How An Enigmatic Sci-Fi Film Prompted David Bowie’s Reinvention
Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth showcased David Bowie at his most extraterrestrial.
David Bowie always had an otherworldly quality, even when he wasn’t staying up all night playing with synthesizers and living off of a diet of green peppers and whole milk. When he was, the effect created by his long, thin limbs, white skin, and one eye permanently dilated from a childhood accident — contrary to popular belief, Bowie did not have heterochromia — was downright alien. That made the chameleonic rock ‘n’ roll legend the ideal lead for one of the ‘70s most enigmatic sci-fi films.
The Man Who Fell to Earth — which you can sing to the tune of Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World” if you like; the syllables are the same — is based on a 1962 novel by Walter Tevis, who also wrote the source material for the Paul Newman film The Hustler and the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit. This fact becomes apparent early on in Nicolas Roeg’s film adaptation, which follows the plot of Tevis’ novel beat by beat while keeping the characters’ internal monologues and motivations private. As a result, it can feel like the film is keeping secrets from its audience, which is both frustrating and appropriate to the story.
Bowie stars as Thomas Jerome Newton, an extraterrestrial who takes on the incongruous form of an ethereal Englishman wandering the dusty deserts of New Mexico, home of Roswell and the atomic bomb. As the film begins, Thomas pawns a piece of jewelry that he claims is his wedding ring — until we find out that it’s one of dozens of gold rings he keeps on a chain in his pocket, selling them one by one until he has an envelope full of cash. That’s odd, and so is the interaction between this “visitor” and an attorney named Oliver Farnsworth (Buck Henry), who reads over a few sheets of paper Thomas hands him, along with the envelope full of cash, during a late-night meeting at Farnsworth’s home.
Roeg and screenwriter Paul Mayersberg yadda-yadda their way through the next few years, jumping ahead to Farnsworth as the head of a major multinational corporation and Thomas as the reclusive inventor whose patents are making him, and everybody around him, rich. This is all just backstory, really, creating the context for what Roeg is really interested in: An uncanny character study of an extraterrestrial who is first saved, then destroyed, by humanity and its temptations.
At first, his relationship with Mary-Lou (Candy Clark) — who, despite being several inches shorter than him, is able to carry the polite, quiet, emaciated Thomas to his room when he collapses in her hotel’s lobby — gives Thomas a reason to live. She tells him that he's too skinny, and introduces him to the pleasures of food; she flirts with him, and introduces him to the pleasures of sex. While picking out a property for the home they’ll share, she comments that they’re having a lovely day together; he looks at her, and processes for a moment. So this is what a “lovely day” feels like! More destructively, she also introduces him to alcohol, a substance that will eventually ruin both of their lives.
A concensus around Bowie’s performance was that he wasn’t really “acting.”
There are other characters and storylines in the film, including Rip Torn as a scientist and former college professor who figures out Thomas’ secret not long after they meet. But Roeg is mostly interested in the visuals, lingering on Bowie’s body and observing his expressions as he experiences sensations and emotions for the first time. The pop star’s unearthly appearance, enhanced with his two-tone hair and pale skin, undoubtedly does a lot of the work; in a scene where Thomas takes off his human disguise and shows Mary-Lou his true form, all that’s needed is a bit of latex and some reptilian contacts. But Bowie also emanates an aura of dissociation, as if he’s detached from and can’t relate to those around him. In life, that’s a side effect of being famous; in this movie, the angst has an extraterrestrial source.
Over the years, a consensus has formed that Bowie, frail and frequently high on cocaine, wasn’t really acting in Roeg’s film. He was just being his twitchy, bizarre self. Bowie built up this legend in interviews, telling Rolling Stone in 1983 that “just being me was perfectly adequate for the role. I wasn't of this earth at that particular time." But while it’s true that the mid-’70s were a low period for the musical legend — he retired his Ziggy Stardust character in 1973, and spent much of the next few years in a self-described “fugue state” — his experience putting on, and then taking off, his stage personas arguably not only prepared him for acting in general, but for this role specifically.
Bowie was originally supposed to compose the music for The Man Who Fell to Earth, but the job eventually went to The Mamas and the Papas’ John Phillips. (Again, it was a chaotic period in Bowie’s life.) A year later, however, all that searching turned up something brilliant, as in 1976 Bowie re-emerged with an album called Low that added electronic and ambient dimensions to his glam-rock sound. The first in his so-called “Berlin Trilogy,” it was the beginning of a creatively fruitful and extremely influential period in Bowie’s career. And what did he use as the cover for this album, representing his reinvention as an artist? A still from The Man Who Fell to Earth.
