
My interest is energy – transference of energy. Humanoid alien Thomas Jerome Newton (David Bowie) comes to Earth from a distant planet on a mission to take water back to his home planet,which is experiencing a catastrophic drought. He uses the advanced technology of his home planet to patent many inventions on Earth, and acquires tremendous wealth as the head of a technology-based conglomerate, World Enterprises Corporation, aided by leading patent attorney Oliver Farnsworth (Buck Henry) who carries out all the interactions with people. His wealth is needed to construct a space vehicle with the intention of shipping water back to his home planet. While revisiting New Mexico he meets lonely Mary-Lou (Candy Clark) who works as a maid, bell-hop, and elevator operator in the small hotel where he’s staying. He tells her he is English. Mary-Lou introduces Newton to many customs of Earth, including church-going, alcohol, and sex. She and Newton live together in a house Newton has built close to where he first landed in New Mexico many years earlier. Womanising college lecturer Dr. Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn) lands a job as a fuel technician with World Enterprises and slowly becomes Newton’s confidant. He senses Newton’s alien nature and arranges a meeting with Newton at his home where he has hidden a special X-ray camera. When he steals a picture of Newton it reveals alien physiology. Newton’s appetite for alcohol and television becomes crippling and he and Mary-Lou fight. Realising that Bryce has learnt his secret, Newton reveals his alien form to Mary-Lou. Her initial reaction is one of pure shock and horror. She tries to accept what she sees but then panics and flees. Newton completes the spaceship and attempts to take it on its maiden voyage amid intense press exposure. However, just before his scheduled take-off, he is seized and detained, apparently by the government and a rival company while Farnsworth, is murdered. The government had been monitoring Newton via his driver and he is now held captive in a locked luxury apartment, constructed deep within a hotel. He is kept sedated with alcohol (to which he has become addicted) and continuously subject him to rigorous medical tests, cutting into the artificial applications which make him appear human. Eventually, one examination, involving X-rays, causes the contact lenses he wears as part of his human disguise to permanently affix themselves to his eyes … It happened literally overnight. Paul Mayersberg’s adaptation of Walter Tevis’ 1963 novel is rigorous and finely attuned to the surreal. Bowie was living on milk and cocaine at the time, if his own admissions are to be believed, and his detachment and appearance are central to the success of probably the greatest science fiction film of the Seventies, an exploration of fragility and trust and rotten human behaviour. And it’s also about the alien nation of America, alienation and sex, feeding into contemporary paranoia about the political establishment. The flashbacks to Newton’s home and family are strange and lovely, his arrival in the nineteenth century simply dramatised for extra effectiveness in a narrative based on juxtaposition of the modern and the unknowable. Beautifully constructed, shot (by Anthony Richmond) and edited (by Graeme Clifford), this may well be director Nicolas Roeg’s greatest achievement with a wondrous soundtrack co-ordinated by John Phillips and featuring compositions by Stomu Yamashta. Stunning. I realise you’ve made certain assumptions about me