The Man Who Fell to Earth (review)

Roeg's reputation as a major director rests chiefly on three of his 1970s films: Walkabout (UK 1971), in which an ordinary young girl encounters the radical strangeness of the Australian outback; Don't Look Now (Italy/UK 1973), another strange, but strangely affecting, movie that combines psychological portraiture, erotic drama and ghost story to striking effect; and the science-fictional The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). This last is perhaps the strangest of the three, a work in which humanity as a whole is defamiliarised by being seen through the eyes of David Bowie's visiting humanoid alien. In all three films Roeg develops a visual grammar to express the encounter with weirdness that is at the core of his cinematic vision. Indeed, one way of assessing the DVD release of this title is to try to gauge the extent to which it is still capable of creatively estranging its viewer.

It is a question pertinent to DVD releases in general, actually, since the commercial habit the format has engendered of re-releasing classic movies with a large amount of extra material will inevitably tend towards the ironing-out of any mysteries or uncertainties pertaining to the films themselves. Interviews with filmmakers, directors' commentaries and the like strive to explain everything about a given film; and owning a film in such a convenient form enables multiple repeat viewings in a way largely alien to the 1970s film viewer, who tended to see a film once, or perhaps a couple of times in the cinema. Certainly, such complete explanation would be salt to the slug of The Man Who Fell to Earth, which depends for its hefty emotional and imaginative punch on a dreamlike unclarity, a lucid impression of deeper mysteries that disintegrate on too rigorous an analysis. To this end, this DVD release of Roeg's film does its job. Despite running to two discs the DVD release contains no commentary from its director, or anybody else, on the main feature. The extras, such as they are, are confined to the second disc, and they are scanty. There is a short making-of documentary largely based upon interviews with Roeg, producer Michael Deeley, screenwriter Paul Mayersberg and actor Candy Clark (evidently neither Bowie himself nor Rip Torn could be persuaded into the studio to face questions) as well as some of the technical staff: costume designer, cinematographer, editor. There are in addition two separate interviews, with Roeg and Mayersberg, in which much of the material from the making-of is reiterated. And then there are trailers, TV-spots and other advertising material. Compared with many DVD re-releases this is thin fare.

Moreover, Roeg (in particular) is endearingly unforthcoming about the deeper meanings of his own project. In interview he tends, in his patrician mumble, towards either vatic incomprehensibilities ('it's… like a butterfly being friendly with a dormouse') or else gives voice to various rather disconnected trains of thought. 'It had', he says of the script, 'a human ethos to it – it was not just sci-fi… mere sci-fi… not sci-fi… I mean, I like sci-fi… but it… um… the character of Mr Newton interested me'.

The Mr Newton whose character so intrigued Roeg is the alien whose fall is described in the movie's title. The film begins with his spaceship literally falling out of the sky into a New Mexico lake, and the plot marks out the title character's metaphorical rise and fall. To begin with we see Newton marketing advanced alien photographic technology to earthlings in order to accrue a fortune. He also begins a relationship with Mary-Lou (Candy Clark), a sweetly innocent girl working in a small New Mexico hotel. Newton's plan, it seems, is to make enough money to build a spaceship and return to his dying planet – scenes are intercut of Newton's alien wife and two children that show a desiccated desert world. He leaves his business...