An alien arrives on Earth in search of the water required to save his planet from a catastrophic drought.
Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Nicolas Roeg
Starring: David Bowie, Candy Clark, Buck Henry, Rip Torn, Bernie Casey
In 1976 there was probably nobody on the planet better suited to playing a visitor from another world than David Bowie. The British rock star had spent the decade cultivating an ethereal image that suggested he might walk among us earthlings, but he wasn't one of us. Who better then to play the lead role in Nicolas Roeg's adaptation of Walter Tevis's sci-fi novel The Man Who Fell to Earth?
Bowie plays an alien who lands in New Mexico with a ready made human disguise. He is posing as Thomas Jerome Newton, a mysterious Englishman who approaches lawyer Oliver V. Farnsworth (Buck Henry) with a series of revolutionary patents that quickly make him hundreds of millions. With the goal of developing a means of transporting water back to his dying arid planet, Thomas forms an all conquering conglomerate, World Enterprises Corporation. Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn), a professor fired for sleeping with his students, is tasked with developing the fuel system that will allow a craft to make the journey, but becomes suspicious of his employer's origins.
A product of the cynical '70s, The Man Who Fell to Earth subverts the old '50s sci-fi trope of the benevolent alien who comes to our planet and warns us where we're going wrong. Here, Thomas loses track of his mission by succumbing to earthly vices. He meets a hotel worker, Mary Lou (an excellent Candy Clark), who introduces him to sex and alcohol, quickly making the visitor forget the wife and kids relying on his return to their world. He also becomes addicted to TV, watching several sets at once.
Is the suggestion that such distractions are keeping humanity from fulfilling our potential? That countless potential geniuses have been lost to addiction and vice? Released just a year before his death, Elvis Presley comes to mind, with Thomas retreating to his own Graceland (Elvis was also known to watch multiple screens at once, and Clark's hairdo gives her the appearance of Priscilla).
After making that possible point, Roeg's film isn't entirely sure where to branch off from there. A subplot involving a rival company working to steal Thomas's secrets is half-baked, as though Roeg had little interest in this element, and it seems as if a couple of necessary scenes have been excised. Of more interest to the director is the opportunity for his trademark cross-cutting and incorporating of a collage of needle drops that give the impression of a movie that is being scored by scanning the FM dial of a car radio.
The Man Who Fell to Earth's obtuseness has been frustrating and dividing audiences and critics for 50 years now. It survives now as an artefact of the well-crafted myth of the late Bowie. It is impossible to imagine any other star embodying the unique mix of vulnerability and otherness essential to the character of Thomas. It is far from a technically great performance, but it is the very naivete of Bowie's acting that makes the part work. Just as Thomas is learning to be a human, Bowie is learning to be an actor here. The Starman would deliver better performances later, but as an actor he will always be most associated with this space oddity.
A new restoration of The Man Who Fell to Earth is in UK/ROI cinemas from November 13th with a 5-disc collection released on November 16th.
