304 The Man Who Fell to Earth

[Ste]

The first printing of the 1976 Pan paperback also mentions, on the back cover, the forthcoming Bowie soundtrack available on RCA Records and Tapes. This was quickly changed for subsequent reprintings of the novel once it became clear the Bowie soundtrack had fallen through.

[miless]

The first printing of the 1976 Pan paperback also mentions, on the back cover, the forthcoming Bowie soundtrack available on RCA Records and Tapes. This was quickly changed for subsequent reprintings of the novel once it became clear the Bowie soundtrack had fallen through.

Station to Station and Low both contain music that was composed for the film but unused by Mr. Roeg in the film (Bowie also used photographs, or artwork based upon them, from The Man Who Fell To Earth as the album artwork)

[Solaris]

It's the last page of Chapter 8 of 1988: Rumplestiltskin. CIA director Van Brugh is telling Newton that 1988 is an election year and that he has it on good authority that the President uses the CIA to spy on the other party, that Watergate "changed nothing."

Yes, the Watergate reference is there. And so is the soundtrack mention on the back cover.

[Ste]

The first printing of the 1976 Pan paperback also mentions, on the back cover, the forthcoming Bowie soundtrack available on RCA Records and Tapes. This was quickly changed for subsequent reprintings of the novel once it became clear the Bowie soundtrack had fallen through.

Station to Station and Low both contain music that was composed for the film but unused by Mr. Roeg in the film (Bowie also used photographs, or artwork based upon them, from The Man Who Fell To Earth as the album artwork)

Neither record was the touted TMWFTE soundtrack album, though, was it? The story of the soundtrack is rather more complicated than you would have us believe.

Principal photography on the film wrapped in August 1975. Almost immediately afterwards, in early September, Bowie entered Cherokee Studios in Hollywood for six weeks of cocaine-fueled madness. Out of the chaos of those sessions was born the Station to Station album. A fabulous record, to be sure, but hardly a suitable soundtrack for TMWFTE. Nor was it intended to be. "TVC15" is sometimes thought of as being written for the film, but apparently it was inspired by a dream of Iggy Pop's in which a television set ate his girlfriend.

Station to Station was in the can by mid-October. With RCA eager for fresh product, and Bowie desperate for money (his recent split with manager Tony Defries had left him in dire financial straits), he was thrown into a series of promotional appearances -- Soul Train, The Cher Show, The Dinah Shore Show, etc. -- and from there into a world tour that lasted until May 1976.

The first, unsatisfactory, sessions for Low took place that summer at the Chateau d'Herouville, outside of Paris, before moving to Berlin. Meanwhile, The Man Who Fell to Earth also premiered over the summer of '76. So the film was already in the theatres before Low was even recorded. Bowie later sent Roeg a finished copy of Low -- released in January 1977 -- with a note that read something like "this is the sort of thing I wanted to do for the film". (Using an old photograph for the album artwork was both a clever pun and a comment on Bowie's withdrawal from public life during this period. Low, profile. Geddit?)

Whilst the sombre instrumentals and self-pitying electro-pop of Low would have made an interesting match for TMWFTE, and were in some small way inspired by the film, there was no hope of it being used as the soundtrack. Again, I question your assertion that it was ever meant to be. With few exceptions, Bowie's working method from The Man Who Sold the World onwards has been to write and construct songs at the last possible minute in the studio. By all accounts, Low did not deviate from the norm in this regard.

Bowie himself cannot be completely blamed for blowing the soundtrack. Further legal wrangling with yet another ex-manager, Michael Lippman, meant that he was never officially signed-on to do the music. Not a single musical note was presented to Roeg, or the film's producers, by Bowie, so, therefore, there was nothing for Roeg to turn down. Roeg and Bowie both felt they had an 'understanding', but in the end Roeg couldn't afford to wait around for Bowie and his management to get their act together. He hired John Phillips from the Mamas and the Papas to do the job instead.

No official soundtrack album -- by either Bowie or Phillips -- was ever issued for The Man Who Fell to Earth.

[Narshty]

Announced for Blu-ray, though the previous promise that their high-def versions "will feature [...] all the supplemental content of the DVD releases" turns out to be nonsense, as the Walter Tevis novel reprint and the Jack Matthews essay have been given the heave-ho.

[Taketori Washizu]

Okay, this has been bothering me for a while. What is the piece of music played during the scene where Newton stares out the window, while Farnsworth is looking over his patents? The scene cuts to a shot of the city and people walking. What is the piece played during this part? Help!

[kinjitsu]

Holst: The Planets: Venus, Bringer of Peace

[Dr. Mabuse]

Blu-ray.com review

[Telstar]

I would love to see some more comments from those who have directly compared the blu-ray's picture quality with that of the standard dvd edition. I'm more than a little annoyed that the blu-ray has a condensed booklet (and doesn't even include the nice, fat book that came with the standard DVD edition), so I'm not likely to upgrade unless the BD appears to be a truly astonishing improvement over what I already own. It would be nice to have both the BD and DVD, of course, but times like these call for tough choices.

[swo17]

I would love to see some more comments from those who have directly compared the blu-ray's picture quality with that of the standard dvd edition. I'm more than a little annoyed that the blu-ray has a condensed booklet (and doesn't even include the nice, fat book that came with the standard DVD edition), so I'm not likely to upgrade unless the BD appears to be a truly astonishing improvement over what I already own. It would be nice to have both the BD and DVD, of course, but times like these call for tough choices.

Or you could take advantage of Criterion's exchange program, keep your thick booklet, and just replace your SD disc with the BD one.

[Telstar]

I'm more than a little annoyed that the blu-ray has a condensed booklet (and doesn't even include the nice, fat book that came with the standard DVD edition), so I'm not likely to upgrade unless the BD appears to be a truly astonishing improvement over what I already own.

Or you could take advantage of Criterion's exchange program, keep your thick booklet, and just replace your SD disc with the BD one.

Yes, but that pretty much defeats the whole idea of being cost efficient. Criterion's "exchange" program winds up costing you even more than the price of a brand new blu-ray during one of the bi-annual 20% sales.

[swo17]

Yes, but it gets you all of the extras from the SD and BD editions in half the shelf space as having both editions. Can you really put a price on shelf space?

[domino harvey]

Just buy a new external harddrive and download the Blu-ray, duh

[Telstar]

But seriously.... what about that picture quality?

[swo17]

Well, here at least are comparisons of all the parts where people are naked.

[domino harvey]

I knew what that was the link for before even hovering over it. Are there any movies where Willem Dafoe appears naked, because I'm sure Gary would like to review them

[wiljan]

Anyone else got the BR without a booklet?

Is there any chance Criterion will send me a new one in The Netherlands?

[Tom Hagen]

Are there any movies where Willem Dafoe appears naked, because I'm sure Gary would like to review them

The Last Temptation of Christ. Think more crucifixion scene, less Magdalene sex scene (which, let's be honest, should never have been considered remotely controversial).

[Barmy]

When IS "Body of Evidence" coming out on blu-ray? =P~

[Tom Hagen]

Ha! And how did I forget about the existence of Auto Focus?

[dad1153]

Caught this on Showtime HD, which I'm assuming is using the same high-def master struck for the Criterion Blu-ray. Having already seen Roeg's "Walkabout" I was sure I knew what to expect. Visually I got exactly that. Roeg's eye for camera framing and long distance shots is nothing short of visual artistry in high-def (although it doesn't have show-off sharpness or detail like other BD's). I had no Earthly idea (get it? ) where the story was going though, or what the hell was going on half the time. As 70's sci-fi movies go this one never once went the way I expected it to. David Bowie can actually act (or at least he did 33 years ago) and he's surrounded by such heavyweight supporting talent (Rip Torn, Buck Henry, Candy Clark, etc.) his non-performance acting bounces off of them effectively. Thomas Newton character's apparent one-dimensionality (pout, sleep, drink, mope, repeat) is perfectly suited for the script's depressing view of the USA military industrial complex system as an alien and unforgiving place for... an alien! =D> Excellent make-up work on the few principals (except for the ageless Bowie) in those latter scenes showing the passage of time as the final endurance test for Newton after failing to save his alien family... assuming those heart-breaking snippets of the aliens dying were even real.

A little boring and slow at times, I enjoyed "Man Who Fell to Earth" because it rewarded my repression of pre-conceptions about what an 'alien' movie should look, sounds and unfold like.

[HistoryProf]

Out of Print as of June 30, 2010. Both blu and sDVD.

[Napier]

I tried to order this BD from Amazon (best price) as it was listed in stock, about 10 seconds after the OOP announcement, and I just got an e-mail saying it was not available from supplier?

[Oedipax]

That's odd, Napier. I ordered the BD from Amazon the day they announced it was going OOP and received my copy yesterday. It's kind of a bummer the bluray doesn't come with the novel like the DVD did, since I'll probably be selling my DVD copy.

[swo17]

Has anyone bought a copy of this with it already in a replacement case? I'm wondering if it's worth waiting to see if the copy I ordered is already in one, or if I should just order a replacement case now.