Part of Bowie On Film.
In director Nicolas Roeg’s singular and haunting sci-fi masterpiece, Thomas Jerome Newton (David Bowie), a mysterious and complex personality, crashes in New York. Despite his curiously frail physical presence, the strength of his intellect and scientific knowledge appear to transcend contemporary human experience. His inventions are of such originality that they will revolutionize the nation’s systems of communication, and lead, in approximately three years, to the creation of the largest corporate empire in the United States…
“A freaky, compelling concept album of a film.” —Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“The most intellectually provocative genre film of the 1970s.” —Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out
“As a meditation on encroaching spiritual emptiness, set in a society hypnotized by materialism and mass media — the latter captured in the signature image of Newton impassively watching 12 television sets at once — Roeg’s film is so rich and lucid that it could be an essay.” —Adam Nayman, The Ringer