Episode 272: NOTHING BUT A MAN (1964)

There wasn’t anything quite like Michael Roemer’s NOTHING BUT A MAN before it, and there arguably hasn’t been anything quite like it since. All the same, it’s often cited as “ahead of its time” – a critical, realistic look, almost documentary in nature, at the life of a black American man in the middle stages of the Civil Rights Movement. Duff Anderson (Ivan Dixon), the son of a deadbeat drifter hoping to avoid the same fate, leaves behind the independence of his railroad section gang to settle down with Josie (Abbey Lincoln), a well-to-do schoolteacher. Duff’s pride – in his independence, in his manhood, in his blackness – attracts Josie, but rankles the black community around him, who’ve adapted to leaving well enough alone in the deep Southern town they call home. Duff’s chief critics include the aggressive white populace and Josie’s father, a black preacher and community organizer sitting comfortably under the thumb of the town’s white movers and shakers.

Written and directed by a German Jew who left the country at the start of World War II and released just months after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the movie was critically lauded but underpromoted, underseen, and misunderstood at the time of its release. Its 1993 U.S. rerelease brought it back to the world stage, with its reevaluation cementing it as a forerunner of a storytelling and filmmaking style that wouldn’t find its footing until arguably the 2000s. In this episode, we discuss the semi-autobiographical nature of Roemer’s story, its contemporary appraisal, its show-stealing performances, stage-play blocking, inventive cinematography, and the implications of its ambivalent ending.

Donate to help our friend and previous guest Nick Ransbottom get life-saving cystic fibrosis care: https://www.gofundme.com/f/get-nick-lifesaving-cystic-fibrosis-care
“Back to the Future: Michael Roemer’s Nothing but a Man” by Nazeeh Alghazawneh for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2024/03/18/back-to-the-future-michael-roemers-nothing-but-a-man/
“Film Notes: NOTHING BUT A MAN” by Michael Kerbel for the Yale Film Archive: https://web.library.yale.edu/film/notes/fn00003
Watch NOTHING BUT A MAN on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sKqyQ5eq2o
Get tickets to the 43rd Annual Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival (April 11-15): https://mspfilm.org/mspiff/

#TooFarInFront #35mm

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Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing audio: "(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave" by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas from the NOTHING BUT A MAN soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 272: NOTHING BUT A MAN (1964)

4:44 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

8:06 - How ahead of its time it really is

12:42 - How Roemer managed to “get it”

19:03 - Key performances

22:10 - Locking eyes vs. avoiding each other’s gaze

25:05 - Materialism for the marginalized and the need to feel like a man

31:02 - Surviving in a world that requires you to be more perfect than perfect

37:55 - The precariousness of these people’s way of life

49:56 - The climax of the movie

1:00:50 - What makes Lee the key to Duff’s decision to come back to Josie

1:05:06 - The ending

1:12:36 - The Junk Drawer

1:23:15 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1964

1:25:31 - Cody’s NO-teys: When Was This Photo of Jason Dafnis Taken?

1:27:58 - The first photo

1:31:12 - The second photo

1:33:16 - The third and final photo