Nothing But a Man (1963)

An remarkable and profoundly human tale that almost anyone can identify with. Initially drawing from his own experiences as a Jew in Nazi Germany, filmmaker Michael Roemer translated many of his own anxieties and concerns into those of the film's protagonist, Duff Anderson,…

Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine

"They may not use a knife, but they have other ways." Movies about racism to this day rely on cliché conflicts and physically violent clashes often to communicate nothing more than "racism exists and it is bad" (or in the case of pablum like THE HELP, "racism existed and…

laird

[Favorites of 1960s] I’m sure many viewers over the years have been surprised by the fact that Nothing But a Man not only wasn’t made by an African American but it was actually co-written, co-produced, and directed by a German-born Jewish filmmaker (Michael Roemer) who…

Arsaib Gilbert

This was a cold splash of water to the face on this couples way of living and mainly how our protagonist Duff Anderson tries to make his way through the world with pride in a southern state of Alabama. This takes some circuitous routes but it always seems organic and…

pirateneckbeard

An unwillingness to be treated as inferior, other, in a place where you’re outnumbered and made to feel hopeless. How can one survive, let alone live in a situation like this? Live, not merely in terms of existing, but actually live: be fulfilled, prosper, love—luxuries so…

Jerry

Michael Roemer’s groundbreaking first feature, sensitively shot by his close collaborator Robert M. Young, is a still-resonant expression of humanity in the face of virulent prejudice. Made at the height of the civil rights movement, Nothing but a Man reveals the toll of…

Criterion

How difficult it is to live by your values, to both survive and preserve your dignity. It is always the biggest cowards who have the worst sense of humor then need their gangs of mini-tyrants to back them up. The failure of black liberation becomes the failure to free all…

Avalyn Wu

An exacting study of faces and behaviors, struggling to be human in a dehumanizingly racist world. The Black faces are front-and-center; there are actual racial stakes to such fastidious concentration, the opposite of John Huston's arbitrary anti-negative-space…

Carlos Valladares

kind of incredible that berlin-born jewish director michael roemer wrote and directed this. the film isn't interested in making a statement, though, or even giving us a hero to sympathize. i think that's maybe too easy to ask for with a movie about a black family in 1960s…

KYK