Loving the Alien

Thoughts I had while watching

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH

(this post contains spoilers. But it is a 40 year old movie, so is a
 spoiler warning really necessary? Still, you've been warned.)

I watched this movie for the first time several months ago.

Now, while viewing it for a second time, with a glass (or two) of
sauvignon blanc, I discuss the thoughts I have 

about this film. There are many thoughts.

.

1. Ah, the 70s.

2. Even thin and coked out, David Bowie was a handsome creature.

3. If it weren't for the synopsis of the plot that I read prior to watching this film, it would be difficult to tell you what it was about. An alien who comes to Earth to take water back to his home planet? I appreciate the movie's attempt to show instead of tell, but it really isn't clear.

4. Bowie is adorable as a redhead.

5. Okay, so he needs start up cash. Alien needs money. I can relate.

6. So, director Nic Roeg chose Bowie for this role after seeing him in Alan Yentob's BBC documentary Cracked Actor (1975). It was Bowie's cocaine years, filmed after Young Americans and before Station to Station. Hence, the fragile-looking, pale, thin, shell-shocked Thomas Jerome Newton; qualities which were exactly what Roeg was looking for in his alien.

7. So Alien Bowie gets help from a lawyer guy to earn money from his technology patents. Working the capitalist system to its fullest. This whole thing happens so quickly. Before you realize what Alien Bowie is trying to do, it's already happened and the womanizing professor, (Nathan Bryce, played by Rip Torn) is trying to get into Newton's (Bowie's character) company (World Enterprises).

8. Sussex. Newton's undercover name.

9. Candy Clark has trouble with the elevator. And Alien Bowie freaks out. I remember reading that Real Life Bowie didn't like elevators (or airplanes) either. This may or may not have been an affect for his many personas.

10. Trivia: A skateboard contraption was used to make it look like Mary Lou was carrying Newton.

11. Why do movies insist on showing characters vomiting on screen? Stop doing that, movies!

12. Ack! Quick cut to Womanizing Professor with different (college aged) women! There is a lot of highly stylized sex in this movie that manages to stay just this side of porn by being so stylized. 

13. Back to Alien Bowie in his hotel room with Mary Lou (she's an employee at the hotel) and he wants water, while she tries to pressure him into drinking gin. Don't do it, Newton! Gin is icky! Try some wine or whisky instead...

14. "You know mister, I don't think you get enough to eat. You're too thin!" I feel like the dialogue in this movie was written to specifically troll Bowie.

15. Sudden narration! Mary Lou talking to herself about travelers.

16. More sudden narration! This time by Womanizing Professor, telling us that he'd worked his way into Newton's company, and has given up womanizing. So now he's just Professor.

17. Fast forward in time again. Newton is living with Mary Lou, watching multiple TVs (TVC15?), now drinking gin and wine, and being talked into going to church, where they sing that song I heard once on a Monty Python episode.

18. Oh, yeah. Alien Bowie has a home-planet wife and children.

19. He has to sing the aforementioned hymn at the church. Can Bowie sing? Not in this movie, apparently.

20. Okay, flashbacks to home planet. The family in a green field fades into a desert. The home planet has no water. This second viewing is making the plot a bit clearer. This is why Newton fell to Earth.

21. I really, really don't get the old-timey visions portion of Newton's psyche. Is he seeing the people that live in that location years ago? Are they ghosts?

22. He wants to build his house on the spot where he fell to Earth. Okay, I can accept that. It's on a lake. He likes water.

23. Newton tells Lawyer Guy to put his money towards a space project. It's never explicitly stated, but he wants to take water back to his home planet. It's a bit annoying, though, how the viewer wouldn't immediately realize this unless they had read a synopsis (or was really good at picking up the subtle clues from the beginning, which the casual viewer wouldn't [I have little faith in the average audience member]).

24. Newton's house is built. Professor is employed as energy something-or-other manager. But he was a chemistry Professor?... 

25. Naked Bowie! 

26. Aack! Sexytime Bowie! 

27. Moody, drunk Newton, complaining about the music and watching 15 TVs at once.  I think this is where his relationship with Mary Lou begins to crack. This scene is also a bit disturbing, just from Newton's reaction to everything he is seeing on the TVs.

28. I feel like the CinemaSins people would have a field day with this film.

29. Is the ship built yet? I think the ship is built. Ah, yes, here we are inside of it. This scene is also the cover photograph for the Station to Station album.

30. People like to rag on Bowie's acting, but he's really quite capable as an actor. I think he just took a lot of dubious roles, many of which weren't really well-written or well-received and that made it seem like he was a worse actor than he was. He had some redemption with Labyrinth and in The Elephant Man on Broadway. 

31. Okay, last time I watched this movie, I was very confused with the sudden killing off of the lawyer and the sudden introduction of Mr. Peters. I was probably zoning out and missed why Lawyer Guy is killed. Let's see if I can figure out what's going on now. Apparently, World Enterprises is too successful for the US economy and now must be reigned in by the US government. And apparently murder of a Lawyer is the only way to meet that goal?

32. The movie's pacing has slowed a bit. Took a scroll through Facebook.

33. Okay, Alien Bowie is back on screen. Being spied on by Professor Womanizer who hides an x-ray camera in the room to take pictures on Alien Bowie.

34. Mr. Peters is back, with nefarious plans. What is going on?! 

35. That's an odd looking X-ray picture... Do aliens not have bones?

36. Mary Lou discovers he's an alien! An illegal alien who's visa has expired! So close! Nice fake out, movie.

37. Why is Mary Lou offering Newton a hot pan of cookies straight out of the oven? Let them cool first, lady! Oh, well, he bashes the pan away anyway. RIP cookies.
38. Okay, the reveal scene. First, more Naked Bowie. Then, he removes his contacts and human disguise bits.

39. Mary Lou freaks the hell out! I don't blame her, honestly. I'd probably react the same way.

40. So, now Newton is somewhere in the desert in a random shack because Mary Lou either kicked him out or he left because he was uncomfortable living with her now that she knows he's not human, but Professor dude finds him and Newton reveals that he is an alien. 

41. Ship is now built. Media fracas ensues. The US government kidnaps Newton!

42. And now Lawyer is killed! And Mr. Peters and his wife is now involved? And now we hear saxophone music during a scene change to where Newton is being held captive.
43. Following along with the companion book. This is a rather simple plot, but the movie has trouble conveying it with its attempt to be artistic. So, some coherence is lost. Show, don't tell, certainly, but the soapy bodies jumping around is a bit distracting.

44. Hopeless Newton, held captive, not aging, being tested on. Addicted to alcohol. But still rich.

45. The sex scene here at the end is just weird. They have a gun that they play with, but don't blanks cause harm like live bullets? And who brought them all that food? It seems like he's trapped in that house with no one else, and at the end we see him just leave on his own. So, do his captors just give up or decide he isn't worth guarding anymore? How is he getting stuff before he realizes his captors aren't paying attention anymore?

46. The ping pong outfits are just too much! Tee hee!

47. The ping pong scene is also a reckoning between Newton and Mary Lou. They don't love each other anymore. 

48. More tests on Newton. The spinning chair (Wheeee!) and retinal photos with an X-ray (really? How will an X-ray see anything in a retina?) that fuse the contact lenses to his eyes.

49. He'll never see his family again. Stranded on Earth forever. The government destroyed his ship.

50. He can finally leave the building. The aged up Mary Lou and Professor are alcoholic together and The Visitor is doomed to spend his life alone and alcoholic on an alien planet. Beaten down by The Man.

P.S. The ending credits are run under Artie Shaw's Stardust. Love it.