Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 24, 1993 TAG: 9304240019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The print that played in American theaters was 118 minutes long. The 139-minute version has been around for some time on cassette, but the film hasn't been available as director Nicholas Roeg meant for it to be seen until now with its release on videodisc. This two-disc Voyager version, letterboxed to show the full wide-screen image and transferred to video with absolute clarity, shows that Roeg was ahead of his time.
The filmmaking techniques that were so confusing and challenging 17 years ago have become commonplace. You can see them every day in commercials and music videos. But Roeg's quick-cut, overlapping sound and image, nonlinear, multimedia, time-splitting approach made an unusual story all that more difficult to understand.
On one level, though, the plot is simplicity itself.
A man who calls himself Thomas Jerome Newton (David Bowie) arrives on Earth from another planet. Capitalizing on his advanced technologies, he secures valuable patents and amasses a huge fortune. His mission is to bring water to his desert home. Before he can accomplish that, he is seduced by the luxuries of his success, and the government takes an interest in his activities.
The other key players in his story are Farnsworth (Buck Henry), a homosexual patent lawyer who helps Newton; Bryce (Rip Torn), a lecherous college professor whose life oddly parallels Newton's; and Mary-Lou (Candy Clark), a hotel maid who becomes Newton's Significant Other.
For director Roeg, that story is less important than his ideas about success, love, betrayal and other thorny issues of the human condition. The film can be seen as an allegory on success - Newton as a billionaire, Bowie as a pop star - and how it can become a trap.
That's why the casting of the lead was so perfect. Bowie had already created an image of otherworldly, ambivalent sexuality around himself. Even without gaudy special effects, it's easy to accept him as an alien. And in the end, the movie is about being alien - isolated and different from the people around you.
All of us have felt it and can empathize with the emotion, but the film also shows the other side of alienation, the self-serving side. Bowie's Newton is also saying, "I am so intelligent, talented, brilliant (pick one or more), that everyone else must take care of me while I create, compose, save the world (pick one or more)."
It is true that the conclusion of the film is weaker than the body, but that's not a serious criticism. Compared to many movies of that era, this one has aged gracefully. The previously unseen material, much of it sexual and weirdly comic, makes the story easier to understand.
The liner notes indicate the sequences that were altered or eliminated in the theatrical release. The supplemental section on the disc itself further explains the changes that the American distributors demanded. On a separate audio track, Roeg, Bowie and Henry comment on the film.
The people at the Voyager company take considerable pride the quality of their work. Sometimes the films themselves may not deserve such top-drawer treatment. "The Man Who Fell To Earth" does, particularly when you consider the studio hatchet job it received in the past.
Bowie worked with similar but lighter material a few years later in "The Hunger." This triumph of style over substance has earned a well-deserved cult following on video.
It's a horror movie so handsomely put together that it's never frightening. Bowie and Catherine Deneuve play two sophisticated New York vampires who play duets on cello and piano during the day and kill people at night. Though the film has achieved a certain notoriety for the lesbian scene between Deneuve and Susan Sarandon, the scene in which Bowie suddenly ages is a real knockout.
As director Tony Scott has proved since in such films as "Top Gun" and "Days of Thunder," he can make any subject or setting look terrific. With such an attractive cast and such stylish material, his work was never easier.
\ New releases
Enchanted April: ***1/2 Stars Josie Lawrence, Miranda Richardson, Polly Walker, Joan Plowwright. Directed by Mike Newell. Paramount. 92 min. Rated PG, contains no objectionable material.
This wonderful sleeper from the BBC may not have the classy Merchant-Ivory pedigree of "Howards End" or that film's famous cast, but it's just as good if not better. It begins with a simple premise (four English women spending a month in an Italian villa), then unfolds as a complex and often very funny series of psychological revelations. The sense of place is so strong and vivid in this film that it has a real sense of magic. It's not conventional Hollywood movie magic; it's more fishes-and-loaves magic. Something that's hard to describe but absolutely wonderful.
What the ratings mean:
Memorable. One of the best of its kind; maybe worth owning.
Outstanding. An excellent video, worth searching out.
Average. You've seen better, you've seen worse, but if it sounds interesting . . .
Poor. This is why your VCR has a fast-forward button.
A waste of time and an insult to your intelligence. More a warning than a rating.
Note: Star ratings are not available for reviews from wire services.
by CNB