earth” (1963)
Part 1. Background and stye(s)
This film started as a novel of the same name by Walter
Tevis which was strikingly Autobiographical for a work of SF; Tevis fictionally
cast himself as an Outer Space Alien to explore his own feelings Isolation and
his own descent into Alcoholism, wrecking all the better ambitions he held
before his self-decent. Fiction granted Tevis the power to be a bit more Grandiose
than a more Realistic Narrative could’ve, and in many ways “The Man Who Fell to
Earth” was a Fantastical retelling of the film “Citizen Kane” (1941) wherein Writer/Director
Orson Welles and his co-Scripter Herman J. Mankiewicz told the Fictional Biography
of Publishing Giant Rudolf Randolf Hearst, pictured as Ambitious, Boisterous,
Idealistic, Man of Means who is slowly Corrupted by his Success; I’d even go as
far as to say, Welles was also Prophesying his own Future, but that would be
another essay.
The novel, Ambitious and Unusual, was part of SF’s New
Wave, a never well-defined phrase, but represented a shift away from the Hard
Sciences (Physics, Chemistry) to the Soft (Psychology, Anthropology), embracing
the Imagistic, Metaphorical, Metaphysical, and Transgressive subject matter. Still,
the storytelling was straightforward, harkening back to the 19th c. Realist
Authors more than the 20th c. Experimentalists (the most important
Author outside SF to influence the inside of SF will always be Charles Dickens,
not James Joyce). The novel was realized for the screen by Englishman Nicolas
Roeg, an Art-House Director steeped in French New Wave cinema (the prose and
cinema movements were not unrelated, but the expressions in cinema were bolder
than prose) who was then-enjoying surprising Mainstream success. He was working
from a script Written by Paul Mayersberg, who would collaborate with Roeg
repeatedly in future, and the film was everything and anything except
straightforward. Most famously, the film’s title Character was played by one of
the World’s Most Popular Rock Stars, David Bowie, becoming perversely, as Auto-and/or-Biographical
for Bowie as it was to Tevis, and maybe even Hearst and Welles.
Bowie, always Chameleon-like in his stage Persona,
always projecting an Ethereal and powerful Presence, and was immersed in SF
from the very beginning of his career, may have been the only person for the
role even though Actor Peter O’Toole and Crime and SF Author Michael Crichton had
been considered by Roeg and some in the studio wanted Actor Robert Redford.
Bowie even looked like the Character in the book, described as “improbably slight, his features
delicate, his fingers long, thin, and the skin almost translucent, hairless.
There was an elfin quality to his face, a fine boyish look to the wide,
intelligent eyes . . . [he had a] graceful woman’s hand
. . . strong, unmanlike, unsexual, natural.” Later, other Actors would play the Character, but
none came close to Bowie (I’ll get to that later).
The timeframe in which this film was made is significant,
because it’s at the tail-end the period of Bowie’s “Thin White Duke” Stage
Character, his replacement for “Ziggy Stardust” the Spaceman (1972-73) who’d
initially made Bowie Internationally Famous. I suspect that Bowie
initially intended the Duke as a parody of Fascism, but Bowie’s Mental and Physical
Health was deteriorating, and his Drug-Use “astronomical” (Bowie’s own words),
fueling Paranoia, Obsession with Occultism, specifically Satanism, Nazi
Iconography and sometimes Fascist Public Pronouncements; he appeared to have been
sucked into his own image. Speaking later of one of his albums of the time,
“David Live” (1974), Bowie said it should’ve been titled, "David Bowie Is
Alive and Well and Living Only in Theory." He was pasty and emaciated and later
admitted he couldn’t remember most of 1975, specifically not the recording
sessions for the album “Station to Station” (apparently mostly recorded before
his work on this film, though completed during the film’s post-production, and released
1976). He called these "the darkest days of my life” and in a
separate interview, "It was a dangerous period for me … I was at the end
of my tether physically and emotionally and had serious doubts about my sanity.”
Director Roeg and other members of the Cast & Crew
all had good things to say about working with Bowie, though some did call him “weird.”
No one observed him using drugs on the set, but Bowie contradicted that and
questioned the quality of his performance. The following is patched together
from three different interviews:
"I'm so pleased I made that [film], but I didn't really
know what was being made at all … My one snapshot memory of that film is not
having to act. Just being me was perfectly adequate for the role. I wasn't of
this earth at that particular time … I was going a lot on instinct, and my
instinct was pretty dissipated. I just learned the lines for that day and did
them the way I was feeling. It wasn't that far off. I actually was feeling as
alienated as that character was. It was a pretty natural performance ... a
good exhibition of somebody literally falling apart in front
of you. I was totally insecure with about 10 grams [of cocaine] a day in me. I
was stoned out of my mind from beginning to end ... “One half of me is putting
a concept forward and the other half is trying to sort out my own emotions … I
couldn’t decide whether I was writing characters or they were writing me.”
And that appears to have lined up with what Roeg wanted;
writing in his own Autobiography that Bowie, “wasn’t putting it on, it was who he was … For example,
Bowie has a marvellous laugh. It was just left of centre. It was like, ‘Isn’t
that how they laugh on earth?’” And in an interview, discussing a different film, and a different Actor, Roeg offered this illumination, “I hate rehearsals and would rather
keep it close to the moment. We don’t rehearse how we’re going to behave – I
can smell artificiality all the time.” To which Bowie himself, separately, added,
“I think one of the things that Nic identified with me is that I was definitely
living in two separate worlds at the same time. My state of mind was quite
fractured and fragmented but I didn’t really have much emotive force going for
me so it was quite easy for me not to relate too well with those around me.”
The album “Station to Station,” though made during this
mess, was very good, but not so much “David Live.” There was an accompanying
Documentary to “David Live,” titled “Cracked Actor” (released 1975) which
showed a Coked-Out Bowie drifting through L.A. in the back of a limousine, pale,
anorexic, orange hair and mismatching colored eyes, which inspired Director Roeg
to approach him for the part even though Bowie had never Acted for a film before
(though his stage shows were strongly Theatrical and he had trained as a Mime).
As this film being made, Bowie was entering tumultuous and transformative
period, many things happened so fast they seemed simultaneous. He admitted he reached
the "brink of drug-induced calamity one too many times" and saved from at least one potentially fatal OD by his personal assistant, started
taking primary responsibility for his son Zowie (later known as Duncan), left
his wife Angie (who despised the woman who saved her husband’s life and abandoned
Zowie) along with the decadence of the LA scene, dropped the Duke Persona, took
refuge in Berin, cleaned up, and created three of his best albums back-to-back.
Though there were scenes with quite good Alien Make-Up,
these were few and far between, and there was no need for more, Bowie carried
his Otherness on his sleeve. As much as Bowie is dismissive of his performance,
it still shines, not only the Otherness, the main selling point, but the Gentleness.
Later, Bowie would return to film only sporadically, but always compellingly,
but the Gentleness seen here is something he would never convey again. The
Alien was, initially, Innocent enough to almost reflect the Literary Troupe of
the Christ Figure, except that the story doesn’t deny that the Alien is
responsible for his own Corruption, and in the end, he’s Tragic figure, but not
Martyred. Critic Kim Newman observed, “‘The Man Who Fell to Earth,’ could
almost be a version of ‘E.T.’ [1982, now there’s a Christ Figure for you] where
instead of returning home, E.T. just gives up, becomes disillusioned and turns
into a wasted lush.” This is a tale of a Noble Alien being Corrupted by Humanity's
flaws, the Corruption makes him Human, so it has a pretty damned dim view of us.
Both Author Tevis and Director Roeg didn’t want Christ
associations, but to evoke Icarus, which is obvious in the title, and in the
film, a when Character receives an art book as a gift, the camera lingers on Pieter
Brughuel’s painting “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” (c.
1560), and W.H. Auden’s poem “Musée des Beaux Arts” (1938), which references
the painting.
The few scenes showing us life on the Alien’s Home Planet
are appropriately Alien-looking, but they are also in traditional SF
mannerisms, while the truly Surreal Images are reserved for Life on Earth;
Director Roeg tricks us into seeing the familiar through Alien eyes. It was
Roeg's first film shot in USA, and though the landscapes are various, he showed
a special love for the aridness of New Mexico, reminding us of his first major success,
“Walkabout” (1971), set in the Australian outback. There are beautiful Deserts,
shot in the Belen, a thinly populated town on the edge of the Desert, shot in Artesia
and Roswell, and the visions of the Alien’s Home Planet, shot White Sands,
which also, later in the film, was also a Spaceship Launch-Site. Roeg cut his
teeth as a Cinematographer and after moving into the Director’s chair, remained
focused on creating the most exquisite images of that era’s movies. Here he employed
Anthony Richmond as his Cinematographer, whom he’d already worked with on
“Don’t Look Now” (1973), likely Roeg’s career-best outing. Said Scriptwriter Mayersberg, “As a location, New Mexico was
heaven sent: there are more sightings of UFOs over its deserts than in the rest
of the world. It gave Nic a wonderful palette: you really got the feeling you
were on a planet floating in space. We shot near Alamogordo and White Sands,
near where they tested the atomic bomb. They still had no entry signs up.”
Roeg could speak the vocabulary of the French New Wave
better than anyone else in the English-speaking world. One can see the influence
of Directors like Jean-Luc Godard and Chris Marker. Roeg loved Crosscuts
between seemingly unconnected scenes and manipulation of the Soundtrack to disorientate,
like having music starting and stopping abruptly and blurring the line between Diegetic and non-Diegetic music. Related
to that, dialogue from one scene frequently plays out over
footage from another. Sometimes Roeg’s experiments yield stunning results, sometimes
it seems arbitrary, and the latter infuriated many. One of Thomas break-ups
with his human lover Mary-Lou (Candy Clark) was played out in front of a TV, it
parallels bit of dialogue from movie playing, “The Third Man” (1949), with the
dialogue on the TV being clearer to the ear than what the Characters are
saying.
Part 2. Plot and Characters
In this film, our Hero is on a Desperate Mission to
save his family and entire Species as his Planet is suffering from an Apocalyptic
Global Drought. Things go wrong from the very beginning, with his Spaceship crashing,
and knowing how difficult it would be to negotiate with Earthlings without one,
he hastily throws together an alternative plan. He disguises himself as a
Human, naming himself Thomas Jerome Newton, and decides to build his own
Industrial Empire. He maybe from Beyond-the-Stars, but he’s been watching us,
he understands how important Entrepreneurial Capitalism is in the USA. All of
this is clear in the novel, but this film chooses a narrative bare-bones style,
with virtually no Exposition even though it sometimes relied on Narration; for most
plot points the Audience is supposed to figure it out after the scene is over,
while we’re working our way through the next scene. Also, years pass between
abrupt cuts, and the narrative frequently jumps back-and-forth through time. And
that brings us to another thing Bowie brought to the film, he grounds the film
because we don’t have to do that much figuring out with him, at our first
glance of him as he walks across the desert, we know he’s the Alien.
Character Thomas wanders into a small town, sells what
appears to be a gold Wedding Ring, nicely symbolic of the family later learn he
left behind, but once he learns its cash value, it is revealed he carries
dozens of them, so it wasn’t really his Wedding Ring. He gets a big enough cash
roll to hire a Patent Attorney Oliver V. Farnsworth (Buck Henry) to see the Commercial Realization his advanced Alien Technology.
Reviewing the designs, Oliver is stunned, “You’ll be taking on RCA, Kodak and Xerox!”
One of Thomas’ big money makers is a kind of Polaroid
Instamatic Camera, which as a Human technology going back to 1948, and achieved
Commercial popularity four years before the film came out, so it’s just one of
several instances wherein the film tricks with our sense of Chronology. Another
example is the introduction of more solidly, then-Futuristic, Sound Crystals to
the Consumer Public (think Digital Music and Portable Media Players), but in
the set-up for the final, Heart-Rending, scene, a people are still buying vinyl
records.
As the Head of World Enterprises Corp, Thomas becomes Immensely
Rich and continuing with his plan by building a Spaceship. Some of the purposes
of Thomas’ plan are obscured, but ferrying water-or-ice back to his Home Planet
makes no sense; had the original plan been to present himself to Earth’s Richest
Industrial Nations to build a huge Spaceship to ferry survivors from there to
Earth would makes more sense and would be closer to the book. Thomas’ Privately
Financed Spaceship could never match the needs of Thomas’ Mission, so he was
playing a very long-game. Unfortunately, long-games almost inevitably get
interrupted.
As Thomas builds his Capitalistic Empire, he also Isolates
himself, mostly living in Hotel rooms and communicating with Oliver only by
telephone, much like the Real-World Howard Hughes, who was increasingly notorious
for his Eccentricities (read Mental Illness), Hermit-like Lifestyle, all becoming
well-known to the Media after 1966 (so after the book but before the movie).
Hughes’ Eccentricities were even parodied in the James Bond film, “Diamond are
Forever” (1971), which shares a couple plot-points with this film even though
they couldn’t be more different in every other possible way. Hughes’ hatred of Politician
Richard Nixon was reflected in the Novelist Tevis’ book, Tevis was Partisan and
pro-Kennedy and Nixon had been recently defeated by Kennedy in a Presidential
race. Nixon would eventually gain the Presidency in 1968, but this film went
into Production was just after Nixon’s resignation from that Office, so though
it did embrace the Era’s Paranoia of Surveillance and Corporate/Government Conspiracy,
is obscured the novel’s specific Ideological Gripes. Both the book and film
reflect the Failure of Hope, but the book expressed that at one point there was
a Better Path Not Taken, while the film is more Nihilistic.
Actors Bowie and Henry are two of the film’s four leads.
All four gave exceptional performances.
Thomas is lonely, and meets another Lost Soul, the
fore-mentioned Mary-Lou, a Hotel Maid who treated him compassionately when he
became sick because he’d not fully adjusted to Earth yet. She is as lonely as
he, far more simple, but initially cheerful. She becomes increasingly tormented
because her simple desires are unattainable through Thomas, she loves him more
than he loves her. It’s a pretty realistic picture of a co-Dependent
relationship, neither being good for the other, both refusing to break it off. Mary-Lou
ages faster than Thomas, as do all other Humans, but here Roeg again
deliberately confuses Chronology, because some Humans don’t seem to age, again suggesting
we’re not seeing the scenes in Chronological Order. Mary-Lou’s desperation and
despair is potent, we almost feel she threw away more than he, even though the
plot tells us the reverse is true. Mary-Lo also introduces Thomas to the two
addictions that will ruin him, Alcohol and TV. The image of the Stranger-in-a-Strange-Land,
Thomas, sitting before a wall of TVs, each tuned to a different channel, futilely
trying to absorb it all to understand of where his is, has become iconic and
much imitated.
Actress Clark’s performance is dead-on. The mid-70s was
the height of the Feminist Movement in the USA, but that era’s Hollywood displayed
a reactionary hostility towards female Characters: Traditional Female Roles
were treated dismissively, Feminists were almost invisible in the Theaters even
though they were Marching in the Streets, but, conversely, there was a push
more sophisticated Drama so, perversely, the 1970s became the Golden-Age of the
Bimbo. Filmmakers needed Actresses who could intelligently approach the Characters
of un-intelligent women, leading to the prominence of Thespians like Clark
(Oscar Nominated for her role in “American Graffiti” (1973)), Karen Black
(Oscar Nominated for “Five Easy Pieces” (1970)), and Valerie Perrine (Oscar
Nominated for “Lenny” (1974)). When Hollywood started wanting Actresses that
could intelligently approach the Characters of intelligent women, the Casting
Directors started looking towards others and the films ceased to treat un-intelligent
women with any compassion.
The fourth lead Character was Dr. Nathan Bryce (Rip
Torn) a Chemist and College Professor who is the first to learn Thomas secret, becoming
Thomas’s confident. Thomas’ most revealing scenes are dialogues with Nathan. These two Characters scenes together represent the best Acting in the film, as both are two Lost Souls, stronger than even those between Thomas and Mary-Lou, because with Mary-Lou the needs of both are obvious, while between Thomas and Nathan, these were two people who need each other, but don't even know how to ask for it.
Like all of Director Roeg’s films before 1990, “The Man
Who …” is notably focused on Roeg’s Sexual Obsessions. In this film we have a cornucopia
of often Transgressive Sexuality, each Character representing some different
aspect of it, but none seem to find anything healthy or fulfilling. Nathan was
obsessed with bedding his 18-year-old students because he lacks Intellectual
Simulation. As Thomas’ Public Persona, and then Thomas himself, attracts Nathan’s
interest, he stops bed-hopping. But, in the end, he’s part of Thomas’ downfall.
Character Oliver is gay, and perhaps he found a
substantive relationship late in the film, but his partner is a much younger
man and a Body Builder (Rick Riccardo), so when standing next to short,
unattractive, and (by-then) old, Rich Guy, they look a little ridiculous. I
should say though, Oliver’s sad end though had nothing to do with his choice of
Partners.
I already addressed Thomas and Mary Lou. In the films
strongest, and most disturbing scene, Thomas finally reveals his full Alienness
to her, specifically his un-sexual-looking, but obviously functional, Sex
Organs, and she screams and wets herself (the USA release was 20-minutes
shorter that the UK, and that scene is unfortunately truncated in some versions).
She will struggle to come to terms with that because she’s lost without him,
but their relationship had been irredeemably sickened (another cut scene, much
later in the film when, has Thomas and Mary-Lou sink into a desperate
booze-and-firearm-driven lunacy, but I say the film benefited from losing that
one).
This film puts the “Alien” back in the word
“Alienation.” In one particularly striking scene, Thomas is in the back of his
limo (there are many scenes with Thomas in a limo, obviously inspired by the
“Cracked Actor” clip that drew Director Roeg to Bowie in the first place); as
he looks out the window, he experiences a time slip: He sees 19th c.
Pioneers who react in astonishment as the 20th c. limo drives by,
much as Thomas knows Humans would react if they saw him for what he really was.
The limo is said to be the same as one as from the Documentary and the driver (Tony
Mascia, Bowie’s Real-World driver) would prove to another one of so many who
betray Thomas.
The plot thickens. An ambiguously Powerful Organization
becomes involved (in the novel, it’s Government Intelligence, in the movie, it’s
hinted they are Corporate Competitors). The most clearly identified Villain is Mr.
Peters (former Professional Football Player Bernie Casey), who the film’s only significant
Black Character, so bold Casting in its day, and the transgressiveness is
underlined that Peter’s partner is a White woman made up to look like Thomas (Playboy
Pin-up Claudia Jennings who
was uncredited). Thomas is Kidnapped before he can launch his Spaceship
and held Captive until he is deemed unthreatening. While he’s Captive, Mary
Lou, who still Loves him, is recruited by the Villains because she naive and
still loves him, while those in Thomas circle who can’t be manipulated, like
Oliver, are brutally eliminated. By the time Thomas is released, he’s still
wealthy, but all he had tried to do had been rendered Futile.
The final scene resolves with Nathan seeking out
Thomas. Thomas has resigned himself to the fact that he’s never going home, and
recorded a musical album, hoping that its message will cross the cosmos, and will
be heard by the wife and family he left behind (none of these Actors who were
credited), because he Earth radio signals do travel out across the Cosmos. (No
cuts from this fictional album are heard in the film, there’s a reason for that
which I’ll address later). Though Nathan is guilt-ridden for what he’s done,
he’s remarkably unkind:
Thomas: “Did you like it?”
Nathan: “Not much.”
Newton: “Oh. I didn’t make it for you anyway.”
…
Nathan: “Don’t you feel bitter about it? Everything”
Thomas: “Bitter? No. We’d have probably treated you the
same if you’d come over to our place.”
These are almost, but not quite, the last lines in the
film.
3.) Legacy
Bowie was expected to do the soundtrack, but that went
off-the-rails. Two things seemed have doomed it: In the studio, Bowie didn’t follow
the Dramatic Ques of the film, seemingly just making an album as if the film
didn't exist. Before anyone convince him to retool, some Producer tried to
steal the rights to the music out from under him. It was a bitter dispute. Bowie
later admitted he was being “arrogant” and “a stupid juvenile reason but I kind of walked away from
it.” With time was running out, and Roeg turned to John
Phillips of the band The Mamas & the Papas. Even with him, Roeg ran into
trouble because of Phillips was heavily Coke-Addicted, and nearly fired him (I
guess everyone was Coked-Out of Their Minds in the 1970s), but Phillips did
deliver a dense Sound Design and an unconventional Score mixing Vintage Pop Standards,
original tunes, Avant-Garde pieces by Stomu Yamashta, and even a Whale Song. Phillips’
achievement is especially notable in the scene where Character Thomas reveals
himself to Mary-Lou.
The work produced in Bowie’s Studio Sessions, highly
praised by the musicians who were working with him, are now considered
legendary Lost Works, except they aren’t completely lost. Tracks made their way
onto “Station to Station” and “Low” (1977).
Roy Carr and
Charles Shaar Murray’s book, “Bowie: The Illustrated Record” (1981) spoke
of a bootleg version of these sessions but later admitted it was a hoax, “It
was an old trick of Roy's, designed to let him know whether anybody else was
nicking his research rather than doing their own.” 1992 there were press
reports that the music was finally going to be released, but again, it was a
hoax.
Bowie eventually created his own Rock Opera based on “The
Man Who …” titled “Lazarus” (2015, it overlapped much with his last studio album,
“Blackstar” (2016)), but the new music sounded far more like Bowie’s later work
than his from the ‘70s, so it might not have resurrected the earlier recordings.
Bowie, himself, died in 2016, and the person most directly in control of the
Master Tapes, Paul
Buckmaster, died in 2017, so the film’s music remains in limbo.
After completion, the film was rejected by its
Production Company Paramount, as the film broke so many Taboos, that wasn’t
surprising, but Paramount knew it was to be Directed by Roeg, who already had a
Rogue-reputation, so what the hell did they expect? This led to a lawsuit which
the Filmmakers won but also left them without a USA Distributor. It was treated
with hostility by UK critics, marginally better by USA ones, then poorly Distributed
by Cinema V (also responsible for the brutal cuts), and barely recouped Production
Costs. Since then, the film has built a reputation as being a SF Classic. It
was also, in many ways, a Swan Song, the last of a tradition of Serious and Intellectually
Ambitious SF films that a at sought a Popular Audience, starting in 1968 with the
release of “2001: A Space Odessey,” “Countdown” and “Planet of the Apes,” all released
within months of each other. But the very next year after “The Man Who …” was
released, “Star Wars” would change everything about Hollywood approached SF.
Most of the Contemporaneous Critics were badly torn, it
was impossible to ignore the film’s beauty even as it grated on them. Critic Jonathan
Rosenbaum disliked the film, but there was praise mixed in, and all these
decades later, the praise seems more relevant than the over-all opinion. He
argued that keeping it "only semi-comprehensible" was a good strategy
to avoid the "banality" of the scenes being shuffled together. The "consistently
unimpeachable source of fascination in the movie is David Bowie’s
extraterrestrial persona and performance: genuinely uncanny with his asexual
ambiance, surreal red hair, chiseled features and underplayed reactions, he
offers one of the eeriest screen presences since Katharine Hepburn in ‘Sylvia
Scarlett’ [1935]."
Among those
who liked the film were Richard Eder, “There are quite a few science-fiction
movies scheduled to come out in the next year or so. We shall be lucky if even
one or two are as absorbing and as beautiful as ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth.’"
And Pauline Kael called ir, “‘The Little Prince’ [book by Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry (1943)] for young adults, the hero, a stranger on earth, is
purity made erotic … [Bowie is] the most romantic figure in recent pictures,
the modern version of the James Dean lost-boy
myth."
Retrospective Critics of this film generally offer high
praise, but the complaints of contemporaneous Critics echo even to this day.
Newman again, from 2007, “The great failing of all Nicolas Roeg films is that
they are caught halfway between a visual brilliance that few other directors
ever manage to conceive and in being drowned by Roeg’s penchant for
pretensions, often random visuals, cut-up editing and sexual obsessions. And
this is no more than evident in ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth.’”
There’s a
telling quote from one of Roeg’s interviewers (and I’m sorry, I’ve lost the
name), “That’s exactly how it is rewatching Roeg’s films – they’re so dense and
full of ideas, you make new connections each time. I tell him it’s like
drinking a fine wine – the first glass is nice, but after it’s been left to
breathe it reveals structure and complexity and gets even better to drink. He
seems to like that.”
The film’s influence
was far ranging, referenced in other films, novels, and (of course) work by
other Rock Bands. Bowie repeatedly referenced it in his songs and music videos,
and the Unworldliness of his performance inspired other film Directors to seek
him out. To keep this short, I’ll (mostly) keep this to later, direct,
adaptations of the novel and film:
“The Man Who
Fell to Earth” (TV movie, 1987). Not awful, but horribly misconceived, it
touted itself as being more straightforward in its telling and closer to the
novel than the Roeg film. The former was true but, to the film’s deficit, the
latter was false; the Roeg film was, for all its weirdness, far more faithful.
It had more female Characters than the Roeg movie, and attempted to treat them
with greater respect, but they came of far less interesting as the entire
enterprise collapsed into suspenseless TV cliches. Thomas is now named John
Dory (Lewis Smith) and presented as a Charming Mediocre like the Hero in a more
contemporary Hallmark Christmas movie. The ending, where Character John is
forced to realize at least half the people in his new life have betrayed him
and his Launch Window to return home missed, sets him off as a Wanderer on the
backroads of the USA (it was a piolet for an unproduced TV series), which made little
sense in context as he was already a Captain of Industry. Very likely, had the
story continued, it was degenerate into something akin to the Classic Crime series
“The Fugitive” (first aired 1963) and the SF series that were derivative of it,
“The Incredible Hulk” (first aired 1977) and “The Phoenix” (first aired 1981)
“Moon” (2009) isn’t really connected
“The Man Who
…” but I include it as it was the first feature film of Bowie’s son, Zowie, by
then going by the name Duncan Jones (“Bowie” was his father’s stage-name but he
was born David Jones), and notable here because it’s mannerisms. The novel, “The
Man Who …” reflected something that SF can do that most other Literature cannot,
it can Literalize the Metaphor in a manner that something as strange as a
Salvador Dali painting in a way as accessible to the Audience as the novels of
Dickens. “Moon” leaned hard into the Aesthetic of ‘70s SF cinema and narrative
is as much about the Challenges of holding onto one’s Identity as “The Man Who …”
but its story was far weirder than Tevis’
novel. Despite this, its storytelling was as straightforward as the novel,
maybe more so, starting with a Mystery the Main Character has to solve, and
when it is solved, the World is clearly shown not to be what he’d assumed, but still
clearly explicated; the goal was to take the Surreal and make it seemingly Comprehendible.
The Mannerisms are a stark contrast to Filmmaker Roeg and Rock Star Bowie, both
of whom like their Surrealism to stay Surreal.
I’ve already
mentioned the stage Musical “Lazarus” (2015), music and lyrics Composed by
David Bowie, Book by Enda Walsh. It was a sequel of “The Man Who …” and Thomas
was played by Michael C. Hall. It received mixed-to-hostile reviews, not unlike
Roeg’s film, but even the less-than-positive reviews spoke of something
captivating within it, like Ben Brantly, "Ice-bolts of ecstasy shoot like
novas through the fabulous muddle and murk of ‘Lazarus,’ the
great-sounding, great-looking and mind numbing new musical built around songs
by David Bowie." I watched it streaming, and found the music (much it re-writes
and rearrangements of Bowie’s hits from the ‘70s and ‘80s) better than the
script which seemed to have little faith in what the genre of SF was capable of,
and though Hall was strong in the lead, he seemed to have no interest in
projecting Thomas’ Alienness, presenting instead an embittered, late-in-the-game,
“Citizen Kane.”
I also listened
to the accompanying album, “Blackstar” (2016) which, though a closely related
project, contained many songs not in the play, and vice-versa. Both works have
dirge-like elements, “Blackstar” more so, and there was a reason for this: In
2014 Bowie was diagnosed with Cancer and though was under Chemo treatment as
the two projects evolved. He was private about his condition and, in
retrospect, seemed conscious he was going to lose the battle. The album was received
with more enthusiasm than the play. Bowie succumbed two days after it was
released.
“The Man Who
Fell to Earth” (TV series first aired 2022) was critically hailed but unfortunately
lasted only one season. Also, unfortunately, it is behind a pay wall, so I had
no chance to watch it complete before this writing, but I did chase they numerous
scenes available on the Internet. A sequel to the original film and brought in
themes in the novel that the film ignored. Decades after the original story, a
new Alien, Faraday (Chiwetel Ejiofor) arrives on Earth after being called by Character Thomas (Bill Nighy)
to complete the original Mission; Thomas complains, “It took you long enough.” Faraday
is not only trying to rescue the survivors of his Planet but save the Earth because
his people do need their place of Refuge to Survive (the TV series replaces the
novel’s fear of Nuclear War with Climate Change). Though the sequel-ness is the
driving narrative, it did sometimes feel like a remake, with Faraday going
through scenes that were in original novel and film: Faraday’s arrival is,
again, a crash-landing, setting up a difficult journey to get his grounding in modern
USA. His initial income source are, again, the strange gold rings. Physically
challenged with his adjustment to Earth he is, again, rescued by a woman, but
not simple Hotel Maid Mary-Lou, but a Scientist and single-mother, Justin Falls
(Naomie Harris) who was working on developing Cold Fusion as an energy source before
she fell on hard economic times because of family obligations, research Faraday
might be able to revive. And some lines of dialogue, included in the novel and
the first film, reappear here as well. The series follows Faraday’s search for
Thomas and his transition to becoming more Human, which he accomplishes better
than Thomas did. The second TV shows scene is a flash-forward years after the Spaceship
Crash, Faraday is a Bill-Gates-style Captain of Industry standing before an
adoring audience as he holds a sorta “TED Talk” (TED Conferences, LLC, a series
of Lectures given by prominent figures in various fields but mostly Emerging Technologies
(first one recorded in 1984) under the slogan "Ideas Change
Everything") and promising to Tell-All just as the Government Agents were
closing in. The rest of the series is mostly about how Faraday got from a confused
and desperate Crash Survivor (“I am an immigrant, a refugee”) to Media Darling
and Wanted Man. Actor Nighy is good as Character Thomas but, perhaps wisely,
ignored Bowie’s legendary performance except in for the clothing. Unlike the
film, Thomas has aged (Actor Nighy was born two years after Bowie, so 73-years-old
when he made this TV series) and plays to a different kind of Alienation: Not
an Ethereal Otherness, but the Impeccable Misanthropicness that he’d so
perfected across his long career. He doesn’t come off as if he belonged on
another Planet, but a grouchy Aristocrat belonging in a different decade.
Trailer:
The Man Who Fell to Earth |
Original Trailer | Coolidge Corner Theatre
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