Talk:The Man Who Fell to Earth/Archive 1

Archive 1

The strange man

There is an opening scene of a man in a business suit who appears at Newton's crash site at the start of the film. I always thought he might be a government agent. Any ideas? -Pahuskahey 13:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

It occurred to me it could be Bryce, as Newton seems to be unstuck in time (his two way encounter with the pioneers), his arrival could remain visible to anyone investigating his path. MartinSFSA (talk) 22:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

It's never explained. biglippedalligatormoment.jpg --72.220.199.104 (talk) 16:17, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

The film is highly ambiguous in all of its flashbacks. All of them could be depicting either Newton's (biased) memories, his worries, and/or actual past or present occurrences. The technique is very similar to Oliver Stone's JFK (1991) where Stone replays scenes, with slight as well as large differences each time, in order not to show us plain and unambiguous reality but to illustrate speculations on what happened or could have happened as conceivable from limited, conflicting, and/or manipulated data on the actual events. In Roeg's film, the technique is used to illustrate Newton's increasing conflict and loss of identity as he is increasingly corrupted by earth's harmful influences upon him. --80.187.108.120 (talk) 09:19, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Fascination with Television

Though the article implies that Newton's fascination with television is a debilitating obsession I have to disagree. Newton explains the Anthean's mastery of English in that they (the Antheans) have been monitoring earth's broadcasts for years. In fact Newton's mastery of English, American customs, knowledge of pawn shops (so he can pawn numerous wedding bands) and his disguise all indicate an advanced knowledge of America; his destination from Anthea. This also helps explain his recording. Had the album gotten air-time his messages would have been broadcast and picked up by his people. William (Bill) Bean 18:32, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I was going to comment about the absence of mention of TV after reading the article as well - that is the thing that I always remember about the movie, because it mirrored one of the scifi plot devices - the way aliens might misunderstand us by watching our TV or whatever. At one point when he's watching the bank of TVs he makes a comment in response something like "it's not like on TV" in response to the comment something like "why do you have all those TVs?" This is, to me, an important feature of the film that makes it classic scifi rather than a boring space western. Mulp (talk) 03:50, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

He's not saying that line while watching TV, he's actually saying it while he's inside the intended spaceship capsule with Bryce and Bryce mentions TV in some fashion, and Newton replies that nothing is ever true on television.

Anyway, there's also one more important scene (the one where he's having his first quarrel with Mary-Lou) which shows that he's not only fascinated with television (and alcoholic beverages), but has grown addicted to them, as we see they are actually driving him insane and are probably harmful to him. That's why he's screaming at the television sets that they should "shut up" and "get out of his head", but he's not able to turn them off in spite of the torment they're obviously causing him, and most likely not just because what they're saying is not true.

(There may be a sub-text of critique of modern mass media to the scene and the entire film where the issue of the inherent harmfulness of modern mass-media is that they're lying/misconstruing things and what they're doing to their audiences, but that's not exactly what Newton's torments are about on a superficial or "in-universe" plot level. Also note how human interactions in general at first appear inherently rude and violent to Newton, and the bittersweet strain of nostalgia that runs throughout the film, for example when Mary-Lou tells him of how times were better when trains still had a lot more luxury and neat details, in the lyrics to the song Try to remember, and Newton's recurring memories of his home planet. Ironically, we today may feel even more nostalgia when seeing the film, because it shows how much it's the work of an auteur of the bygone New Hollywood era that would end circa in the early 1980s.)

That scene of him shouting at the TVs (and the film's overall strain of bittersweet nostalgia) has inspired a number of reviews that read the film as a parable of an alien who came to our world to save his own, but falls victim to our seductive, decadent vices and our alienating and consumerist culture corrupting him and chaining him to our planet (just as his literal captivity later in the film and the non-consensual scientific experiments on him do), which is why his mission is doomed to fail from the beginning. For instance, one German film encylopedia holds that Roeg's film is about "the individual's impotence in a world controlled by consumerism and corporations". It's also why Bowie's "instinctual" performance of Newton as somebody who's "falling apart" over the course of the story was just right and what Roeg had wanted. I suspect one reason for the film's nostalgia is that Newton increasingly loses his connection/attachment to his home planet as earth's vices and culture are corrupting him. It's almost as if his recurring immaterial memories of his home and of being an alien (rather than just an abominable freak) would be the last things that keep him sane, and what the scientists do is destroy his identity for good when they take his ability to remove his human disguise. The irony of Newton's corruption is that his alienation works in such a way as that he becomes less and less alien and more like humans, but it's definitely unhealthy for him, and the film's underlying message is that it's just as unhealthy for us when the system is molding us according to its needs.

To reference the points from my last paragraph, it almost feels like the film is an adaptation of two chapters from Theodor W. Adorno's Minima moralia: No. 146, Trader’s shop, on disenchantment of the world in our eyes as we grow up due to it forcing alienation upon us by utilitarian economic means and the culture aka entertainment industry (both resulting in cold instrumental reason within us), and another chapter I couldn't find right now on imaginative, projective nostalgia for "things that never were" (upon which we may project all the good things that the world makes us repress within us as we grow up) as the only viable utopia in a world where utopias are forbidden, that has never been good to begin with, and where things are only progressively getting worse by remaining true to themselves. It's like the song lyrics from the film's soundtrack say, "Try to remember, the kind of September, when life was slow and oh-so-mellow, [...] when grass was green and grain so yellow, [...] when you were young and a callow fellow, try to remember...and if you remember, then follow!" In short: Don't forget that the world could be a better place, no matter how brutally it's violating you and everybody else. --80.187.108.120 (talk) 07:17, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Inventions

It would be interesting to look at some of the inventions in the film and compare them with subsequently accomplishment of the same features in reality. For example, wasn't there something about a disposable camera? Cranky1000 19:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but it essentially a shiny Kodak Brownie which made it far from cutting-edge or predictive of new technology. - Dravecky (talk) 05:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

What's ironic is that by the time the film came out, at least two "futuristic" technologies mentioned were already around which weren't when the book was published: "Self-developing films" (see instant film) and auto-focus cameras, albeit the latter not in still photography. By the time of the film's release, two Super8 cameras had just appeared on the market, one by Agfa and one by Revue (a photographics brand name used by the German mail order company Quelle), with an autofocus feature that was achieved by means of ultrasonic, where the cameras measured the distance to the subject by emitting an ultrasonic signal and waited for it to be reflected back, and by the time the signal needed to return calculated the exact distance. I think the TV ad also mentions "automatic exposure", but that was already around when the book came out. --80.187.108.120 (talk) 07:27, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

In the 30-minute DVD interview mentioned below, Roeg talks about how when he and Mayersberg were writing the script in the early 70s, everybody kept saying that all of Newton's inventions of autofocus and autoexposure cameras would be impossible and silly and egregious and that's why nobody wanted to give them any money to fund the film, and when the film finally came out, all the things were around already. --80.187.110.67 (talk) 05:40, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

2007 movie

The IMDB page now says (2009) instead of 2007 after the title. Has the release date for the remake been moved? I can't seem to find any news about it. Should references to 2007 in the article be updated to 2009? Drewivan (talk) 00:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Critical Reception

Cult film? 87% on Rotten Tomatoes.--Timtak (talk) 03:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

A film might receive many exceptional reviews, but be embraced by only a small part of the movie audience. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 20:11, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess the common definition of a cult film is if it's not commercially successful but either received glowing reviews and/or has a loyal fan following. This film obviously qualifies on all of these criteria. --80.187.108.120 (talk) 07:47, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Running time, edited versions

Was there ever any mention here of the different versions with different running times? Ebert's negative review of the original U.S. release, cited in the article, admits "(the film) was apparently at least 30 minutes longer in its British version. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe the connections and the structure worked better in Roeg's original cut."

Does anyone have any references for this? Have not found anything about what was cut for the original U.S. release. I'll continue to look into it... and will post here whatever sources I can find. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garrieb (talk • contribs) 13:52, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

terrible adaptation

Roger Ebert was right in criticizing this film. I hated it before I ever read the novel. Anyone who's read it knows what a terrible -- and self-serving -- adaptation Roeg made. Additional negative critical comments are needed. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 20:15, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

This isn't IMDb. If you want to bitch/read bitching comments about this movie go there or to similar forums. HypertimeTraveller (talk) 03:20, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Crikey! And how is it an even stronger point that he hated it before reading the novel? People are strange, as someone once said.--TEHodson 03:29, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Irony?

No mention is made about the irony of Bowie playing the role of an alien who lands on Earth for a specific mission, considering that was the same basis for his most famous persona? 70.52.79.173 (talk) 08:47, 5 April 2012 (UTC)