Film Review

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UK 2 Dvd Specifications

Actors: David Bowie, Rip Torn, Candy Clark, Buck Henry

Director: Nicolas Roeg

Format: Anamorphic, Box set, PAL, Special Edition

Language: English

Region: Region 2 (UK & Europe)

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Number of discs: 2

Classification: 18

Studio: Optimum Home Entertainment

DVD Release Date: 29 Jan 2007

Run Time: 133 minutes

UK 2 Dvd Special Features

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SPECIAL FEATURES
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Exclusive new interview
with Nic Roeg
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Watching the Alien
documentary feature
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Theatrical Trailer
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US 1976
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Colour
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133 mins. approx.
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Film Review

If ever there was someone born to play a part then it is David Bowie for Thomas Jerome Newton. The boy from Beckenham lands in Hollywoodland and believe me as someone from those parts Beckenham and Bromley are so alien to Hollywoodland we may as well be talking about Life on Mars. Seriously though, Bowie's limited acting range makes the part of an alien with limited expressions fit him like a glove.

Good job the director, Nicolas Roeg perservered in getting Bowie for the role. He waited at his house for hours when Bowie had forgotten they had an appointment and when Bowie finally showed up talked him into playing the role.

For me this film saw Bowie at the beginning of his creative peak. The Berlin Trilogy with Brian Eno were to follow and with it the course of music was altered forever. New Wave was born of it, Post-Punk turned to it like a writer to a dictionary, and the Germanic Industrial feel of Kraftwerk (V-2 Schneider) found in it the commercial prism it had been looking for in the decade or so before. Bowie has always been best at dilating influences around him into Bowie-esque soundscapes.

The Man Who Fell to Earth is to me the landscape of those soundscapes. Indeed, from the Berlin Trilogy Low was the unused soundtrack (the film company didn't want to pay the price for a Bowie original). No matter, for what we left of visually more than makes up for a film executive's deafness. The tortured artist, the outsider taking little bits of caustic America and making us see them in a new light, pervade the film. Americana looks so different from above.

Some of the continuity is decidely dodgy though. I can only put it down to it being a long film and Roeg taking his eye off the ball at times, Watch out for the hair parting debacle: in one scene Bowie has a side parting; the very next shot in the same scene he has a centre parting! Now Bowie may be able to re-invent himself at will but to have us believe that he can re-invent his hair that quickly is pushing it a bit.

There are a few goofs throughout the film - you will just have to find them.

Still a great movie though. Bowie proves that on the silver sceen he has charisma by the bucketload.

The Man Who Fell To Earth is Nic Roeg’s science-fiction cult classic starring David Bowie. Crash landing on Earth from his dying planet, an alien humanoid traveling by the name of Thomas Jerome Newton uses his superior intelligence to build a vast business empire. As he takes on, and beats, every US corporation people can only guess his true purpose – to save his dying world from agonizing death by drought. Newton’s ageless fall from grace, as he becomes prey to lust, alcohol, business rivals, and the US Government makes The Man Who Fell To Earth not only a bitingly caustic indictment of the modern world but also a poignant commentary on the loneliness of the outsider.

Dvd available: amazon.co.uk (uk) | amazon.com (us)