admin @ Tue, 2005-10-11 11:23
These two films, like most of director Nicolas Roeg's work, were once staples of the repertory cinema circuit in the days before home video, when you had to be patient and be prepared to leave the house to see an obscure or commercially unsuccessful film. Roeg continues to work today, in a much-diminished manner, but the '70s were the apex of his career making dense, idiosyncratic, ominous films like Don't Look Now, Walkabout, and the two films Criterion has reissued here in such carefully crafted editions.
Bad Timing starred Art Garfunkel as an American psychologist in Vienna, a cool, controlled man who falls in love with Milena, a sexy, probably unstable "bad girl" who we see overdosing on pills in the first scene, after which we ricochet back and forth in time between their past and the present, investigated by Harvey Keitel's cop. The first revelation is just how good Garfunkel is - Roeg had a particular touch in casting pop stars in his films.
The film manages to be both elegant and explicit, larded with the sort of thrusting, grimy sex scenes that were so obligatory in the '70s. It's hard to overlook, however, how much care Roeg puts into the construction of the story, the layers of detail and evocative references, like the shots of Gustav Klimt paintings and parallels he draws between Garfunkel and Keitel's characters. You can't help but miss films with this sort of density today.
While a few people went to see Bad Timing for the sex, most people saw The Man Who Fell To Earth at rep theatres for its star, David Bowie, playing the title character, a space alien who becomes a billionaire in an attempt to return to his dying planet. For his fans, the film became an accessory to his Thin White Duke period — a still appeared on the cover of his Stationtostation record.
As a filmmaker, Roeg's restless mind was both his virtue and vice, and TMWFTE is an example of the latter. It's fascinating, but it tries so hard to evoke so much, ranging over so many subjects and styles, that it lapses into the dated and even corny — the scenes on Bowie's home planet — more often than it reaches brilliance. It does, however, benefit from finally letting audiences here see the full cut instead of the butchered U.S. edit, and it comes in a more-than-usually thorough package from Criterion.
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