Chris Flackett
Some things never appear to age. Much like Thomas Newton, the main character in Nicholas Roeg’s Sci-Fi cult classic The Man Who Fell to Earth, who remains static in age and forever young in his appearance, The Man Who Fell to Earth itself feels strangely timeless, even with its obvious seventies fashions and David Bowie in the starring role. The film turns 50 years old this year, having been released in March 1976, and marks, not one or two, but three big anniversaries for “The Thin White Duke.” It will be 50 years for both The Man Who Fell to Earth and his album Station to Station (arguably one of his best, with a still from this film on its cover), and 10 years since his sad passing.
A lot of the attention on The Man Who Fell to Earth tends to fall on Bowie, understandably considering how ingrained in pop culture he is, and the parallels between the film and his then-contemporary existence (the short version: milk, peppers, Aleister Crowley and copious amounts of cocaine). This does add a fascinating tension to a viewing of the film; a man acting out a fictional version of his own real-life alienation.
What really stands out on a viewing of the film from the vantage point of 2026 is how predictive certain elements of the film are of our contemporary life, from social media and information overload to governmental conspiracy to disconnection and an increasing lack of empathy in the world. It’s an act of sci-fi soothsaying, and it all begins with its original writer’s own alienation.
Putting the ‘Alien’ into Alienation
The Man Who Fell to Earth began life as a 1963 novel by Walter Tevis, and both the book and the film broadly follow the same plot: Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien from an unnamed planet suffering a drought, crash-lands on Earth to ship some of its water back to his own planet to save it. He generates massive wealth by using his advanced technology to patent certain inventions, which leads him to become one of the most powerful businessmen in America.
The wealth, in fact, is being used to fund the creation of a ship that can carry Newton and the water back home, but the Government distrusts Newton and has possibly been tipped off to his true nature. Newton is prevented from his flight and is kept under house arrest, where he falls further and further into alcohol dependence and depression. After an unspecified amount of time, at least decades, Newton leaves his “prison” after it appears the authorities have simply forgotten about him after all this time.
Knowing that his wife and children have most likely died by now from the results of his planet’s drought, and not having the means to get home anymore, Newton records a music album containing secret messages which he hopes will travel by radio waves to his home planet. The record appears to be a nod to Bowie being a musician—and check the posters for Young Americans in the record store—but was actually in the original novel. Newton is then found at the end of the film drinking alone, with no hope, no way home, and nothing to do but keep on drinking.
Even in a brief synopsis like this, what jumps out at you is the inversion of the typical sci-fi tropes around aliens. Newton is no invader. At worst, he’s a potential thief, looking to steal water. The motivation comes from a place of morality and desperation. However, he does not present as monstrous, evil, conquering or murderous. He transforms himself into a human appearance so as not to be discovered, as this would make it difficult for him to deal with humans. He does not wish us harm; he does not really wish us anything. Newton just wants to go back home.
As such, he keeps his distance, only allowing his human partner, Mary-Lou (Candy Clark of American Graffiti), to stay with him as she initiates him, despite his initial resistance, into the human pleasures of sex and alcohol. And even then, she appears to be more of a slave than a lover. She cooks and cleans, she makes Newton drinks and keeps him comfortable. There is no intimacy outside of sex, and even then, in the film’s surprisingly graphic sex scenes (considering Bowie was a big star, certainly in England), Newton comes across more as a scientist, fascinated by the naked flesh as a specimen and the sexual sensations as an experiment. There is no love: just obsession on the part of Mary-Lou and indifference on the part of Newton.
It speaks clearly to Walter Tevis’ own feelings that he put into the novel, claiming that the book functioned as a disguised account of his own battles with alcoholism and his decline because of this. This speaks to a kind of alienation and outsiderism that Newton clearly experiences in the book and film, shutting people out, indifferent to the world, unable to connect to anyone or anything, consuming endless bottles of Beefeater gin, and lost in one’s own interior landscape.
But how does this alienation speak to the world today?
Sci-Fi Screentime
One of the most famous images in The Man Who Fell to Earth is the sight of Thomas Newton sitting prostrate in front of a wall of televisions, each showing a different programme. It’s an image that appears to be distinctly dystopian—a wall of technology forever recording, forever watching and being watched, with a person in the middle of it kept prisoner to the passivity it produces. In the film, Newton remembers how he learnt about Earth cultures from television, and reflects that television can depict the world, but it cannot give us the true essence of the world. What we consume is a representation, nothing more, but these representations are often mistakenly taken for the real thing.
While not intentionally predictive, The Man Who Fell to Earth does also, with these televisions, eerily seem to suggest social media decades before it was invented. It’s partly the screens. They seem to be in most homes and buildings Newton goes into. Not only that, but Newton seems addicted to the screen. He becomes engrossed, detached from his surroundings, unresponsive, gazing with morbid fascination into the televisual abyss. The number of televisions increases as the film goes along, from one to three to a wall of screens.
In its way, it reflects that screens have become indelibly integrated into our day-to-day existence. The majority of us have a TV in our homes, and many of us will have a laptop/PC and possibly a tablet device as well. More than that, the majority of us also carry smartphones with us everywhere we go: from home to commute, from work to a night out, from shopping and back to home. Most of us will scroll our screens as soon as we wake up, as the same screens lie near us while we sleep. While I’m as guilty of this as anyone, when you think of this constant carrying of a screen, the near-ubiquity it has in our lives, it’s quite unnerving. Newton has reprieves from the screen when he travels, but he allows himself to be dominated by them in his own, the increasing number matching the increase in screens we have seen in our homes since the turn of the millennium.
It’s Newton’s unease with the televisions, however, and his inability to stop watching, that speaks to a deeper issue in contemporary society. In one memorable scene, Newton is watching his wall of televisions, and as the camera flicks from one screen to another, we see a variety of images relating to a variety of genres (documentary, news, drama, entertainment). Newton starts to become distressed, and it appears it is by the sheer amount of content he’s consuming at once as opposed to the nature of that content, unless the film is making the point that Newton is upset by what he perceives to be the pointlessness of the content. There’s certainly nothing especially damning about human behaviour in what he watches; no war footage for example. His distress reaching a peak, Newton begins to scream: “Get out of my mind, all of you! Leave my mind alone”.
If we take the idea to be true that Newton is upset about the amount of content as opposed to what it depicts, then The Man Who Fell to Earth can be said to accurately reflect certain contemporary anxieties and arguments about social media. To be clear, I am not preaching here. I use certain social media, and this article is not intended to take a certain side of the argument. As social media usage has increased, there has been an commensurate increase in studies and concerns about the idea that information overload from constant use of the internet and social media can negatively affect mental health.
Think about how we use certain social media. The likes of Facebook, TikTok, X/Twitter, all feature an endless, rolling stream of content that we can scroll and flick through, seeking out things we want to see. In the process, we are subject to a myriad of content featuring many different subjects, from our friends’ baby photos to constant up-to-the-minute news, from film, music and sports discussion, to political arguments, from videos of dance routines and pets overdubbed with humorous voices to images of pornography and violence. It’s a substantial amount of varied topics for the brain to process in a short period of time. Not only that, but the act of scrolling can be so engrossing that you, like Newton, can get wrapped up in what you are viewing to the extent you become partially unaware of other things around you. Take time, for instance. Who hasn’t gone on some TikTok binge, Twitter response doomscroll or down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, only to look up and be surprised by how much time has passed without us being conscious of it.
The argument is that this constant social presence in our lives affects our mood, especially where certain social media platforms push more negative content to drive clickbait. A study by Matthew Price, PhD, found “an association between the amount of exposure to news on social media and more depression and PTSD symptoms”.
Which brings me back to Newton, settled in his chair, engrossed in his television sets to the detriment of any relationships with the immediate environment around him—including Mary-Lou. The way in which he increases the number of sets he watches at one time reflects an increase in consuming content in the way a social media user might. The act of watching his televisions, having his attention continually pulled from one screen to another without sticking for long on any one image, reflects the act of scrolling and flicking through images on social media, never sticking for long on any one post, tweet or video. In Newton’s case, though, it appears to ramp up his anxiety to the point of despair. While the presentation of Newton’s despair—the aforementioned screams and demands to be left alone—might appear over the top in the context we’re discussing, no doubt the likes of Matthew Young would recognise the underlying anxiety such screams represent in the context of screentime.
An Abuse of Power and Trust
Perhaps in line with the rise of social media and information sharing, there has been increased discussion, debate, cynicism and outright hostility in regard to Governments and the global Establishment. At the time of writing, in England, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing doubt as to his fitness to lead from all corners in the wake of the Peter Mandelson scandal. Meanwhile, in the United States, President Trump continues to divide the country with his well-publicised desire to control Greenland, and his use of ICE federal agents, resulting in deaths and protests.
What links both Trump and Starmer currently, though, is the idea of an Establishment involved in a secret conspiracy that has allegedly caused severe physical abuse to people. Both Trump and Starmer have become linked by the revelations of The Epstein Files, with Trump having been proven to have been a friend and confidant of Epstein, while Starmer hired Peter Mandelson to be the British Ambassador to the United States, with the belief that background checks would have picked up on Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein, which continued even after Epstein’s first conviction.
What does this have to do with The Man Who Fell to Earth? Nothing in a literal sense. But what the film does portray is the idea of a government plotting in secret to harm someone who is essentially innocent and then physically (although not sexually) abuse them. Newton is not harming anyone by his actions, other than the profits of other businessmen. His space project provides no risk to humanity; if anything, he is attempting to do good by bringing relief to his drought-stricken planet. But because he prevents the accumulation of wealth for government-related companies, and because he is, literally, an alien entity to the government, he is automatically considered to be dangerous and a threat.
It is notable that once Newton is captured, the government does not do much in the way of questioning or particularly talking to him. They do not try to understand him. If they had tried to talk and find common ground or at least some sort of understanding, there would have been no need for apprehending and detaining Newton. But there is no hint or display here of the government doing anything but removing, cataloguing and then ultimately forgetting about a threat. The film does not show how many years have passed, but it does become clear that Newton has been forgotten about. Once he realises he can walk out of the door, he does so, but it strikes me as odd that an authority would detain and experiment on a prisoner, only to not even bother to guard him after a few years. It speaks to a government that is quick to identify a ‘threat’ and act to remove it, only to not consider the wider consequences of their actions, and indeed to lose interest once they have moved on to their next threat.
Perhaps the most perturbing parallel is the physical abuse Newton receives at the hands of the government. Treated as a sample, almost, Newton is spun around, X-rayed, hurt and forced to endure incredible pain and the loss of his real eyes, which are to be forever hidden behind his humanoid disguise eyes due to the X-raying process. Newton screams, pleads, cajoles and even tries to trick his way out of the x-ray, but he is not listened to, nor treated like a human being. In fact, he’s treated like a nuisance, someone trying to waste everybody’s time when they have important work to do. They will not and do not take no for an answer, forgetting about Newton when they are finished with his body.
That Newton is put into this position by his colleague, Dr Nathan Bryce, a man Newton had put his trust in by confirming his alien identity, is interesting. Bryce betrays the trust of the innocent Newton by snitching to the government about Newton’s real origins and form, and the government acts, leading to Newton’s physical abuse. That Dr Bryce, a university lecturer early in the film, is told by the Dean that Bryce is known to have a reputation for young girls, is a curious alarm bell from a contemporary point of view. Now, the Dean is referring to Bryce’s own students, and the girls themselves in the film seem consenting, but it is a clear abuse of power, which later goes hand in hand with Bryce’s abuse of trust, something that leads to Newton’s abuse.
Like I say, it’s a perturbing parallel.
A Real and Varied Love
So, is it all doom and gloom in the world of The Man Who Fell to Earth? Thankfully, no. For whatever crystal ball the film used to gaze into the future, it picked up some thankfully more progressive elements as well, namely in the way the film depicts relationships between two couples that was unusual for the time, not in respect of the existing, because they absolutely did, but they weren’t usually shown on screen like this, matter of fact and respectful.
First, there is the homosexual relationship between Newton’s right-hand man, Oliver Farnsworth (film director and actor Buck Henry), and his partner, nameless in the film. Homosexuality in the cinema by this point had either been hinted at and coded due to fear of censorship, or it was depicted as something inherently comic or dirty, or both. There were very few films, if any, that simply depicted two people, who happened to be men, in a loving, intimate relationship. The Man Who Fell to Earth does not attempt to make innuendos about the two men’s sex life or activities, nor does it appear to draw attention to the fact that it is a gay relationship: this is not for audience titillation. It simply shows two men who care deeply about each other, able to speak intimately and affectionately, with the nameless partner showing loving concern for the problems Farnsworth endures in running Newton’s company. It’s a presentation that must have stood out like a sore thumb then, but happily does not feel out of place when looking at more contemporary representations of same-sex relationships.
There is also the mixed-race relationship between the black agent Mr. Peters (Bernie Casey of Cleopatra Jones) and his caucasian wife (again nameless and played by an uncredited Claudia Jennings—what had they done to upset the writers?) Mixed-race relationships, like homosexual relationships, have existed for centuries, but their representation on the screen was rare and more often than not disrespectful. For The Man Who Fell to Earth to show such a relationship at the time it was made was remarkable in itself, but it presents the relationship as warm, physical and affectionate without forcibly drawing attention to itself—it just is. The film accepts the relationship, as it should, as just another everyday thing. In that respect, The Man Who Fell to Earth feels incredibly modern, and while of course prejudice still exists, it would be ridiculous to pretend otherwise, there is a lot more openness and representation for ‘non-traditional’ couples than in the 1970s. A lot of people are not prepared to hide who they are anymore, and The Man Who Fell to Earth is surprisingly predictive of this.
And yet, the other major relationships in the films are Newton’s emotionally distant, alienated relationship with Mary-Lou, and Bryce’s abuse of power in sleeping with his young students. As The Man Who Fell to Earth seemed to know, there is still work to be done.
