The man who fell from the sky

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Movie
German title The man who fell from the sky
Original title The Man Who Fell to Earth
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 1976
length 138 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Nicolas Roeg
script Paul Mayersberg
production British Lion
music John Phillips
Stomu Yamashta
camera Anthony B. Richmond
cut Graeme Clifford
occupation

The Man Who Fell to Earth (Original title: The Man Who Fell to Earth ) is a British science fiction film from 1976. It is based on the novel by Walter Tevis from 1963. It was directed by Nicolas Roeg , the David Bowie played the leading role .

action

The film tells the melancholy story of a humanoid-reptilian alien with the earthly alias Thomas Jerome Newton including camouflage as a human. Newton "falls" to earth to find water for his desert planet and, with the help of several basic patents, founds the company World Enterprises , a high-tech billionaire company, in order to be able to build a return spaceship.

Thanks to his refined intelligence, which enables him to gain empathic and telepathic insights, he studies the complex paths to power and uses them optimally.

On his research trip deep into the US way of success, he surrenders to the love of the small-town resident Mary-Lou and ultimately breaks due to the ruthlessness, superficiality, fast pacedness and brutality of human civilization as well as his own attempt to fit into a scheme. Blinded, cynical, exposed, abused, locked away and disillusioned, Newton ends up, but he does not age outwardly, as one earth inhabitant among many, as an alien who has lost his roots and his abilities.

backgrounds

The shooting took place in the American state of New Mexico , for example in the local White Sands Desert , as this inhospitable region looks like a barren moonscape. In order to underline this moon-like atmosphere, for example for those scenes that depict the home planet of the alien Thomas Jerome Newton, the British film team was able to make use of the natural light from the sky in this area. Regarding the circumstances of the shoot, cameraman Anthony B. Richmond said in a video interview that is included in the bonus material on the Blu-ray Disc of The Man Who Fell From Heaven : “The optics were incredible, we had incredible weather. The mountains, the clouds. We traveled through New Mexico like a traveling circus […] It was simply fantastic landscapes. ”For those who are obsessed with details, the film has some background information ready: for example, the desert scenes near Roswell, NM , were shot; an allusion to the so-called Roswell incident , which was reported in the US media in July 1947 as a "UFO crash".

The nature of Newton's basic patents also alludes to it in a roundabout way: In 1947, Polaroid launched the legendary Landcam and consequently Newton's first patents were a special instant camera and special glasses with polarizing lenses. The name of patent attorney Oliver Farnsworth appears as an allusion to Philo Farnsworth (one of the developers of television in the United States), as Newton developed a particular love-hate relationship with the medium. One of Newton's earliest business associates, promiscuous college professor Nathan Bryce, is played by actor Rip Torn, who played the role of chief agent Zed in the 1997 comic book adaptation of Men in Black ; Hollywood may have remembered his earlier "contacts with the alien" Bowie.

In David Bowie's 1976 album Station to Station , the film scene when Thomas Jerome Newton enters the interior of the space capsule is used as a cover photo.

For Bowie, who at that time already seemed to be drawn by drugs, this film offered the opportunity to refine and stylize his glam rock image as a “rock star man”, which went beyond mere pop iconography. The originally planned Bowie soundtrack , which Roeg had rejected in favor of an abstract soundscore with ritual-Asian elements, developed into the groundbreaking ambient / instrumental pieces that appeared on LP Low in 1976 .

Shortly before filming began, actress Candy Clark , who can be seen in the role of Mary-Lou, the partner of the extraterrestrial Thomas Jerome Newton, weighed only 51 kilograms due to illness due to a hepatitis infection traded during a trip to South America . However, Candy Clark is of the opinion that the extreme underweight optically fits the spindly character of Mary-Lou embodied by her.

In one film scene, scientists in a laboratory carry out various tests on the exposed alien Thomas Jerome Newton. The scientists cut into the alien's right nipple with a scalpel. Since David Bowie did not want to have used pork blood from the local slaughterhouse for this scene, the cameraman Anthony B. Richmond had to be drawn a bit of blood by a nurse present on location in order to use this real blood in the said medical scene. In another scene in the first quarter of the action, actress Candy Clark carries her acting partner David Bowie on her hands in a hotel room into a hotel room after Bowie collapsed in the hotel elevator in his role as extraterrestrial businessman Newton. However, since actress Clark did not have the strength to carry Bowie alone, the film crew had to improvise by assembling a rolling apparatus from a bicycle seat, a pole and a skateboard , on which Candy Clark rolled David Bowie, crouched on the bicycle seat, down the hall. The camera filmed this performance at an angle so that you can no longer see this device in the finished film. Clark also doubled the role of Thomas Jerome Newton on behalf of David Bowie for a scene filmed in New York City , with the actress stepping out of the World Trade Center with an orange wig and matching disguise .

A well-known succinct phrase from the film is a quote from attorney Oliver Farnsworth, played by actor Buck Henry : "It literally happened overnight - when Mr. Newton walked into my apartment, my old life slipped straight out of the window." : "It happened literally over night - when Mr. Newton came into my apartment my old life went straight out the window.")

Premieres

  • UK: March 18, 1976
  • Germany: June 1976

Reviews

  • Lexicon of international film : Idiosyncratic science fiction film with an overabundance of ideas that uses its unusual cinematic means with great skill. A story worth considering about the lack of opportunities for the individual in a society of consumption and corporations.
  • The time 1976: Roeg not only plays virtuously with utopias of the space age, but thinks the developments of our western economic and social order to the end. His film is a depressing parable about the start and a resolute plea for the fertile freedom to be abnormal.

Awards

Golden Scroll 1977
  • Best Actor: David Bowie
  • nominated:
    • Best science fiction film

literature

  • Walter Tevis: The man who fell from heaven. Roman ("The Man Who Fell to Earth"). Ullstein, Frankfurt / M. 1986, ISBN 3-548-31119-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Video interview with actress Candy Clark, 28 minutes, included in the bonus material on the Blu-ray Disc The Man Who Fell From Heaven , 2016, Arthaus - Special Films + Studiocanal GmbH , Berlin
  2. ↑ Video interview with cameraman Anthony B. "Tony" Richmond, 22 minutes, included in the bonus material on the Blu-ray Disc The Man Who Fell From Heaven , 2016, Arthaus - Special Films + Studiocanal GmbH , Berlin
  3. ↑ The Man Who Fell from Heaven in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used
  4. Jump up ↑ Chaplin, Children, Buffalo Bill . In: Die Zeit , No. 29/1976