The Man Who Fell to Earth

It’s not the alien who’s strange, but rather Planet Earth’s human civilization: the pale, red-haired man – David Bowie in his first major acting role, modelled on his androgynous Ziggy Stardust persona – who lands on Earth one day and calls himself Thomas Jerome Newton. He is able to imitate the dominant capitalist system so well that he manages to build a corporation in a short space of time and amass countless wealth. Yet in so doing, he loses sight of his goal of supplying his home planet with urgently needed water. His outstanding intelligence and empathy enables him to adapt so precisely to human beings that he himself becomes one of them. With this idea, Roeg also captured the 1970s zeitgeist: the utopias once yearned for have failed, and disappointment is spreading. (al)