MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH: Having already put Mick Jagger’s rock-n-roll mystique to good use in Performance six year earlier, director Nicolas Roeg found the ultimate embodiment of all-things extraterrestrial in David Bowie, casting him in the title role of a visiting alien who conquers then eventually succumbs to the American dream. Or so a critical reading of the film suggests. Based on the novel by Walter Tevis, Roeg’s approach to adapting the material is not unlike Kubrick’s metaphysical take on Arthur C. Clarke’s text of 2001, following the same linear path but with no identifiable road signs or landmarks. The Man Who Fell to Earth is one of the ‘70s last truly laudable experiments in auteur cinema, alternating between cynical social satire and pointedly honest human emotions. As he did in Don’t Look Now, Roeg captures relationships in their most raw form; sex as a contradiction of sensual sterility, love as a necessary byproduct. Indeed, Bowie’s earthbound ET buys and sells people with the same calculated coldness as his business acquisitions. While the story keeps you at a distance, Roeg’s direction draws you in with all manner of unpredictable visual experimentation, as alien to contemporary cinema as the film’s central character. Criterion makes their Blu-ray debut with this title and The Third Man - and a stunning debut it is for the studio with a blissfully film-like quality to the hi-def image...transfer approved by Roeg himself, of course. The double-disc set includes a commentary with the director (plus Bowie and co-star Buck Henry), several interviews with creative personnel, still galleries, liner notes and a special re-printing of the original novel.