{"id":7823,"date":"2026-08-26T15:11:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T13:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/?p=7823"},"modified":"2026-08-27T21:09:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T19:09:33","slug":"the-man-who-fell-to-earth-by-nicolas-roeg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/2026\/08\/26\/the-man-who-fell-to-earth-by-nicolas-roeg\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man Who Fell to Earth<\/em> by Nicolas Roeg"},"content":{"rendered":"

The screening of The Man Who Fell to Earth<\/em> I attended last night was preceded by an event with guests and talks about David Bowie\u2019s Berlin period, and there was a lot of sentiment that 2016 had been a terrible year, with so many musicians<\/a> and others lost (and I would add another terrible thing<\/a> that happened in November). Then right there, during the restroom break between the event and the movie, I read the news. Dolly Parton. Gut punch.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t exactly help watching The Man Who Fell to Earth<\/em> after that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s beautiful, but also very sad, not to say cynical; but in the ways the 1970s were cynical, it is.<\/p>\n

I read Walter Tevis\u2019s novel when I was fourteen years old, which was a bit too much. Then I saw the movie when I was sixteen years old, which again was a bit too much. I liked both at the time and they had a lasting if rather diffuse impact, and only over the years did I develop a better understanding of what that impact was.<\/p>\n

What I never understood, though, technically, was why Myersberg\u2019s script changes a sufficient number of elements from the novel\u2019s premises and details to turn its plot into a screaming incoherent mess. This doesn\u2019t affect its narrative, however\u2014it is still beautiful, and the movie makes perfect sense on a less literal level. I also love the terrific acting (Bowie, Clark, Torn, Henry), the cinematography, the bizarre moments and surreal sequences, the character development arcs, the edgy humor, the flamboyant style, the implicit and explicit commentaries on media (painting, photography, music, and especially TV), everything New Mexico, and\u2014last but not least\u2014Jim Lovell\u2019s appearance.<\/p>\n

What particularly hit me with both the novel and the movie was the alienation that proceeds like a dream, when you get sidelined by people and events (plus, in the movie, booze) and forget what you are here for in the first place, but without forgetting that there was something important you wanted to do that you keep forgetting, but it\u2019s too far away now and too late, progressively unretrievable, and the only thing that remains is a daze of sadness and regret.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

The Man Who Fell to Earth<\/em><\/a> by Nicolas Roeg, 1976.
\nWatched at the Bambi theater on August 25, 2026, in its original language.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\ud83c\udfac Not the merriest review I\u2019ve ever written.<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-archive","h-entry","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7823"}],"version-history":[{"count":66,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7900,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823\/revisions\/7900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}