Great movie: The Man From Earth

Cafe Society
1

Who else has seen this? This was an awesome movie! By the time it had showed up at home I’d completely forgotten why I’d put it on my queue (happens) and the description sounded kind of boring.

Basically it’s a man who is leaving his job and his home and all of his coworkers; university professors, come to bid him adieu. During the evening he confesses that he is actually an immortal man, born as a Cro-Magnon, who has lived through 14,000 year of history. He starts out talking about it like it was just a theory, and eventually confesses it is actually him.

I brought my tablet out, expecting to be bored and play games on it, but after the first few minutes of the intro I left my tablet on the table and watched, spellbound. The discussions were amazing! There was a biologist, an art history professor (and devout Christian), an anthropologist, an historian, a psychiatrist, and a student.

Each of them brings their own competencies to the table, challenging John Oldman (the name he has taken) on his points. John answers them respectfully even when they are not particularly respectful to him, and the 90 minute movie flows wonderfully. There’s a few hitches but on the whole you feel like you were really sitting there amongst them. The low production values add to this effect.

I cannot recommend this enough to my friends at the Dope. I think you all will really enjoy it.

2

Yes, I saw this a long time ago and I too was fascinated by it. It’s a genre that I have dubbed a “talking movie” because the main plot is mostly one of the characters talking. (e.g. - My Dinner With Andre) It’s absolutely amazing how you can get caught up in the story and stay focused. An excellent movie and I highly recommend it as well.

3

Some logic holes, but as an exploration of memory/existence it worked well. For example, he doesn’t remember most things, only the ups and downs. He’s known many languages, but he’s lost them after hundreds of years of disuse. Or how he has a bunch of degrees, but they’re mostly outdated and it’s impossible for him to follow any of the fields because there’s not enough time and they’re too specialized nowadays. Or how he didn’t know where he was exactly in pre-history. It’s not like they had GPS back then. He can only guess by studying archaeology and trying to remember land marks, like oceans, mountains, or the position of the sun.

About memory, it brings to mind the question about what kind of storage limit the brain has. Maybe an immortal should have better memory because their cells rapidly regenerate which could preserve connections.

Would you really forget a language you’re fluent in if you didn’t use it for awhile? Some skills are use it or lose it, but others seem to last a life time.

I imagine he still thinks in whatever cro-magnon language he was born into, but maybe not. Do people who learn many languages have this affect their inner voice? Does it turn into some weird hodge podge?

The part where he accidentally started Christianity was a bit much, but kinda funny.

I like the fan theory that he’s Cain, cursed to wander the Earth forever.

Also reminded me of Vandal Savage.

They never went anywhere with the story about how he thought he saw another immortal, did they? There can only be one!

4

I totally get the language bit. My Hindi is nowhere near as good as it was when I was speaking it daily, and I know I could forget it - but never completely, and if you shock me/scare me enough, my expletive will come out in Hindi (that is my first language). And mostly I think in English but some thoughts will always be in Hindi.

5

Yes, I have seen it twice. There have been a number of threads here where the movie was briefly discussed. I love everything about it. It is in my top ten movies list.

6

It’s not available on Netflix Streaming but you can rent it for 2.99 or buy for 5 bucks from the google play store in case anyone else wants to know.

Sounds interesting. Barring something unforeseen I’ll watch it tonight.

7

I also really liked it. Regarding the inner voice bit, I tend to switch to English effortlessly when speaking (or writing) it, so I don’t think it’s something really wired in.

I bet Cal Meacham will come around soon enough to tell the movie’s story…

8

I loved that he was kind of embarrassed about the whole thing.

9

Since the source story was written by Jerome Bixby, I think that the “other immortal” might have been a reference to a Mr. Flint from the Star Trek episode “Requiem for Methuselah”, also written by Bixby.

10

That’s what I thought.

11

Just finished watching it. I agree, the narrative is extremely thought provoking. My only issue was that sometimes the soundtrack was too loud for the dialogue. I may have to rewatch with subtitles.

I was amused that before all the christ talk, one of the professors labels John with a trinity of descriptors that mirrored Loony, Liar, or Lord pretty well.

12

We’ve had posts about this film min the past, including one by someone who hated it.

I’ve seen it. As mentioned above, it’s by Jerome Bixby, a science fiction writer whose name ought to be more familiar to people, but I guess there’s only room for so much memory devoted to science fiction writers in the public consciousness.

He wrote:

–It’s a GOOD Life – the short story about the boy who can wish anything to happen, and becomes lord of his small household, removing them from the world and sending people he doesn’t like To the Cornfield. It was famously adapted as an episode of the original Twilight Zone, got put into the Twiliught Zone movie (with a “happy” ending), and years later Billy Mumy, who starred in the original TZ version, appeared ina sequel on the newer incarnation of TZ. This story made a BIG impact on people.

–It! The Terror from Beyond Space – one of the better SF films of the 1950s, about a monster that gets on the second spaceship to Mars and hunts the people on board down. A lot of people think that Alien ripped a lot off from this film. I’m one of them. (It is, however, significantly different from A.E. van Vogt’s story “Black Destroyer”, the first appearance of the “monster on the spaceship” meme.)

–The Lost Missile – truly overlooked 1950s SF film about a (probably Soviet) weapon that goes out of control and threatens to destroy the world.

–The Curse of the Faceless Man – “Mummy” movie in which the "mummy’ is one of those figures from Pompeii. Pretty awful

–He rewrote the script for Fantastic Voyage, the movie about the submarine going through the human body, starring the other chariot driver from Ben Hur, the first Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and Racquel Welch in form-fitting platelets. From all accounts, the original version would’ve been sort of proto-steampunk, so I’m not sure if Bixby’s re-setting it in the modern world is an improvement.

–Three episodes of the original Star Trek, including “REquiem for Methuselah”, cited above.

I’d liked to have seen more of his stuff. The Man from Earth was talky (and no FX), but definitely worth watching.

13

Yes, this was my only one complaint - the music was stupidly loud at times, and my copy of the DVD had no subtitle option. I just cranked it up loudly.

14

John “Oldman”…I get it :rolleyes:

Will put it in my queue - thanks!