The Man Who Fell To Earth
TMWFTE review - Ebert '11
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-man-who-fell-to-earth-2011
In the 35 years since its first release,
Nicolas Roeg’s “The Man Who Fell to Earth” has attained such cult status that it was remade in 1987 for television, and its poster can be glimpsed in the recent “
Green Lantern.” It centers on an eerie performance by rock star
David Bowie, as an alien from a drought-stricken planet who journeys to Earth in search of water. Bowie, slender, elegant, remote, evokes this alien so successfully that one could say, without irony, this was a role he was born to play.
His character, named Thomas Jerome Newton, splashes to Earth in a remote Western lake, walks into a town, sells some gold rings to raise cash and searches out a patent attorney named Farnsworth (
Buck Henry). He offers plans for a group of advanced electronics products (one of them, not so amazing, is a disposable camera that develops its own film). Farnsworth establishes the World Enterprises Corp. to market these inventions, and Newton grows wealthy. His plan, we learn, is to build a spaceship and transport water to his home planet.
This is seen as a desolate desert world whose only visible inhabitants are his family. They wear plastic suits to conserve precious bodily fluids. They apparently live or travel in something that looks like a hunting lodge with wings and runs on a monorail. There is no dialogue on this planet, only sad, spectral gestures.
On Earth, Newton (a name with a lot of gravity) isolates himself and communicates with Farnsworth only by telephone. In a motel, he meets a chirpy young woman named Mary-Lou (
Candy Clark). They begin an affair, and she introduces him to gin and tonic and television. He becomes addicted to both, eventually watching several channels at the same time.
The plot thickens. The CIA becomes involved. He is taken captive, and so on. You will discover the story for yourself. The movie is intriguing primarily because of Bowie’s performance as Newton, and Clark’s as the girl (Buck Henry, and
Rip Torn as a scientist, could be playing their characters in any movie).
Bowie has an enviable urbane charm. I met him once, and rarely have been so impressed by someone’s poise. If he hadn’t been a rock star he could have had success as an actor, playing roles such as those given to
James Fox or
William Hurt. Bowie demonstrated that in such films as “
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” “Absolute Beginners,” “
The Hunger” and “
Labyrinth.” Apart from a few moments involving special effects, he and Roeg make no overt attempt to show Newton as particularly alien. They simply use his presence. He is ... Other. Apart. Defined within himself.
And lonely. From his body language on his home planet as he takes leave of his family, we assume he misses them. His plans to return with water get mislaid as he loses focus with too much gin and television, as has happened to many humans. It’s hard to say what actual connection he feels with Mary-Lou. His personal style, reflected in his wardrobe, seems to be reality rotated through conscious design. He’s curiously passive — not one of those aliens hellbent on a mission, but a man almost dreamy at times.
As science-fiction films go, this is a unique one. It focuses on character and implied ideas, not on plot and special effects. It’s very much a product of the 1970s, when idiosyncratic directors deliberately tried to make great films. A production of this style is almost unthinkable today; it’s too challenging and abstract for the Friday night mobs and requires too much thought.
Nicolas Roeg was on a roll when he made this film in 1976. In 1970, his first film, “
Performance,” also centered on a nontraditional role for a rock star,
Mick Jagger. In 1971, Roeg made the visionary “
Walkabout.” In 1973, there was “Don’t Look Now,” recently voted the best British film of all time. Then this.
It’s slow going at times, and the plot isn’t worthy of the performances. Too many shots of limousines and an unexplained big truck. Too many unfocused conversations in offices. I gave it 2.5 stars in 1976. That was about right. But I’m nudging it up to three stars for the 2011 re-release. Star ratings are meaningless, anyway, so consider this just a quiet protest vote against the way projects this ambitious are no longer possible in the mainstream movie industry.
The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jun/14/man-who-fell-to-earth-review
Alan Yentob was responsible for getting David Bowie his proper first feature-film gig, after director
Nicolas Roeg watched his legendary 1974 documentary Cracked Actor; Bowie stepped seamlessly from one outsider's odyssey across the American mindscape into another. He is like ET's spindly, sexy older brother as stranded alien Thomas Jerome Newton, seeking to transport water back to his parched planet. Bowie's skewed affect was a clean fit for the role, and it's not clear how much acting is on display; the musician, apparently up to his eyeballs in medicinal-strength cocaine, wasn't sure either. The wry playfulness of Paul Mayersberg's script offsets Bowie's imperial detachment, and keeps TMWFTE grounded as Newton's quest dissipates. Roeg surfs the delirium throughout, finding stratospheric poetic imagery in the New Mexico locations and peering towards the horizons of present-day America: immigrant marginalisation, ecological violence, corporate corruption and, in Newton's bank of television screens, traumatic media consciousness of it all ("Get out of my mind, all of you!"). That a major America studio (Columbia) was prepared to bankroll this kind of visionary circus is more proof of how far gone we are. Iconic, and nearly canonic.
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9A04EFD6123BE334BC4151DFB366838D669EDE
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," which opened yesterday at the Cinema I and Cinema II Theaters.
When science-fiction writing enlisted such authors as Ray Bradbury, the emphasis on space machines, time warps and little green men gave way to more philososhical and emotional approaches. It was man or Martian, not as physical but as metaphysical travelers. Space was filled with loss and melancholy as well as gadgets.
"The Man Who Fell to Earth" makes some use of far-planetary landscape, of extrahuman physiognomy and even of space machinery. Sparingly, though; as a touch of color. Mainly it is about exile, about being an alien. Its story of an extraterrestrial visitor from another planet is designed mainly to say something about life on this one.
Nicholas Roeg, who made the powerful but grotesque "Don't Look Now," is an elaborate and mannered director. He does nothing simply; he uses indirection and ambiguity paced with sudden shocking effects. His complexity, his baroque style, is redeemed by a considerable though not total precision and control. His idiosyncracies overweighted the story of a grief-hallucinated couple in "Don't Look Now": they are extraordinarily well suited to this space allegory.
Mr. Roeg has chosen the garish, translucent, androgynous-mannered rock-star, David Bowie, for his space visitor. The choice is inspired. Mr. Bowie gives an extraordinary performance. The details, the chemistry of this tall pale figure with black-rimmed eyes are clearly not human. Yet he acquires a moving, tragic force as the stranger caught and destroyed in a strange land.
The story is complicated. It is set up as a near-total mystery that unfolds bit by bit, leaving—it must be said—a few small unexplained gaps. The price paid for this method is a certain confusion; the gain is the spectator's tingling desire to have the puzzle work out.
There is an explosive splash in a Western lake, and soon Newton — David Bowie — is walking into a town. Immediately the film's theme is set. He passes, and is alarmed, by a garishly painted fun-park gondola in which a drunkard sits, gibbering. Where is Oute Space? Right here on earth.
Newton pawns an immense collection of gold rings for $10,000. He takes the money and a sheaf of papers to Farnsworth, a top patent lawyer, played by Buck Henry. The papers are nine major electronics inventions. Farnsworth can't believe what he sees: "For starters you can take General Electric, Polaroid and I.B.M.," he tells his strange black-garbed visitor. He is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, he tells him. "Is that all?" Newton asks.
Newton gives Farnsworth complete authority to set up a huge corporation. He takes shelter in a radio-equipped car, then in a motel, then in a lavish lakeside house, then in a desert shack. He is accompanied by a lovely, simple and increasingly tormented woman whom he picks up at the motel. All his contact with the outside world is by telephone through Farnsworth.
Newton's empire grows, but is eventually sabotaged by a shadowy, C.I.A.-like group that enlists all those around him—his mistress, his bodyguard and a brilliant, cynical scientist, played by Rip Torn.
Alongside this plot, giving it texture, are the gradually revealed mysteries. Why does Newton drink so much water? Why is he intrigued by railroad trains? Why does he continually watch television? Why does he use all the resources of his vast empire to build a one-man spaceship?
The movie has its incoherences. Sometimes the mannerisms — overlapping shots, for instance—are excessive. Once Newton is broken, and his homeward drive is fully revealed and fully frustrated, the ending drags on for too long.
But it is a first-rate achievement; helped by stunning performances not only by Mr. Bowie, but by Candy Clark, as his mistress. Buck Henry as the lawyer and Rip Torn, the scientist, are subtle and impeccable.
The Cast
THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, directed by Nicolas Roeg; screenplay by Paul Mayersberg, based on the novel by Walter Tevis; produced by Michael Deeley and Barry Spikings. At the Cinema I and Cinema II Theaters. Running time: 158 minutes. This film has been rated R.
Thomas Jerome Newton . . . . . David Bowie
Nathan Bryce . . . . . Rip Torn
Mary-Lou . . . . . Candy Clark
Oliver Farnsworth . . . . . Buck Henry
Peters . . . . . Bernie Casey
