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Analyzing The Film 'The Man Who Fell To Earth'

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Watching “The Man Who Fell to Earth” gave me a familiar feeling upon first viewing. I was taken back to a time when a friend of mine, who is deep in knowledge of the cinematic medium, criticized “Pulp Fiction” stating that it was a shameless and terrible carbon copy of “Breathless”, Jean-Luc Godard’s medium redefining film released in 1960. I proceeded to watch “Breathless” and caught a drift for what he was talking about along with a growing intrigue within myself for the French New Wave. Upon viewing “The Man Who Fell to Earth”, I was taken back to “Breathless” and the techniques and concepts exhibited throughout that film and I understood why Breathless was such an inspirational film during it’s time, as elements of Breathless and the French …show more content…

Roeg uses situational montage to essentuate the severity of a situation. When Thomas faints on the elevator, Mary-Lou must frantically rush the old school elevator to the 5th floor where Thomas is staying in the hotel. Roeg jumps from a shot of Mary moving the elevator dial, looking up at the floor count, and looking at Thomas to make sure he is ok. This rapid editing can be traced back to Godard using this technique to essentuate the shooting of a police officer where Godard goes in on a close up of Michael, his arm, his gun barrel, and finally the trigger. In Godard’s case he left out important information in that incidence, did the cop die or where did he get shot. For Roeg, he uses this technique to put us in Mary-Lou’s frantic but caring mindset. Much like most of the early experimentations of the French Wave, concepts are improved upon in later “re-experimentations” of the concept. The two starting sequences of both Breathless and The Man who Fell to Earth run parallel in regards to intention and execution. When Roeg wants to establish that an alien has landed on earth, he uses rapid cuts between the earth, a lonely lake, and NASA footage of a space ship launch to show this arrival in the world that he has created. The same concept is used on Michael by Godard when Michael’s reckless driving is shown through the cross cutting of cars passing by and the demeanor of Michael in the car. “The time that is lost between the edits is salvaged within the imagination of the viewer.” David Jenkins declares when speaking about The Man who Fell to

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