Post by FRANK the giant bunny on Mar 21, 2011 15:24:34 GMT -5
THE STORY OF THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH:
Interestingly, the film "The Man Who Fell to Earth" is very similar to the story told on David Bowie's classic 1972 concept album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" the biggest difference being that on the album the character is a doomed-fated rock and roll star with a messiah complex, whereas in the movie Bowie plays a doom-fated business man with a messiah complex.
The story is of Thomas Jerome Newton a stranger from a strange world (literally) who comes to earth in the hope of saving his planet, the planet from which he came (though the name is never mentioned) is drying up and dying. His plan is to make enough money so that he can bring water back to his planet and save it, he would do this by building a spaceship. Of course no one is aware of this, to everyone around him he is simply a strange multi-millionaire recluse.
He enlists the help of several people, one of which is a lawyer who specializes in patents, Newton has brought with him 9 basic patents for various new technologies. When the lawyer informs him that for starters, he is looking at 100 million dollars, to which Newton implies....."No! I need more" Rip Torn plays an alcoholic womanizer (mostly 18 years olds) and college professor who discovers Newton's company and is immediately exited by the idea of coming to work for him. The film features several violent love scenes between Rip's character and some of the young collage girls, this is shown in stark contrast to Newton and his relationship with Candy Clark's character Marry Lou (Betty Jo in the novel).
Everything was going according to plan until Mr Newton gets involved in a relationship with Marry Lou/Candy Clark (nominated for an Oscar for the role), who is a fully fledged alcoholic herself. For obvious reasons Newton has an obsession you might say with water, which he is constantly drinking, but slowly he begins to falter. Among his other peculiarities is his aversion to certain kinds of motion. Marry Lou who is working as a maid in a hotel brings Mr Newton up to his room via the elevator, Newton instantly gets dizzy and collapses against the wall of the elevator with blood running from his nose. The character of Thomas Newton and the collage professor seem to share a connection with one another, in one scene as Newton lies sick in bed after his experience in the elevator Nathan Brice can be seen in bed with yet another 18 year old college student. Newton is half awake, while Brice is screwing his 18 year old student, here we are shown a glimpse of what could be viewed as some kind of psychic connection between the two.
Every single character is in one way or another ostracized from the rest of society, each is a victim of their own devices. The lawyer is virtually blind and has to wear really thick glasses, another nice little aspect of his character is that he is a homosexual, but nothing is really made of his sexuality. Marry Lou bears the crutch of her drinking habit and Brice his womanizing and alcoholism. Newton is of course an alien and also develops a drinking habit, soon he becomes totally marred in materialistic concerns, a virtual prisoner of the fortune and material possessions that he has gathered around himself. Throughout the film we are shown glimpses of his planet and of his family who wander the endless desert waste lands that have replace the lush vegetation which once covered their planet. By the end of the movie all Newton's secrets are revealed, the ship he had constructed is destroyed by the government (presumably) and he himself is carted away to become a prisoner. Thereafter he is constantly poked and examined by doctors who it seems are trying to de-alienize him, as it were.
His mission fails and he has for all intensive purposes become an average human, at least physically. Marry Lou is gone, Brice betrays him, the lawyer who eventually becomes his partner is murdered by the governmental agency that is bent on destroying Newton's company. Everything he has worked for is taken away but as he says at the end of the film......."Might not see as well anymore.....still have money"
THE GNOSIS OF THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH:
1. [...] a fallen spark of the divine substance. Since this exists in each man, we have the possibility of awakening from our stupefaction.
2. For man, the universe is a vast prison. He is enslaved by the physical laws of nature
3. [...] his powers of spiritual self-awareness stupefied by materiality
4. [...] space and time have a malevolent character and may be personified as demonic beings separating man from God.
5. [...] the effort is to restore the wholeness and unity of the Godhead
One of the major aspects of all Gnostic myth is the concept of alienation, the true God in fact who exists above the false creator God is often referred to as the alien God. The true God exists outside the universe and is not directly connected to it, reality remains outside the realm of the Godhead, and the creator of materiality is himself distanced from the source. This condition is representative of the human being who is cut off from all contact with the divine source from which he came. Man instead has to rely on the material and the physical, it is materiality which has become a substitute, or rather a way to feel connected and fulfilled. Physical existence being far easier to understand and relate to then the unknowable source. It is from this original condition that the soul (spirit/mind/consciousness) has become separated, within all of humanity there exists a spark of light, a minuet portion of the original state, this is the true interpretation of the fall described in the Geneisis.
The sparks of light have fallen from the source, eventually winding up in material bodies with only a tenuous connection to the divine, although the sparks have fallen from the source there still remains a part of the soul that still resides within the pleroma (fullness), it is therefor the task of all to establish a connection (or re-connection) with the divine. Thomas Jerome Newton represents this fallen spark of spiritual light which has come into the world and unfortunately has become trapped, bogged down by all types of materialistic distractions.
Once Newton is forcibly contained the doctors who have been chosen to look after him begin their treatments and experiments to see if Newton is really an alien or merely a fraud. The doctors medicate him, as it were with alcohol, which seems to never fail. Blood is taken from him and they do tests in connection with motion as well as various physical exams, his eyes are check also. Newton is very concerned with this, as he tries to explain to the doctors that he can see the flash of an X-ray, Newton has several odd physical characteristics, including skin which he can slough off, a membrane over his eyes which can be removed at will, and apparently no bone structure. All of this, mixed with the fact that he never ages makes Thomas Newton one strange specimen, but by the end of the story this is remedied by the doctors. Ignoring Newton's concerns the doctors (who represent the malevolent character of space and time) give him the eye exam anyway, the lenses are now permanently stuck. Inevitably his missions fails, the distractions of materiality win out.
"Those who have not attained to a liberating Gnosis while they were in embodiment may become trapped in existence once more."
-A Brief Summary of Gnosticism (Stephan A. Hoeller Gnostic Bishop)