The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
(Criterion Streaming, August 2019) To seasoned Science Fiction fans, there’s a big difference between genre SF and SF that merely uses the tropes of the genre without knowledge of the various techniques developed through generations of SF writers to maximize their impact. Nicholas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth is certainly an example of the second type of SF: It features David Bowie as an alien (great casting!) but doesn’t really commit to anything startlingly original in SF terms. Our alien is a smart fish out of water (literally so, as the film somehow has him coming to Earth to save his world from drought), but the script treats him as a punching bag throughout—his romantic relationship predictably fails once he reveals his true form, the government experiments on him for what suggested to be decades, and he spectacularly fails at what he came here to do. Expect no triumphalism, no victory, not much humour either: it’s a typically mid-1970s dour piece of work, predating Star Wars’ SF renaissance by a year and what feels like irreconcilable differences. I certainly get why The Man Who Fell to Earth earned a spot in the coveted Criterion collection: it’s meditative, self-consciously artistic, “not like those other childish sci-fi movies” and dull. It spends most of its time in strikingly unspectacular sets: a living room of a small rural house, most notably. Even today, it feels like an oddball entry in the SF genre, not particularly as interested in what SF fans want than in what the director wants to convey. As such, it has amassed a considerable audience over the years. But I’ll count myself out of it: I think that it’s possible to make movies that are both great coherent Science Fiction, playing by the rules of the genre and yet also profound explorations of the human condition. The Man Who Fell to Earth insists on the artistic effect and completely fumbles the SF side, feeling rather silly in its depiction. There’s been much better movies in that vein.
