Movies - The Man Who Fell to Earth

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	Movies - The Man Who Fell to Earth

The Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1976 film directed by Nicolas Roeg about an extraterrestrial who crash lands on Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought. The film maintains a strong cult status for its strong use of surreal imagery and its performances by David Bowie, Candy Clark, and Rip Torn. The film was based on a novel by Walter Tevis, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and was later remade as a less-successful 1987 television adaptation.

Plot

David Bowie plays Thomas Jerome Newton, a humanoid alien who comes to Earth seeking a way to ship back water to his home planet which is experiencing a terrible drought.

Newton uses advanced technology from his home planet to patent many inventions on Earth, and rises to incredible wealth as the head of a technology-based conglomerate, World Enterprises. Secretly, this wealth is needed to construct his own space vehicle program in order to ship water back to his home planet.

While in New Mexico, he meets Mary-Lou (Candy Clark), a relatively uneducated girl working as an elevator operator in a hotel. Soon, a love affair begins between the two, and Mary-Lou introduces Newton to many customs of Earth culture, amongst them church-going, fashion, alcohol, and eventually humanoid sex. However, his appetite for alcohol and television become crippling, slowly troubling his relationship. His secret identity as an alien is also discovered by his intensely curious fuel technician Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn), one of Newton's few friends. He also reveals his true form as an alien to Mary-Lou, who is intensely shocked and unable to cope with his secret life.

Newton attempts to take the spaceship on its maiden voyage amongst a myriad of press exposure, but is soon captured by the government, while operatives kill many of his key business partners. The government, who has received the tip that he is an alien through Bryce, holds him captive in an overstimulative, art-deco apartment, where they continuously send him through rigorous and inhumane tests. During this period, he is visited again by Mary-Lou, who, despite sexual interests, ultimately realizes that the relationship between them has failed. She leaves, but manages to leave Newton's prison unlocked so that he might escape.

Newton, now a fugitive, has ultimately failed in his mission to save his dying planet, ending up trapped on earth; broken, lonely, and embittered. Without other options, he creates a recording with alien messages, which he hopes will be broadcast via radio to his home-planet to say goodbye. Newton cynically remarks to Nathan Bryce at the end of the film:

"We'd have probably done the same to you, if you'd come 'round our place."

Relationship with the novel

The film is remarkably different from the novel and stands moreso as a work on its own than a direct interpretation. Several physical changes occur to the characters, amongst them the appearance of Bowie's signature orange hair, however, the film also features personality changes. In the novel, there is Mary-Lou character, but her name is Betty Jo, and no relationship appears between her and Newton. In fact, most implications of sex appear only in the film, such as Bryce's sexual relationships with his students. Newton is also a much more stoic character in the film, who sheds no tears despite aggrivation and torment.

The passage of time is clearly different as well. No calenders or clocks or even mention of time's passage are featured in the film, however, characters age through the film, with Rip Torn and Candy Clark passing from youth to middle-age through the film, while Newton remains curiously static in appearance. The novel uses definite dates to specify time-period, revolving around events such as the elections of presidents and the beginnings of wars. In fact, the film uses few transitions aside from straight cuts, which, in tandem with surreal montages which could freely be dream sequences, simultaneous events, or parallel realities, intentionally distort the viewer's sens of the passage of time. Other details are also omitted, such as the name of Newton's home world (Anthea, in the novel) and the fate of Newton's original vehical to reach Earth.

Many other changes, such as the setting being transformed from Kentucky to New Mexico, hinged for the most part on the film's budget and available resources, but ultimately were used by Nicolas Roeg for more interpretive and artistic purposes; the use of local sand dunes to depict Newton's home world was very useful.

Trivia

Images from the film appear on the covers of the Bowie albums Station to Station
and Low
, which are said to contain fragments of the soundtrack music he wrote for the film, but which was not used.
Toward the end of the film, in the record store, Bryce walks past a display for David Bowie's Young Americans
album.
The music that Oliver Farnsworth is listening to in his first scene and in one of his last is Holst's The Planets.
At one point Mary-Lou shouts to Tommy, "Tommy Can You Hear Me?". A reference to The Who's rock-opera Tommy.
Nicolas Roeg was nominated for the Golden Bear award at the 1976 Berlin International Film Festival.

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