What we can learn from analysing ‘The Man From Earth’
Hello! I’m Gui, founder of MediaTag.io. This is one of my posts detailing films or creative work that inspire me.
Last week I wrote about what we can learn from 50 films set in a single location, and this week I decided to focus on one of them: The Man From Earth.
This is obviously full of spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it yet, go and watch it first.
I repeat: SPOILERS ALERT, SPOILERS ALERT.
With that in mind, the reason I wanted to look deeper in this film is for the following reasons:
- It is a great film, simple as that.
- It is really simple: 8 people talking in a room, over one night.
- The story progresses very linearly, and I never felt manipulated by obvious plot holes.
So, first, here is the timeline I created in MediaTag.io, simply tagging specific moments in the film:
In most movies, having a sense of what structure used by the writers can be fairly easy. Adventure films will for instance travel in various places, those being tied to a specific act. Or there will be a clear antagonist, making it obvious what the conflict is.
That is not the case in this film. There is no “call to adventure” or other similar screenwriter tool. There didn’t seem either to be obvious internal conflict “need versus want”.
That said, Jerome Bixby, the screenwriter, surely had a structure he used to create it. Otherwise it would have been very hard to project this sense of evolution to the audience.
I am not a believer in using formulas to create a film. Having the hero accept the mission at exactly page 17, or any similar pseudo “rule”, is to me absolute bullshit). But a structure will still be necessary. A structure you can rely on or that can support you, not a formula that will constrain you. It can be 3 acts, it can be 12 scenes, it can be something else. Anything that can help you as the writer to not lose the forest for the trees is always a good tool to have.
Act I: The setup
This is by tagging those moments that I tried to get a sense of what this structure is. Here is more or less how I would break the first act:
- John Oldman, the main protagonist, invites his friends for a goodbye, after having known them for 10 years.
- He quickly proposes a game: let’s imagine that someone can be alive since 14.000 years. He will embody this character.
- His friends find this weird but fun. Some will play along and try and find holes in the story he is telling.
So those 3 scenes could be the first act. As an audience member, you then know what the film is about. You get a sense that the whole film will be about John telling this story. Is he lying or telling the truth? Are his friends going to be upset or are they going to find mistakes in his tale?
Act II: The Questions
Act 2 would then be about all the ways those other 7 characters can try and poke holes. Apart from the young student, they are all teachers, with their own speciality and expertise. They will all try and attack his story, first playfully, by asking questions related to their field. There will be for instance:
- the geology teacher asking: where did you travel? How did you know where east and west was? How did you cross the sea from that place to that place?
- the psychologist asking: How has living for so long affected you? Haven’t you gone mad after seeing loved ones die while you survived for centuries?
Said like that, it might sound like a boring class exam, but each character does not just have his or her own knowledge but also personality. Some love the game, some are not sure what to think, and some get seriously upset. That also creates dynamics between them, not just toward the protagonist.
So this all creates a lively group, making you feel that you are part of the scene. I watched this film several times, and I still feel engaged by it.
Act III: The big reveal
But as John sees some of his friends going mad at him, even aggressive, he tries to stop what he started. But it is too late, they will want to get to the bottom of this. They will want him to admit if he is lying, playing, gone crazy or actually telling the truth.
He does resist, but with his friends’ insistence, he has to admit that he was a powerful religious figure: He was Jesus.
Holy cow.
Now, if you haven’t watched the film and read this here (why would you do that??), you might think this reveal would just be too enormous to be in any way believable. Too on-the-nose. Just too much. But the progression that the screenwriter creates felt just natural to me, I was absolutely thrilled by the movie. I kept asking myself the same thing as the characters: “What if this was true”.
One thing that surprised me, though, is how early this reveal is. It happens at minute 54. That would have seemed really early to me. But it works for several reasons:
- the film is short: 1h27.
- the story does not stop at this reveal, it drives the other characters even further into proving him a liar or mad man (moment labelled “final story, climax” in the timeline, from 1h05 to 1h10)
- there is a “cool down period”, where characters finally leave, each having taken away something different from this night.
The character arc
Does the main character evolve in this story? Does he grow? Is he different at the end than he was at the beginning?
Those are tricky questions. In a way, he might be. This is the first time he tried to tell his story to friends. He never saw anyone react to his condition. So he learned something, in a way.
But interestingly, the secondary characters are the ones who seem to have gone a much more defined change. They all went through an evening that would just change how they view the world.
I can’t recall other films where the secondary characters change more than the main protagonist. If I were to read a screenplay, without seeing the film, this could be something I’d consider a flaw. But really, when seeing the result, this is not a problem at all.
Conclusion
There are very few films who are so creative in using very limited resources and manage to produce something so engaging. So any filmmaker, or even creatives from other fields, should be able to find some lessons in this film. Something that you can apply to your own work.
What I personally take away from it is that imposing a constraint on the logistic of your film (in this case, one location and one unit of time) can really stimulate the writing. Provided that I do my research in whatever theme the film is exploring.
And in an ever growing trend of super hero movies, of sequels of sequels, or reboots of reboots, it is very refreshing to see an original story that involves no violence and still makes your imagination go wild.
Do you enjoy this kind of post? Don’t hesitate to share or drop a comment below, that will allow me to know if I should share other films in a similar way. And if you want to analyse films yourself, simply head over to MediaTag.io and tag moments in any video (vimeo, youtube and uploads), it is very simple to use. No time to try it now? Subscribe to MediaTag’s weekly newsletter.
