TJE 7/1 – The Man From Earth (2007)

Certain cult films pick up a reputation for overcoming their production limitations, for being more than the sum of their parts. "The Man From Earth," a bare-bones science fiction film that mostly takes place in a single room, is one of these. It was made on a budget of $200,000 and features a motley collection of vaguely familiar actors, including Tony Todd, Richard Riehle, and William Katt. Director Richard Schenkman is mostly known for Playboy videos and made-for-television movies, and it shows. The film has the visual aesthetic of a sub-par episode of "Murder She Wrote," is terribly overscored, and it's a little hard to remember at times that it's supposed to be a feature film.

But then you have the script, the last work of the great Jerome Bixby, who wrote some of the most memorable installments of "The Twilight Zone" and the original "Star Trek." It contains a truly fascinating premise: What if there was a man, who by an extraordinary biological quirk, had been alive for thousands of years, since the Cro-Magnon days, and had lived through the whole of human history? "The Man From Earth" introduces us to such an individual, Professor John Oldman (David Lee Smith), who is packing up to move on to a different life, after spending ten years teaching at the local university. His fellow professors come to say goodbye, and on a whim he reveals his true identity.

Roughly the first eight minutes of the film are awful, as the various characters and the film's central conceit are clumsily introduced. There is some noticeable overacting, particularly from John Billingslea, playing biologist Harry, who mercifully settles down once the plot gets underway. After John comes out as a cave man, his colleagues, initially amused and incredulous, question and test his story, theorizing about how his claims might possibly be true. Among them are also a psychiatrist, an anthropologist, an archaeologist, and an art historian. They theorize and debate with each other and with John, drawing on their academic knowledge to interrogate John's wild claims from different angles.

How does John know that he's as old as he claims to be? What are the limitations of his knowledge? Did he ever meet anyone famous from history? How far has he traveled across the globe? What were his earliest days during the ice age like? When did he first realize he was different, and how did he survive? Did he ever fall in love and have children? Does he believe in god? Some of the answers are pragmatic and logical, others fanciful, and there are a few touches of the absurd, which serve to keep the audience wondering whether John is really telling the truth about himself, or spinning a shaggy dog story to end all shaggy dog stories. The possibilities are so irresistible, you want to believe it's all true.

Thus much of the film is taken up by long conversations, which is terribly uncinematic, and the talent involved is not good enough to compensate for it. There's no action and only some bare bones of a dramatic arc, but the ideas are interesting and handled in a refreshingly serious, thoughtful way, so it still held my attention. I can certainly see why "The Man From Earth" has attracted the cult following it has. Still, I can't help thinking that this would have made for a much better radio play or even a TED lecture. The film is at its best when John is recounting memories or sharing his theories about human evolution, religion, and the curious circumstances around his own existence. Everything else falls awfully flat.

I like the potential of "The Man From Earth" more than I like the film itself. This is one of those stories I'd love to see in more capable hands, but then I don't know how you could do a more sophisticated film version without compromising the simplicity of the concept. On the other hand, I think Bixby's existing script could certainly stand some improvement. Maybe it was Smith's anodyne performance, but I came out of "The Man From Earth" not particularly caring for John Oldman. I appreciated how cleverly thought out he was on a cerebral level, but his humanity didn't come through enough. So the love story didn't work. And the little twist at the end didn't come off right. And the rest of the characters were just as bad, if not worse.

I've been oversold on some of these smaller genre films before, so I wasn't really disappointed by "The Man From Earth." It has its good points, but there are simply too many problems with it to call it a classic. I think it's certainly worth watching though, especially if you're a science-fiction fan like me who likes headier, more conceptually daring stories.
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