Man from Earth
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[edit] Blurb
If you are interested in action and special effects, this is not a film for you. But, if you like to ponder the greater mysteries of human history with the intellectual intensity of a college professor, you can join in the dialog and debate that occurs throughout this film. Several college professors are bewildered when their colleague decides to leave abruptly after 10 years, just prior to receiving tenure. His reason is startling and that is all I can say without giving away too much. One of the best parts of the film is a heated and emotional discussion about Jesus and the historical facts that may or may not be real. At one point, Jesus’ teachings are described as “Buddhism with a Hebrew accent.”
Watch this movie with someone who loves to engage in intellectual and spiritual discussions![1]
[edit] View from Nowhere
I am fascinated by the question of evidence and trust. When do you think your best friend is crazy? When he says that we live in a simulacrum, like the Matrix? How do you know someone is enlightened? Or that enlightenment is possible? Is it just a matter of faith. It only takes one instance for the statement "All swans are white to be falsified." What if you are the only one to have seen the one black swan?
[edit] Other Views from Nowhere
"Man From Earth" - Jesus is a Cro-Magnum Man After Being A Pupil of Buddha
"Man From Earth" Attempts to Regenerate Theme Of Simple Paths To Goodness By A Supernatural Meta Science Roadmap
From Cro-magnum cave dweller to astute pupil of Buddha to unintentional Good Teacher on a Roman cross, the lead character of Jerome Bixby's Sci-Fi drama, Man From Earth, finds himself reasoning to four college professors the Simple Paths To Goodness and the possibility of mankinds limitless future.
Quickly vacating his position at a South Western college in the U.S. and receiving an impromptu goodbye from his fellow professors, College Professor, John Oldman, unexpectedly purposes a question to his colleagues, "What if a man from the upper Paleo-lithic survive until the present day, what would he be like?".
At first jokingly but then deciding to "play along", the idea of "perfect regeneration in the bodies cells..... a quark in the immune system", answers the how and thus the dialectic group journeys into the meta-philosophical-science that throws everything you've believed out the window.
The beginning of the small group questions can neither confirm nor deny John "Old" "Man"s enigma. Stumbling over pre-historic vampire myths, to dates and landscapes of his terrain, John Oldman, after moving from Sumerian to Babylonian lifestyles, eventually decides to move East, where by chance he meets Buddha and becomes his pupil.
He is then viewed by the group as a special caveman, liar or nut.
Concerned for John's mental health, by TV's The Greatest American Hero star William Katt, a fellow Psychologist Professor drives in to the goodbye party and the Hegelian couch is brought in.
Before his feelings are addressed he reveals he has 10 degrees in all of their fields except for the psychologist. He also does not want to be viewed in scientific labs to verify his claim for fear of smoking men in labs. He is then hypothesized as ,"A man that lives outside of time" which can not be measured. We then get to his emotions.
Pausing in and out of his feelings in regards to when did you know you were a caveman...how do you feel when others die... how do you consider yourself to others...do you remember your father (early lifestyles were Patriarchal thus how do you feel about your mother is left out), Johns answers are quick and intriguing.
The question of faith intertwines Myth, Old and New Testament. Though regarded as "sacrilege", John tells a story about a guy, myth, or Buddha, that decides after 500 years or so to travel to the Mediterranean..becomes an Etruscan..seeps into Rome..sees them as a killing machine and decides to pass the Buddhist teachings in modern form.
He denies the Jesus name, cites it as a medal that was pinned long afterwards.
In regards to the crucifixion and the resurrection, the lessons he learned in Tibet to control and regulate pain, as well as to control his body to simulate death, allows him to vacate his "cave" burial. But, some devotees where hanging outside and saw him...he tried to explain..they were too ecstatic.. and so he fled to Central Europe to get as far away as possible.
Although intrigued and speechless, one of the professors offers his hypothesis,
"Taking along the philosophical teachings of Jesus..Buddhism...with a Hebrew accent...
Kindness...
Tolerance...
Brotherhood...
Love...
a ruthless realism acknowledging that life is what it is...here on earth...here and now...The Kingdom of God meaning goodness is right here or it should be... I am what I am becoming",
charts the viewer the simple path to goodness.
When asked what John (as Jesus) would like for them to know he says,
"Believe in what He (Jesus) tried to teach without the rigmarole...Piety is not what the lessons bring to people, its the mistakes they bring to the lessons".
Crushed, baffled and even the theologian professor driven to the point of tears whether or not this can be, the psychologist threatens John for the third and final time to come clean or be committed.
John states "end of the line...it was just a story".
After much relief the group offers there own goodbyes to John. But the finality does not end there.
In the last few minutes the psychologist finds out, when John Oldman talks to his professor girlfriend, that Oldman is his father who left him in his childhood. The psychologist rejects this but then realizes this as truth but because of a previous heart condition he succumbs to a heart attack and dies. John Oldman, after the paramedics and the police have left, packs up and begins to drive off, but then decides to take his girlfriend professor along to the next destination of his supernautral roadmap to goodness.
A very clever hypothesis that can only be proven or denied by faith, Man From Earth weaves its web to an imagination searching for another possibility of existence, meaning, purpose and future.
Even when asked about mans future his girlfriend asks, "Do you have faith in the future of the race?" John quickly replies, "I've seen species come and go..it depends on their balance with the environment".
Although as an independent film its nonchalant sublime plot cannot hide its intent of new age philosophy to answer mans meaning of life disguising its green awakening initiative.
Using a similar Eastern philosophical background like the upcoming Jesus action-hero film "Aquarian Gospel" set for release in 2009, get ready for your next spiritual rebirth in 2010 with the remake of Logan's Run.
But do not let mans' reason trouble your spirit.
For as I began to write this the Lord gave my awesome wife His scripture to our hearts.
ACTS 17:22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
ACTS 17:23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
ACTS 17:24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
ACTS 17:25 Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
ACTS 17:26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
ACTS 17:27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
ACTS 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
ACTS 17:29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
ACTS 17:30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
ACTS 17:31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
ACTS 17:32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.
ACTS 17:33 So Paul departed from among them.
ACTS 17:34 Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. [2]
2007, USA, 87 mins Now available on DVD.
Review by Carl J. Schroeder
The buzz is going around for this new release - basically direct to DVD - of a classic style science fiction philosophy film based on a group of scholars questioning a 14,000 year old colleague. The story was the life's work of a famous genre writer, completed on his deathbed, a 1950's era author known for some of the best Twilight Zone and Star Trek episodes ever produced. Jerome Bixby's Man from Earth is totally satisfying without the need for action or special effects, because great actors are given great dialogue that engages the mind and makes startling statements about civilization and religion.
The Man from Earth is an independent film worth seeing and supporting. It harkens back not only to golden age sci-fi, but other great location-bound conversation films, like My Dinner with Andre (1981) in its restaurant, Mindwalk (1990) on an island, Between Two Worlds (1944) on the afterlife ferry, and the classic 12 Angry Men (1957) in one jury room. That last example was particularly studied, because Bixby sets this debate in a cabin in the desert thusly: Several college faculty members, including a biologist, anthropologist, and historians, follow an esteemed peer when they find him preparing to start a new life somewhere else with a never-before-seen genuine Van Gogh casually tossed in the back of his pickup.
It seems our hero, John Oldman (old-man, see, Bixby has a sense of humor), has to move on every 10 years because people start wondering why he hasn't aged. He confesses this to his friends when they pester him enough. Hey, there's a genuine prehistoric tool in your house, and a fancy bow, what gives? Oh, I'm a 14,000 year old man from the upper Pleistocene era, couldn't you tell? This leads to much great conversation. It turns out that upper Pleistocene humans were physically indistinguishable from modern humans, so maybe the best darn looking cave man really is the star of our movie. What's more, this guy knew Van Gogh, Columbus, the Buddha, and Jesus. So hang on for a wild ride of speculative historical revisionism.
Since this is the first time our cave man has revealed all, there's lots of emotional fallout to reckon with. Which makes for more great conversation, and theatre. The academics have to agree with John's facts but conclude he's delusional. Just memorized books, only imagined he saw the tectonic plates move, for example. One historian calls over a psychiatrist who turns out to be unstable with a gun, not a good combination. Then there's the young attractive woman who confesses her love for John which is so true that she won't mind growing old while he doesn't (yeah, but will he?). The showstopper comes when the old Christian lady gets so upset at the blasphemy that she breaks down sobbing. She doesn't want to hear John's firsthand accounts of how her religion got inflated from non-miraculous simpler events.
Here The Man from Earth becomes The Da Vinci Code (2006) in another direction, say, atheism instead of new age feminism. It's interesting to note how atheist themes are getting more recognition in cinema lately, basically as backlash to fundamentalism. The new family fantasy The Golden Compass (2007) is being debated as an atheist's reply to the righteous morality of C. S. Lewis and Tolkien, and the sci-fi thriller The Mist (2007) proves that one crazy church lady can be more dangerous than a whole lotta inter-dimensional monsters. Folks of faith can get offended or learn a new point of view. The documentary The God Who Wasn't There (2005) covers similar territory as The Man from Earth, name dropping a multitude of mythological precedents for the Jesus story. The 14,000 year old man has been through all the civilizations, so he knows this stuff without having to read the works of Robert M. Price.
I take no offense, I just wonder why in 14,000 years John Oldman hasn't once had a near-death experience, or entheogenic revelation, or mystical awakening, or something to make him a little more sympathetic to theism. Maybe it's because he, like Jesus, was strictly Buddhist (the lost years theory), or more likely this very personal story was the death bed catharsis for an agnostic sci-fi writer. More context reveals that the film was shot for very little in just over a week. Veteran actors, many recognizable, turn in decent performances that probably would have been better if time had allowed. Everyone is giving a labor of love, which is how films like this can shine. [3]
