Film Review
It's an odd thing that many of the anxieties that were expressed by
writers and filmmakers in the 1970s - things like the prospect of
impending ecological calamity, the growing power of global corporations
and the destructive consequences of consumerism - have, four decades
on, become very real mainstream concerns, backed up by hard
evidence. As a consequence, many of the science-fiction films
that were made in the mid-1970s, most of which were considered freakish
and sensationalist at the time, have acquired a much greater resonance
and seem horribly prophetic. One such film is Nicolas Roeg's
visionary masterpiece
The Man Who
Fell to Earth (1976), a liberal adaptation of Walter Tevis's
novel which not only offers a profound meditation on the failings of
Western civilisation but is also a beautifully composed piece of film
art, a kind of self-consciously trippy tribute to Andrei Tarkovsky,
with even less narrative cohesion than Kubrick's
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
Immediately prior to this film, Roeg, an experienced cinematographer of
some repute, had garnered considerable acclaim for his deliriously
eerie adaptation of a Daphne Du Maurier short story,
Don't Look Now, arguably the
most inspired British horror film of the 1970s. The aggressive
cross-cutting and elliptical storytelling that Roeg employed so
brilliantly on that film are used even more daringly on
The Man Who Fell to Earth, to the
extent that it practically jetisons conventional film logic and demands
that the spectator views it in a completely different way. As
disorientating and languorous as the film is, it is also strangely compelling, and
you understand it not through reason but through intuition, like music
or poetry. The fact that the film touches on so many present-day
concerns is a bonus; what makes it such a remarkable piece of cinema is
that it dares to stray so far from what we are used to, and does so
with such style and confidence.
The English rock legend David Bowie was perfect casting for the central
role of the cat-eyed alien posing as a shy Englishman who sets out to
build a corporate empire on Earth so that he can ship a consignment of
water back to his home planet. A few years earlier, Bowie had
fashioned himself as another charismatic doomed alien, Ziggy Stardust,
for his now iconic concept album
The
Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
The Man Who Fell to Earth gave
Bowie his first leading film role and no other human on the planet was
better suited for the part, his chiselled androgynous features, spindly physique
and obvious sense of detachment from everything around him making him
one of the sci-fi genre's most convincing extraterrestrials (dyeing his
hair a psychedelic bright orange and fitting him with luminescent
cat-like contact lenses also helps). At the time of making the
film, Bowie was heavily addicted to Cocaine and had not the slightest
idea what he was doing, and this adds to the creepy reality (or should
that be
unreality?) of his
performance. The unsettling alien quality of Bowie's screen
persona is accentuated by the earthiness of the capable supporting
artistes, Rip Torn (the disillusioned scientist par excellence) and
Candy Clark (who better to play the alien's nymphomaniac lover?).
What is probably most remarkable about
The Man Who Fell to Earth is how
many philosophical and practical issues it manages to cram into its
modest 140 minutes of spectacular (and often mindblowingly surreal) imagery, and how
many questions it asks about the future of mankind. The vacuity
of popular culture is succinctly expressed by Bowie's alien:
"[television] shows you everything about life on Earth, but the true
mysteries remain." By starring in the film, Bowie even appears to
acknowledge the emptiness of his own celebrity status. The ease
with which the alien assembles a global conglomerate, supported by an
insatiable public appetite for consumer items is no longer a fanciful
idea, as companies like Microsoft and Apple have shown. The
disgraceful way in which America deals with immigrants and suspected
terrorists is also brutally alluded to in the alien's ill-treatment at
the hands of government agents. The main theme of the film is, as
its title implies, mankind's fall from grace, symbolised by the alien's
gradual descent into debauchery as he succumbs to the pleasures of the
flesh. As Bowie's alien is distracted from saving his world by an
evil concoction of hard liquor and increasingly sordid love making, we
catch a frightening glimpse of humanity's descent into oblivion.
Once the party is over, the hangover is sure to come.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
A hairless humanoid alien travels to Earth from a distant world on a
mission to save his people, who are being wiped out by a catastrophic
drought. Adopting a human disguise and the name Thomas Jerome
Newton, the alien enlists the services of patent lawyer Oliver
Farnsworth and rapidly creates a global conglomerate, World Enterprises
Corporation, which manufactures technologically advanced consumer
goods. With the vast fortune he soon accumulates, the alien hires
a scientist, Dr Nathan Bryce, to help him construct a spaceship that
will transport him and his precious cargo of water back to his home
planet. In the meantime, he begins a passionate love affair with
a hotel maid, Mary-Lou, and becomes addicted to alcohol. Having
discovered Newton's real identity, Bryce betrays him to the government
and the alien is taken prisoner...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.