The centrepiece of Pop Screen’s Bowie month could only be one thing: David’s first, extraordinary lead role, as the alien Thomas Jerome Newton in Nicolas Roeg’s trippy science fiction masterpiece. For those unfamiliar with the film, Bowie plays an extraterrestrial sent to Earth to bring water back to his home planet, funding his return trip by patenting alien technology. But the world of high finance drags him off course, as do Earthly temptations like alcohol and weird sex. Lots of weird sex.
In this week’s episode of Pop Screen, Graham is joined once again by Rob from Directors Uncut to look at the many facets of this enigmatic film, and marvel at just how banjoed on cocaine Bowie was during this period of his life. There’s also some talk about the recent TV series based on Walter Tevis’s source novel, the unexpected actors – and one novelist – who might have taken Bowie’s role, and Rip Torn’s infamous appearance in Norman Mailer’s Maidstone.
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David Bowie in The Man who fell to Earth
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