The Man Who Fell To Earth (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] by Nicholas Roeg at DVD Hills.com

The Man Who Fell To Earth (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

The Man Who Fell To Earth (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
by Nicholas Roeg

Our Price: $179.95
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $174.00 (click here)
Category: Blu-ray
See more Blu-ray details

Buy this Blu-ray movie at online store in your country
Canada

Blu-ray details

Actor: Buck Henry, Candy Clark, David Bowie, Rip Torn
Director: Nicholas Roeg
Brand: Image Entertainment
Blu-ray: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 104 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: 2008-12-16
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion Collection

Blu-ray Reviews of The Man Who Fell To Earth (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Blu-ray Review: Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do . . .
Summary: 4 Stars

"The Man Who Fell to Earth" reached American theaters in a truncated form one year before "Star Wars" blew open a giant junk-shop door in the culture that still hasn't closed to this day. "The Man Who Fell to Earth" was a complicated film that had David Bowie, at the height of his exotic powers, as its main calling card. It told the story of a space traveler from a dying planet, with a visual intelligence similar to the same filmmaker's "Walkabout." "Star Wars" was a comic book come to life. Guess which one Americans fell in love with? The Criterion Collection blu-ray of "The Man Who Fell to Earth" gives the film a second chance to get overlooked, ignored or puzzled over in the marketplace. Thank you! Many minutes have been restored in this, director Nicholas Roeg's approved version, and, as others have written, the transfer and sound are gorgeous to behold. Blu-ray is a brilliant format, and that stores and Netflix are charging more to rent them will inhibit their growth. They should become the norm, the standard. They are amazing. My video store, Potomac Video, rents them at the same price as DVDs, as they should. I thank them. Retailers should stop killing the goose that could lay their golden egg, and put blu-rays front and center in their displays. Have you ever noticed that the physical video stores still remaining don't sell hardware -- DVD players and blu-ray players? They just don't get it.
Anyway, what struck me most in revisiting "The Man Who Fell to Earth" all these years later is Candy Clark, who I believe turns in one of the finest film performances of the '70s here. She is heartbreaking as a simple southwestern hotel housekeeper who finds herself shacking up with an alien who she loves but can't possibly fathom. Knock that role out of the park, and you are a great actress. She was three years removed from her triumph (Academy Award nomination) in "American Graffiti" and had done no notable work in the interim. How can this be? Why did Hollywood overlook this gifted and beautiful actress? It would be two years before she returned with an aging Robert Mitchum in a little-seen remake of "The Big Sleep." She then reprises her role in an inferior return to "American Graffiti," makes something forgetable, and then winds up with Michael Moriarty in "Q: The Winged Serpent" from nut job Larry Cohen. I like her challenging work, but Candy Clark deserved a much better career. Her character's life with Bowie's alien is marked by her increasingly desperate attempts to please him. She could handle the gun play during sex, a scene that had enormous impact in its day, but his detachment and obscured motives bring her to ruin, and she begins to reach for anything, including making herself look like a geisha, showing her total, clinging, pathetic devotion to him. It is a remarkable performance that climaxes several times when she finds out the truth. She is the human center of the film. Another human aspect is the portrayal of a gay couple in "The Man Who Fell to Earth." This was 1976, mind you, many years before "Brokeback Mountain," and yet it is a mature, matter-of-fact display of two men who live together. No over-the-top hysterics, none of the laughing and twittering that still too often is a signal to the audience that it is ok to accept gays in culture. It is quite a nice piece of quiet commentary in a film about a being from another planet. Band of outsiders, indeed. The story, which from reading some other reviewers here, was hard to grasp, is that Bowie's Thomas Newton has come to earth because there is abundant water on the planet. His ambition is to find a way to save his home, or at least the wife and children he left behind. With nine original patents he becomes one of the richest, most powerful businessmen in the world, and he drives that wealth toward building a ship that will take him back through space. He is absolutely otherworldly and the joke is that he says he is from England. Business competitors don't like that he doesn't play ball and infiltrate and destroy his empire and then he is captured and experimented on by the government while being made into an alcoholic. The film is a subtle but blistering commentary on modern American culture, its trash television, its addictions, its vacuousness, its pornography, its casual violence, its destructive capitalist nature, its secrecy, its inhumane medical apparatus, the absence of empathy for those not like us, the inability to make deep emotional attachments, it goes on and on. "Star Wars' was lucky not to have predated its exacting knife. It is also, as if that is not enough, a tragic masterpiece, with two loves unrequited, the woman who loves the alien and the alien who can never again return to his family back home. Time passes by and everyone ages but Bowie. It's shattering to see, more so because of Roeg's remarkable restraint. The old adage, "Show, don't tell," is on full display. No, there is not a lot of action; yes, it is beautifully thought-out and rendered. There is a scene in which Bowie takes a scientist into the capsule he's built to fly home (a shot of it was used on the cover of the original release of the "Station to Station" album) and asks if he could be comfortable in there. The scientist replies that he would go stir crazy very quickly. I think potential viewers of the film have to ask themselves the same question because this is no thrill ride on the Millennium Falcom, that's for damn sure.

Write your own review

More The Man Who Fell To Earth (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] reviews:
1 2

Description of The Man Who Fell To Earth (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH - Blu-Ray Movie

Bestsellers in DVD

The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]
Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video

Wresting With God [VHS]
by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops: ~~$19.99~~

Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS] Image

Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]
Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops: ~~$44.00~~

Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS] Image

Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]
HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops: ~~$9.98~~

Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/Party Video [VHS] Image

Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]
HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video

Strike the Original Match [VHS]
New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops: ~~$14.95~~

Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image

Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]
JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99

Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008 Image

Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008
by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops: ~~$1,463.24~~

Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single User Image

Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single User
by Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops: ~~$1,463.24~~

Cost Accounting [VHS]
by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video

Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs

Orpheus (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
Criterion; Release date: 2011-08-30; Blu-ray
Best price: $23.96
Price in other shops: ~~$39.95~~

Belle de Jour (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
Image Entertainment; Release date: 2012-01-17; Blu-ray
Best price: $28.63
Price in other shops: ~~$39.95~~

World on a Wire (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
Release date: 2012-02-21; Blu-ray
Best price: $27.99
Price in other shops: ~~$39.95~~

Kuroneko (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
IMG; Release date: 2011-10-18; Blu-ray
Best price: $24.45
Price in other shops: ~~$39.95~~

Army of Shadows (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
IMG; Release date: 2011-01-11; Blu-ray
Best price: $20.68
Price in other shops: ~~$39.95~~

Godzilla (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
Image Entertainment; Release date: 2012-01-24; Blu-ray
Best price: $27.82
Price in other shops: ~~$39.95~~

Anatomy of a Murder (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
Release date: 2012-02-21; Blu-ray
Best price: $27.99
Price in other shops: ~~$39.95~~

The Third Man [Blu-ray]
Lions Gate; Release date: 2010-09-14; Blu-ray
Best price: $21.65
Price in other shops: ~~$39.99~~

Blow Out (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
IMG; Release date: 2011-04-26; Blu-ray
Best price: $23.00
Price in other shops: ~~$39.95~~

Pierrot le fou (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
Image Entertainment; Release date: 2009-09-22; Blu-ray
Best price: $26.41
Price in other shops: ~~$39.95~~

The Man Who Fell To Earth (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]