The Man from Earth: Holocene (2018)
Directed by Richard Schenkman
Produced by Emerson Bixby
Written by Emerosn Bixby
Starring
David Lee Smith as John Oldman/John Young
William Katt as Dr. Art Jenkins
Vanessa Williams as Carolyn
Michael Dorn as Dr. Gil Parker
Sterling Knight as Philip
Brittany Curran as Tara
Carlos Knight as Liko
Akemi Look as Isabel
John Billingsley as Harry
The Man from Earth (2007)
Directed by Richard Schenkman
Produced by Emerson Bixby; Eric D. Wilkinson; Richard Schenkman; Steven Alexander
Written by Jerome Bixby
Starring David Lee Smith; John Billingsley; Tony Todd
Music by Mark Hinton Stewart
Distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment; Shoreline Entertainment
The first movie was written by Jerome Bixby (“It’s a GOOD Life”) on his deathbed, and the single-set movies was shot on a budget of $200,000. Granted, this was in the early days of the twenty first century, when a new home cost $500 and a trip to the moon was just $1.50, but still, $200K was a fair chunk of money.
Two hundred thousand for a one-room movie where the characters pretty much sit around and talk. Great things were not expected of this.
And not much happened until a copy of the movie got out on torrents, the P2P file-sharing system. Then, word of mouth combined with easy, free availability turned it into a cult classic.
Despite the success of movies such as 2001, Moon, or The Martian, ‘intellectual’ SF movies aren’t that common. And there is a market for them, more’s the pity.
The plot is simple enough. John Oldman, college professor, is secretly a cro-magnon man from the Magdalene epoch who does not age. He’s been alive for some fourteen thousand years. John is packing up, moving on to a new life, something he does every ten years when his inability to age starts to become a socially awkward situation. Some friends, associates and others throw an impromptu farewell party and John decided to share his secret, reasoning that this is the most advanced and intellectual group he’s been around since, well, Van Gogh and his buddies, at least.
The rest of the movie is him describing his life, and trying to persuade his listeners that he isn’t joking or insane. He has mixed luck with that.
It’s a beautifully concocted tale, and Bixby clearly put a far bit of research into it. My only quibble is that David Lee Smith, despite his good work, just isn’t convincing in the role. Cro-magnons were short, squat, somewhat bandy-legged, and had jutting brows and prominent supra-orbital ridges. Smith looks like he swanned out of a Gillette commercial. Personally, I would have picked Jack Black for the role. No offence to Black, and as Douglas Adams would have said, “Just keep banging those rocks together, guy.”
I would love to sit down an map out how Jack Oldman/Young got through the first 6,000 years or so. Magdalene culture was either hunter/gatherer, or nomadic herdsman, much like the Sami still are today. In either case, Jack would have been in small, insular tribes, and while there was trade and exogamy, there was also xenophobia and strife, items that would make a single individual find it hard to migrate from one tribe to another sufficiently removed that Jack didn’t need to worry about being recognized.
I might do that: the producers have made it clear they are thinking about a whole series, and “Man From Earth: Before the Bronze Age” might be a fun challenge.
Holocene is unique in that it was a straight-to-torrents release. Visit the torrent site of your preference and it will be there, available for download, free and legal. There’s a brief blurb in the beginning asking for donations, and if you like being able to get premium entertainment this way, support it.
In this movie, one of the characters from the first movie, his life ruined by his encounter with John Oldman, tracks down John Young. John has a problem: he has begun to age. (Pretty much had to: David Lee Smith doesn’t look like he did in 2007 for the same reason none of us do). So he is now contemplating his (possible) mortality. Will he take up watching “Doctor Who” and weeping convulsively? Time will tell.
The movies are earnest and intelligent, and considerable fun.
Now available where fine torrents are to be had.