I’ve been going through my reading notes about a book written by Rob Sheffield called “On Bowie.” So, I came to this chapter about this movie called ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ from the 70s. Before I even read the chapter, I came to the conclusion that Emily and I needed to sit down and watch this film in its entirety. Oh boy, was it bad. It was really bad. I wish I’d read the chapter first before making such a rash decision because, had I done so, I would not have watched said film at all.

In that chapter, there’s a quote from David Bowie about how his one “snapshot memory” of that film was that he didn’t really have to act. His reasoning behind that is that he was not of the earth at that time. Well, let’s be honest, I don’t think David Bowie was ever of this Earth. In fact, there are many times in my own life that I haven’t felt like I’m of this Earth, either. That’s one thing about society, in general – so many of us wear masks and create characters which we play out based on the situations we encounter. 

Indeed, in that same book, Bowie was quoted as being his own “corporation of characters.” I think that’s part of the reason why, from a very young age, I created so many of my own characters. They were just different aspects of my own personality – the kind of people I most admired, the kind of person people wanted me to be, the person I thought I was expected to be, the person I wanted myself to be, and the person I would inevitably become.

That’s one of the beauties of fiction. Much like Taylor Swift sings in “Mirrorball,” “I can show you every version of yourself.” That’s probably why I love that song so much. At the end of the day, the narrative that we tell ourselves is very rarely entirely in sync with our own internal monologues. 

Back to thinking about that film, it was a mess. The cinematography was beautiful, but the pacing was awful. The dialogue was stilted. You could tell that Bowie was just kind of there. He was kind of just standing in front of the wallpaper. And Bowie’s awesome. I love David Bowie. But you could tell that as the project commenced, he didn’t really want to be there. It was not well put together. It was bad. I felt like I’d lost about two hours of my life that I’ll never get back. 

Still, the imagery gave me this impression that there were these great ideas that simply weren’t quite developed to a point where they were relatable. When I look at my own work, I feel like a lot of my own work is sort of like that. It’s beautiful at times, and it can be elegant prose, but it doesn’t really say what it means to say. It’s wallpaper, basically. Like, there’s great ideas in there, and there’s a lot to say. There’s double or even triple or even quadruple entendres in some of these writings that I have made over the years. But I have spent so much of my life acting that I forgot that, oh, maybe at the end of the day, maybe I should listen to my own internal monologue!

In any case, our time is valuable and it should never be wasted on frivolous things, especially films of bizarre spectacle like those called ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth.’