The Fascist Who Ell to Earth

Scan page 8

of d Fell avid The press talks incessantly about the "phenomenon" of David Bowie, around whom this film is entirely centred.

The difficulty is to separate the film, which deals with a "visitor" from outer space, from the blurb on the film, which virtually suggests Bowie himself is a "visitor"

INDIVIDUAL

Crucial to the film is the concept of the great individual who emerges suddenly and unexpectedly because he is a "visitor"

This of course is directly the opposite of historical materialism wich shows that individuals develop within a specific historical environment, are shaped and created by that environment, and are therefore not "individuals" in the sense used by capitalists and their ideologists.

Of course this is not to say Bowie is in any sense "great" -however much he deludes himself he is or thinks he can manipulate the public to believe he is.

MANIPULATION

Manipulation of the public is important to Bowie. It is in this way that his publicly acknowledged support for Nazism and its propaganda techniques, and his belief in the necessity for a dictator in Britain (for which role he thinks he would be suitable) find expression. His whole attitude is one of absolute contempt for the working class and his audience as a whole.

Indeed the "phenomenon" of Bowie has been fabricated completely. His music is only an extension of the music already present around him. His miming A Revie film Man Wh Eart Starring owie.

ad acting stage schniques.

MACHINE

For the rest it is the publicity machine of capitalism which does the work. But there is a world of difference between show business publicity and that of the Nazis. Hitler's propagandists did not just work on publicity, but on the brutalising and crushing of the working class deprived of The Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Nicholas Roeg is a "science" fiction film. But instead oi guessing at the future (along the lines of "1984" - which was a vehicle for the politics of George Orwell), this film introduces spacemen as an explanation of the past. But through this medium also the politics of the film-maker emerge clearly.

TECHNIQUE

Technically the film is excellent. The camera work is superb, and the treatment of the "visitors" home planet - with his wife and children dying because of a drought - is breathtaking. (Because a film director is right-wing does not mean he can't make a film: witness 2001 admirer of Goebbels.)

Similarly the make-up of Newton (Bowie) as the "visitor" first of all in his disguise as an Englishman, then in his "natural" form with eyes borrowed from a lizard, is all well done.

But when the deeper significance of the film emerges, its reactionary nature becomes clear.

CAMERA

Newton on arrival visits a lawyer to deal with patents on an extremely advanced Polaroid-type camera which takes perfect pictures. He gets the lawyer to set up a company to produce and market this, and follows it with a whole series of other inventions.

As Newton is set on raising a precise sum of money it soon becomes obvious that his aim is to finance the building of a spacecraft by Tony Richardson.

order to return home.

In the meantime he meets a girl in a motel who seems to consider it only a little bit weird that he can watch a roomful of televisions at one time.

A little later. when, Newton take his eyebrows off and reveals a competely bald white shiny body, with lizard eyes she still tries to make a go of it!

SCIENTIST

He also employs a scientist to work on the production of his spacecraft - and he soon works out what Newton is.

This is not surprising - since he produces everything out of thin air in terms of inventions - while appearing to be only about 25 years old!

Such a phenomenon would be reasonably well-known in the scientific world - unless the filmmakers think scientists develop like pop stars, suddenly leaping to fame overnight.

To this scientist Newton "'reveals" that there have been many other "visitors" - and that the signs are everywhere. This then makes it clear why he was so reluctant to go to church with the girl and why he finds it hard to sing about the "master"

RELIGION

In this way the anti-scientific content of the film connects right up with religion. "He" must have been a "visitor" , along with all the self-proclaimed prophets walking the earth 2,000 years ago, we are told.

The advantage of the "visitors" however is that they have receivers that pick up our TV and radio and . are therefore able to disguise themselves as human beings!

The film fails to tell the viewer how on earth their make-up artists managed 2,000 years ago.

Of course this is one of the great advantages for a reactionary bourgeois film maker. He can hint and invent without explanation defy common sense and concepts of realism, and use the medium of "science" fiction to further his own mysticism.

Women's subgroup Communist Group Our Reply - and an Apology As the Socialist Press report in question stressed, WSL comrades attended only one of the two workshops on legislation at the Conference. This workshop was certainly attended also by at least one RCG member, and we can categorically state that she did not The NEW EDITION AVAILABLE NOW Price 30p plus 10p p&p from: WSL, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NWS 1HR

Scan page 9

OCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 14th July 197 Reply to rspective 'endency