The Man From Earth
Edith: Are you sorry for some of those things you said?
John Oldman: I’m sorry I said them.
The Man from earth was a movie which was released in 2007, won many awards, not enough recognition, being a low budjet movie without any prominent actors but that still doesn’t define it completely.
We can’t exactly say that it was a different movie because every movie is different from the other, and there’s no specific criteria to define any since they’re all in the same categories and based on the same format but it’s the content that interests us.
It’s just something that makes us think, and although everything else also does, this is basically regarding the origin of man.
There are many philosophical things which we can ponder over throughout our lives and try to find an answer for everything, but most of us do not prefer to do so because we have many more creative thoughts to entertain during that period of time which is not inappropriate, but when we do think about such stuff, ideas come to us naturally.
This movie is basically based on the origin of man, and a person who claims to be 14000 years old, due to some cells in his body, which seemed to work so differntly that he survived throughout. It is basically a conersation between a biologist, psychologist, archeologist, a history students and a few members of their family and a history proffessor, who claims to be a caveman, John Oldman. :)
Dr. Will Gruber: If I shot you John, you’re immortal? Would you survive this?
John Oldman: I never said I was immortal, just old. I might die. And then you could wonder the rest of your incarcerated life what you shot…
Theer are many theories about his nature, about his claims, a littel bit of reluctance, a little bit of acceptance and too many opinions about his claims but no one was able to clearly come down to a conclusion to believe him or not.
Dan: There’s absolutely no way in the whole world for John to prove his story. Just like there’s no way for us to disprove it. No matter how outrageous we think it is, no matter how highly trained some of us think we are, there’s absolutely no way to disprove it! My friend is either a caveman, a liar, or a nut. So while we’re thinking about that, why don’t we just go with it.
The whole two hours or so were spent in a very fruitful and charming discussion on early man and the history of our origin, it was believed that beign a history teacher, John Oldman would obviously know about the early man, but the way he explained the situation, his experiences, whatever he could remember, hypothetically placing himself in the position of someone who was so obviously John Oldman himself was the most intriguing part of the story.
Dan: Wouldn’t you have some relic, an artifact, to remind you of your earlier life? Like this maybe.
[holding up bone tool]
John Oldman: Thrift shop. Really.
John Oldman: [lecturing now] If you lived a hundred, a thousand years, would you still have this?
[holds up ballpoint pen]
John Oldman: What would cause you to keep it? As a memento to your beginnings, even if you didn’t have a concept of beginnings? It would be gone. Lost. No. I don’t have artifacts. Keep that.
[the bone tool]
Dan: Interesting. You could have lied about that.
John Oldman: [totally serious] Don’t talk about me while I’m gone.
There isn’t much which can describe this story but the movie itself, it’s quite beautiful, the whole concept, and the way they portrayed it.
Art: What you’re saying, it offends common sense.
John Oldman: So does Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, that’s the way nature works.
Dan: I’m going home and watch Star Trek for a dose of sanity.
As it so happens, the world has been created by a sea spilled from a cup, and a little bit of land, and we, the humans, go on with our lives like we always have, and that was strictly random. :D
