From there, he ventures alone into the arid Southwest that probably reminds him most of home, unwittingly retreating from his machines and his sense of self over the course of months, then years, then decades. The rest of the film’s characters rot around him: A college professor (a wonderful Rip Torn) prevents mental instability and sexual behavior; Mary-Lou’s alcoholism ruins her youth and innocence, and Farnsworth’s life is disrupted by his economic success. The repeated references to Icarus are accompanied by Newton’s downfall as he allows himself to be taken by Mary-Lou, slowly drinking again. The TV practice, and ultimately the elimination of the forces of Truth, Justice, and the American Way – that is, capitalism, media hypersaturation, narcotized narcissism, and the watchful eye and meaty fist of Big Brother. This, after all, a 1970s movie.
Bowie himself is the perfect foil for his sad story of addiction and fascination with the pervasive influence of media on American life. Although accounts differ, according to the star himself, he was still addicted to cocaine when it was filmed and says he never even read the script. His chance here, like Mick Jagger’s is Roeg’s Working six years earlier, he is completely addictive and charming – as he says he has never been. It was his first major film role and given his fragile state of mind, he says the screen crack marked a noticeable departure from Alan Yentob’s classic. BBC star documentary, Cracked Actorwhich, fittingly enough, followed the star as she embarked on her first American tour during1974. In another strange twist, the star, who is famous for researching the carton of milk in Yentob’s film, will fall ill during Roeg’s production due to drinking spoiled milk on set. Those are the kinds of juxtapositions that make Roeg’s films play like exorcisms from another place, whether the subject is black magic, the questioning of visions, or visitors from other worlds. It is not said, because The Man Who Fell to Earth, as he said Rolling Stone in the middle 1983Bowie heard that .“just being me was enough for the role. I did not belong to this world at that time.”
As an illustration, this supernatural film is deliberately surreal, an elegy of water and dust set to chaotic eclectic music that was painfully unreleased at the time. The looseness and emotional distance that prompted Rugoff to hire a professional psychiatrist to provide notes on his massive repetitions — a coldness that was an immediate point of frustration for many contemporary critics — is partly what makes this film so respectable. As Newton succumbs to his dependence on an ever-increasing number of televised screams at once to absolve himself of his failure to return home, we may glimpse our modern-day brainrot, Cocomelon, and ADHD. In the blink of an eye, the meteoric and all-consuming business of his shadow company, World Enterprises, we can see the parallels with the technological rulers of our time, SpaceX and all. In the context of the surprising uncertainty and certainty in the face of natural disaster, our modern skepticism about climate change is sadly evident. When sweaty government supporters arrive on the scene to take over his business and arrest him without reason, the lack of surprise we feel is compounded by the growing sense of disillusionment that has taken over our political landscape during our current decade.
““Historically, people have seen strong people as heroes or heroines for their willingness to accept responsibility for their actions,” wrote Pauline Kael at the time. .“We are now in an era where we know that too many wrongdoings – especially the worst ones – go unpunished in society. And it is very clear that the perpetrators do not face moral consequences.” Half a century later, The Man Who Fell to Earth it still seems a sad warning, its mysteries powerful, its beauty alluring. Newton’s wicked Icarus falls, and our shadows fall beside him.
