Re: for all mankind, another crappy mooee from 1989

On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 03:01:57 -0600, OM
<om@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 23:27:18 GMT, Alan Jones <alanvj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

You're probably right. I'll try and watch that movie again, when I
have time.

...The movie and the book both need to be read so you can get the main
message that Walter Tevis was trying to get across.

I suspect so, but I rarely read a novel after I've seen the movie.

What the movie
doesn't reveal at the end is what the record album is all about, and
the irony of Newton's final fate. In the movie, Newton winds up simply
a drunk on a very large pension from all those patents he still owns.
He's trapped in his human disguise - especially the eyes - thanks to
all that government testing, so for all practical purposes he's human
now, and is just drinking his days away.

...In the novel, however, Newton is blinded by the x-rays that also
sealed the contact lenses to his eyeballs. He still has his massive
pension - this time from the government, which takes a PR beating over
their picking on a rich industrialist with nothing found to
incriminate him. While he still winds up drinking himself into a
stupor at the end, we find out that the reason he recorded the record
album was that he also bought a radio station to play the damn thing
and broadcast it into space. It's a farewell message for his family,
and a "*** YOU!" message to his government for having sent him on
this one-way mission. The irony of it all is that, although his world
and his people are dying, as fucked up as Earth is and the direction
it's heading, Anthea - Newton's home planet - will still long outlive
Earth and its stupid little humans and their pending nuclear mass
suicide.

The movie does reveal that Newton made the record album for his wife,
believing that it would broadcast on earth radio stations and received
by his wife. Little, if anything, is said in the movie about Newton's
government, or his mission. He is simply trying to save his family,
and he knows that Earth has water and perhaps enough advancement to be
of some help. The movie tries to be a mystery where the viewer slowly
figures out what it is all about as it progresses. However, it fails
in that regard. It is more like a fish out of water story, except
that Newton is too well adjusted and in control.

...On the subject of ironies, one thing most critics agree about the
film is that Bowie was quite probably the only person at the time save
for John Philip Law or - and I'm not making this up - Art Garfunkel
who would have been a) skinny enough or b) odd enough to have pulled
off the role of Newton. One critic asked why they didn't just typecast
Leonard Nimoy in the role, but that bozo obviously hadn't read the
book. The sad fact is that the film could have been done without
Nicholas Roeg's surrealism - the "time jumping" bits and the "Hello
Mary Lou!" sex-shooter scenes in the hotel, for example - and with
Bowie in the title role you would have still believed his performance
as an alien with a completely hollow bone structure underneath a
complete human suit.

THe film was essentially a cinematic orgy of artistic scenes poorly
integrated together. David Bowie was perfectly cast, and he
delivered. However most of his acting is passive, and Mary Lou (Candy
Clark) seems to deliver more acting and dialog. Indeed, you could look
at it as the Mary Lou Story: How I fell in love with a married space
alien. I was also surprised that they did not work in an actual David
Bowie musical performance scene.


...IIRC, the film was redone in a more serious tone a few years back,
but I've never seen it on DVD or even for VHS rental. There was a
request made on a binary group about a year ago, but the only version
anyone had was the Bowie version. That nobody has it doesn't surprise
me; after all, if the original was any good, why settle for a shoddy
knockoff? That Sci-Fi C. Thomas Howell "War of the Worlds" TV version
they did in 5 days to cash in on the Cruise debacle is a good example
of why the original is best.

And yeah, I'm talking about the Pal version :-)

OM

Well, as luck would have it, I recently found this, and watched it:

IMDB INFO: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074851/

Video size: 640x272
Audio 1: MPEG Layer-3, 48000hz, 16bps, 2ch (The Film)
Audio 2: MPEG Layer-3, 48000hz, 16bps, 2ch (Commentary by Roeg, Bowie
& Henry)
Audio Bit Rate: 128kbps VBR
Frame Rate: 23 frames/second
Video Compression: Xvid
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Running Time: 139 Minutes
Language: English
Subtitles: English (External)
Filesize: 1400 Megabytes


Plot: 'The Man Who Fell to Earth' is a daring exploration of science
fiction as an art form. The story of an alien on an elaborate rescue
mission provides the launching pad for Nicolas Roeg's visual tour de
force, a formally adventurous examination of alienation in
contemporary life. Rock legend David Bowie completely embodies the
title role, while Candy Clark, Buck Henry, and Rip Torn turn in
pitch-perfect supporting performances. The film's hallucinatory vision
was obscured in the American theatrical release, which deleted nearly
twenty minutes of crucial scenes and details. The Criterion Collection
is proud to present Roeg's full, uncut version.


I never saw this in a theater. I would have been studying to learn
how to design spacecraft, or earning the money to do so. I did
eventually rent a VHS edition. I found it so bad that I fast
forwarded through some sections. I was particularly put off by the
gay sex scenes, and even the straight scenes had little to do with the
story. I'm not sure what version I actually viewed on VHS. The
version above, claims to be about a 20 minute longer original version,
and it lacks the gay scenes.

This is not one of my favorite movies, and I'm not inclined to
research and differentiate the difference versions. I do get the
sense that it could be edited, perhaps with some off camera narration
added, to make a vastly better movie. The basic premise is good, and
I think most aerospace engineering students fantasize about earning a
gazzillion bucks and starting their own space program.

On the earlier nit, based on the movie, It would seem that just as in
reality, some of the public supported Newton's space flight, and
others did not. Even some of his trusted friends turned on him. It
is true that the "government" shut him down, but it seemed to be more
at the whim of few "loose cannons" (possibly implying J. Edgar Hoover
would so such a thing).

It is also unbelievable that the government would examine Newton in a
lab, and later just release him into the public. It is just a movie,
and not a very good one. It was nominated for a Hugo drama award, but
was not beaten by another movie, rather it was withheld.

Alan

.

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