The Man from Earth (2007)
David Lee Smith: John
Photos
Quotes
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Edith : [Angry] Where were you in 1292 A.D.?
John Oldman : [Calm] Where were you a year ago today?
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John Oldman : Believe in what He tried to teach without the rigmarole. Piety is not what the lessons bring to people, it's the mistakes they bring to the lessons.
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Art : What you're saying, it offends common sense.
John Oldman : So does Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, that's the way nature works.
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[John walks back in the room]
Harry : Well, you're finally fulfilling one prophecy about the millennium, John.
John Oldman : What's that?
Harry : Here you are again.
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Edith : My God, what is this? It looks like a genuine Van Gogh, but I've never seen it before...
Dan : Is that an original, John?
John Oldman : No, it's just a gift someone gave me.
Edith : Still, it's a superb copy. Contemporaneous I think, may I take a closer look?
John Oldman : Please, yeah.
Edith : Yes, it's the same stretcher Van Gogh used.
Dan : Hey, there's writing on the back. It's in French.
Edith : To my friend Jacques Bon. Wonder who that was?
John Oldman : Someone he knew, I guess.
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John Oldman : What if a man from the Upper Paleolithic had survived until the present day?
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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...
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John Oldman : And that's what I taught, but a talking snake made a lady eat an apple, so we're screwed.
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John Oldman : Piety is not what the lessons bring to people, it's the mistake they bring to the lessons.
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Harry : [insistent] *You* are creating the mystery here obviously y'have something you'd like to say. Say it.
John Oldman : [Hesitant] Maybe... I...
Harry : [sing-song] Ten, nine, eight, seven, si...
Sandy : [Chiding] Harry, stop.
John Oldman : There is something I'm tempted to tell you I think, I've never done this before, I wonder how it will pan out. I wonder if I could ask you a silly question?
Art : [Scoffing] John, we're teachers, we answer silly questions all the time
Linda Murphy : [Teasing] Hey!
John Oldman : What if a man from the upper Paleolithic survived until the present day?
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Edith : [Upset by one of John's claims] Were you?
John Oldman : [Gentle] If I said no, could you ever be sure?
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Edith : Are you sorry for some of those things you said?
John Oldman : I'm sorry I said them.
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John Oldman : Bathing was the style until the Middle Ages, and the church told us it was sinful to wash away God's dirt. So people were sewn into their underwear in October, and they popped out in April.
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Dr. Will Gruber : I still don't believe you, you know. You need help.
John Oldman : Everybody needs help.
Dr. Will Gruber : Yes, well. Some more than others.
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John Oldman : Every 10 years or so, when people start to notice I don't age, I move on.
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Dr. Will Gruber : When did you begin to believe you were Jesus?
John Oldman : When did you begin to believe you were a psychiatrist?
Dr. Will Gruber : Since I graduated from Harvard Medical School and finished my residency, I've had that feeling. Why I sometimes dream about it.
John Oldman : Have you acted upon this belief?
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John Oldman : Why not pass the Buddha's teachings on in a modern form.
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John Oldman : I suspect I saw the British Isles from what is now the French coast. Huge mountains on the other side of an enormous deep valley that was shadowed by the setting sun. This was before they were separated from the continent by the rising seas as the glacier was melting.
Harry : That happened?
Dan : Yes, the end of the Plasticine Period. So far what he says fits.
Art : [incredulous] Oh get... from any textbook...
John Oldman : And that's where I found it. How can I have knowledgeable recall if I didn't have knowledge? It's all retrospective. All I can do is integrate my recollections with modern findings.
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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.
[tosses the ballpoint pen to Harry]
Dan : Interesting. You could have lied about that.
John Oldman : [totally serious] Don't talk about me while I'm gone.
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John Oldman : I had a chance to sail with Columbus, only I'm not the adventurous type. I was pretty sure the earth was round, but at that point I still thought he *might* fall off an edge some place.
The Group : [incredulous looks all around the room]
Art : Look around John, we just did!
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Dan : A medical test might be a way of proving of what you're saying
John Oldman : I don't wanna prove it.
Art : So, you're telling us this the yarn
[?]
Art : of the century and you don't care if we believe it or not?
John Oldman : I guess I should've expected you to... You're not as crazy as you think I am.
Edith : Amen!
Sandy : I've always liked you.
Edith : Well, thank you dear.
Sandy : Well, that's changing.
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Dr. Will Gruber : So, you're a caveman?
John Oldman : Yes, uh... I *was* a cro-magnon, I think.
Dr. Will Gruber : You don't know if you're a caveman or not?
John Oldman : [half laughs] No, I'm sure about that.
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John Oldman : [about the food] Put that stuff in the kitchen!
Harry : [wryly] No, I'm gonna put it in the bathroom, John.
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Harry : [Wryly echoing Dan] Supernatural.
Art : [Quietly disturbed / reflective] Supernatural, stupid word, everything that happens happens within nature whether we believe it or not.
John Oldman : [Amused] Like a fourteen thousand year old caveman?
