The Man from Earth: A second meeting with the 14.000-year-old man

(Versión en castellano aquí)

For fans of the genre, the film «The Man from Earth», released in 2007 is already one of the essential titles in the catalog of modern science fiction. Included in the circuits of independent cinema, and with a modest ticket office, it never reached the general public, and not even its twelve international awards managed to attract the interest of the critics. But it has already accumulated more than 3.6 million downloads on the Internet, and ten years later there are a thousand torrents available, where hundreds of users continue to obtain it daily. Therefore, it is expected that the number of spectators will continue to increase. Thanks to word of mouth, as he has done so far.

The history of the feature film introduces us to the life of John Oldman, a university professor; on the day he abandons his old life. His colleagues and friends come to give him a small farewell party, while still asking him why he is leaving. And suddenly, John responds. Assuring them that he was born as a Paleolithic hunter, 14,000 years ago, and that to hide his immortality he moves his residence every ten years. From that point on, the movie is a permanent game with the viewer. Who in turn will be inclined to think that everything is true, that John is a little bit mad, or that everything is just a well-told story. We will see also appear interesting philosophical and moral implications, and all kinds of psychological reactions in their friends.

It is a plot with hardly any action, which takes place in a tiny stage, that of John’s house and its porch. It looks like a play and could have become a boring or banal movie if it were not for Jerome Bixby. A writer unjustly converted into the Troy McClure of science fiction.

Those who are followers of The Simpsons will have understood the allusion to a Hollywood has-been. This character usually introduces him saying, ”Hi, I’m Troy McClure, you may remember me from…» It’s a recurring joke about this stars whose time is out after a bit success. Something similar has happened with the memory of Jerome Bixby, whose stories for literature, cinema, and television are hardly remembered although many of his ideas continue to be developed today.

Bixby was an editor in the 1950s of the pulp magazine Planet Stories, where short tales of Ray Bradbury or Isaac Asimov, among others, were first published.