The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

February 8, 2016 2:04 PM

Thomas Jerome Newton is a humanoid alien who comes to Earth to get water for his dying planet. He starts a high technology company to get the billions of dollars he needs to build a return ...

In the wake of David Bowie's passing, I've been rewatching some of his films. The Man Who... is a perfect vehicle for Bowie, his ethereal beauty and detached manner suiting the character down to the ground, so to speak.

posted by Jon Mitchell (7 comments total)

I feel compelled to mention this video review of the movie which is done entirely as a series of Bowie covers
posted by The Whelk at 2:19 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

I watched this at our local hipster drinking-cinema where it was on before Labyrinth, and had my experience mostly ruined by people treating it as something akin to The Room. Very disappointing. Some of the acting and effects are a little hokey and out there, but it's still a thoughtful and enjoyably 70's character study. That video review is just the tonic.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:43 PM on February 8, 2016

*grumblemuttermutter* water is the most common compound in the universe *muttergrumblegrumble
posted by happyroach at 3:06 PM on February 8, 2016

I'll be watching this next weekend as part of a 24 hour scifi movie marathon. I think I saw it back in the 80's, but I've forgotten most of it.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:27 PM on February 8, 2016

There was a period of my life when I watched this movie at least once a week. I had just started college and felt alienated and disoriented, surrounded by privilege and drinking and people having sex all the time. I needed something equally alienating and disorienting, and this was the right movie for that.
posted by thetortoise at 11:34 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hmmm. I guess 15 or however old I was when I watched this was maybe too young? Did it have a plot? Bowie was beautiful and as I recall, decomposing through much of it? I mean, it was no The Hunger...
posted by latkes at 11:38 PM on February 8, 2016

Long before I actually saw this movie, I had a college course, the title of which I can longer remember, but which included among its texts a book with a long passage, running to maybe 50 or 60 pages, talking about this movie being a modern take on Gnostic texts.

Then I saw the movie, shortly after it came out on Blu-Ray, and no longer had that book on hand to reread and see if the argument held up. Pretty good movie, though.
posted by Ipsifendus at 2:24 PM on February 10, 2016