Nothing But a Man

Plot synopsis:
Duff Anderson works on a railroad section gang near Birmingham, Alabama, earning a good wage and living an itinerant life with his black co-workers. On their night off, while the other men drink and visit a pool hall, Duff decides to walk into the nearby small town, and ends up at a church meeting featuring good food and lively gospel music. There, Duff meets the pretty and genteel schoolteacher Josie, the daughter of Preacher Dawson. They begin to date against the wishes of Josie's father and stepmother, who think the relatively uneducated, non-religious, and (to them) arrogant Duff is not good enough for Josie. Despite her parents' objections, Josie continues to see Duff, partly because Duff shows himself willing to resist and challenge the social conventions that oppress black people, rather than just accepting the status quo in order to get along with white people, as Josie's father has done.
Initially, Duff is just looking for a sexual relationship, and tells Josie he doesn't want to get married. But after Duff visits his four-year-old illegitimate son who has been abandoned to the care of an indifferent, unloving foster mother, and his emotionally abusive, drunken father who is barely functioning under the care of Duff's stepmother Lee, Duff realizes that he prefers the stability of a family to the life of a drifter. Duff and Josie marry with bright hopes for the future, but then begin to face a series of challenges as a married couple.
Duff quits the section gang and takes a lower paying job at the local sawmill in order to have a stable home life. Being on the move had given Duff the illusion of freedom, but living in the town makes Duff subject to the town's social rules, and he immediately starts to have problems. Unlike his peers, Duff refuses to pretend to be friendly to white people who treat him obnoxiously or patronize him. Duff tries to encourage his black co-workers at the mill to stick together and stand up for their rights, but one of them informs on him to the white mill bosses, who suspect him of being a union organizer and troublemaker. After Duff refuses to follow his white boss's order to retract his statements to the other men, Duff is fired, and subsequently finds himself blacklisted at other area mills. Despite diligently searching for work, he is unable to find another job that is not humiliating and that also pays enough to support his family, now including a baby on the way.
Duff hates his preacher father-in-law, whom he sees as having sold out to the white people in return for social status and economic gain, and he hurtfully says to his wife, "You've never really been a nigger, living with them, in that house." Nevertheless, out of concern for Josie, Preacher Dawson uses his connections in the town to get Duff a job at a white-owned gas station. Soon, white customers who find Duff too proud for a black "boy" threaten to cause trouble if the boss keeps him on, and he loses that job as well. Although Josie is understanding, Duff, under emotional pressure and in a rage, shoves his pregnant wife to the floor when she tries to comfort him. Duff packs his bag and leaves their house, telling Josie that he will write her when he is on his feet again.
Duff storms off to his father, and finds him so inebriated that he dies as Duff and Lee are driving him to the hospital. Neither Duff nor Lee know where Duff's father was born or how old he was, and the only possessions he has handed down to Duff are the contents of his pockets. Duff decides to return home with his young son, whom Josie had been wanting to adopt. Duff and Josie tearfully embrace as he reassures her that "everything is gonna be all right”.

Tags: romantic, melodrama

Review:
I thoroughly enjoyed "Nothing But a Man." Unlike other films before it, it shows black men and casts them in lead roles instead of sticking them in white circles.
This film also focuses on black masculinity and what being a black man is about, and it highlights the struggle and contrast of being free and easy and not tied down as opposed to being married and struggling for one's dignity.
Unlike the race films of Micheaux and Williams who used this documentary-style depiction to push their messages, Roemer fearlesssly shows the brutality and bleakness of African-American life, with an ending reminiscent of Orwell's 1984.
Ivan Dixon as Duff gives one of the greatest performances in the history of cinema and Abbey Lincoln as Josie, the preacher's daughter he tries to settle down with, is just about perfect in control of nuance.
These characters are extraordinary "ordinary" people, truly heroic; yet the tragedy that stalks them may or may not be hopeless at this time in history, due to an apparent shift in black consciousness, a general "fed-up-with-it-all" attitude that needs men like Duff to inspire itself.
"Little Fugitive" and "Medium Cool" are the only other pre-70s American films I've seen that feel this real.
In terms of the subtlety with which racial politics and power relations are exposed through simple gestures and acts rather than rhetoric and melodrama, Martin Ritt's "Sounder" and Paul Schrader's "Blue Collar" are the only films I've seen that come close.
There are a lot of lessons to be learned here, especially by directors like Spike Lee, who I'm sure has seen this movie, and who has made decent films in the past (Do the Right Thing, She's gotta have it), but now wastes his time making laughable, "really hardcore," "I want to transcend puny barriers with overloads of style" cartoons like "Summer of Sam." "Nothing but a Man" is light years away from the nonsense they call "realism" these days.
Unlike other well-intentioned films of the period, NOTHING BUT A MAN presents the main character as neither saint nor scoundrel, but as a complex man with human contradictions.
Ivan Dixon gives one of the best performances of his career as the lead character of Duff.
An exceptional movie, especially given the period in which it was made, about a young black man trying to "do the right thing" and make a life for himself in the South.
Beautifully acted by everyone involved, Nothing But a Man lets you live the struggles that black men live(d) every day.
This is not a particularly uplifting film...you never get sense that everything will work out in the end, but because of this, the movie is all the more realistic.
The DVD version includes interviews with the cast and film makers 40 years later.
In her interview, Abbey Lincoln seems to come undone while reflecting on the movie, the Struggle, and how little real progress has been made..
This film reminds me of the problem that heavily exists in the black community today.
Ivan Dixon's performance wasn't over done, making his portrayal of Duff one of the most memorable I had ever seen.
The writers were able to make me empathize with all the characters, and Duff was written with a certain complexity seen in few other films about African-Americans.
The thing that most gratified me about the film is the fact that it is about redemption, showing our main character making certain sacrifices to live a normal and moral life in the end.
I strongly recommend this film, especially to other African-American filmmakers who plan on sugarcoating the black experience in America.
I said it once and I'll say it again, "Nothing But a Man" is one of the greatest black films ever made in the world....
This movie is really honest about the relationships between a man and woman and family (esp.
I remember seeing this along time ago in the mid 80's on one of the Black History Months, but watching it on DVD last night again just left me speechless.
The Defining Movie about a black man's struggles in the south.
Over the years the struggles of blacks in the racist south have been rendered in fiction by books like Faulkner's "Light in August" and films like "Hurry Sundown," (though blacks were relatively minor characters in this film), "Sounder," "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," "A Woman Called Moses" and "Ragtime." "Nothing But a Man" predates the other films and broke new ground by depicting the plight of a young black man who refuses to knuckle under to the times and the expectations placed on him.Duff Anderson is a section hand earning good money on a railroad construction gang in the south of the 1960's.
Duff's life changes dramatically when he falls in love with Josie, whose minister father "gets along" by accommodating the white man and who wants nothing to do with rootless Duff.
In spite of the minister's objections Josie and Duff are married, but Duff's attempt to unionize at his new job gets him fired and local whites threaten his life when he refuses to cow-tow to bigots.
At the end of the story Duff's father dies after rejecting his son yet again, prompting Duff to admit "I'm just like him." But Duff is a far better man than his father could ever be, for at a time when nonstop adversity would have broken a lesser person, he takes custody of his little son and returns to Josie determined to be a husband and parent, the two roles at which his own father failed so miserably.Everything in this film rings true, from the opening scenes with the railroad gang to the tearful reunion with his family at the end.
The dialog is almost unrelentingly cynical, as Duff comes to see his courtship of Josie through the eyes of his railroad pals and his disapproving father-in-law and views his prospects for employment and success in the light of bitter experiences with back-stabbing co-workers, unsympathetic employers and white racists.Ivan Dixon is superb as Duff and Abbey Lincoln is equally fine as the supportive wife who must share her husband's fate.
The black-and-white filming underscores the seriousness of the subject matter and the bleakness of Duff's life.
This movie was no doubt completed with at most a very modest budget, but the finished product is so strong and moving--thanks to a very intelligent script and great acting.
Although the film stars no "big names", it is chock full of some of the better Black character actors of the 1960s.
The leading man, Ivan Dixon, proved he was a fine and competent actor--far better than the role he played on HOGAN'S HEROES.
In addition, there are subplots concerning fatherhood and responsibility that greatly enhance the movie's message.This film would be wonderful for anyone--in particular kids, as they will realize in watching this just how far we have come.
Most young kids today just don't realize how tough things were for Black Americans in this country and how acceptable this maltreatment was.
The film apprehends the simple existence of an ordinary couple in difficult circumstance, and the performances of Ivan Dixon and lovely jazz singer Abbey Lincoln are superbly naturalistic, and a well chosen and evocative supporting cast lends absolute credibility.
Part social commentary, this film depicts a touching, often sad portrait of Americana during a challenging historical period.Heading the talented cast is Ivan Dixon as Duff, who nicely underplays his role, letting his expression emerge from within.
Singer Abbey Lincoln is seen in a nice dramatic turn as his girlfriend turned wife, Josie.
In the early 1960's during the unfolding of the civil rights movement, when Martin Luther King marched on Washington, when three northern civil rights workers were murdered in the south, and when four children died in a Birmingham church bombing, Michael Roemer and Robert Young, two Jewish guys from Harvard, headed south and crafted, in the opinion of many, the most authentic film ever made of the black experience in America.
Although racial relations have since altered, the film depicts the essence of racism, including the subtle and less than subtle forms of oppression still present in President Obama's America.Roemer and Young have expressed some embarrassment at the naiveté and pure chutzpah they demonstrated in their attempt to make a film that truly represented the black experience.
Set in early 1960's Alabama, it tells the story of Duff Anderson, played by Ivan Dixon, a proud black man who won't submit to his expected role.
"I don't get on so well in most places," he tells Josie, the preacher's daughter played by Abbey Lincoln.
It shows to best advantage the stunning black and white high- contrast low-light style of co-writer Young, who also doubled as cameraman due to an absurdly limited budget.
But the film wouldn't be the same without Dixon and Lincoln, who are stellar in their powerhouse performances as Duff and Josie, the couple struggling for dignity in a racist world.
Dixon IS Duff, Lincoln IS Josie.
It is a privilege to see and hear Dixon, Lincoln, and Julius Harris (who plays Will, Duff's alcoholic father), then in their 70's and 80's, talk about the film they made 40 years earlier.
There is also a 30 minute unscripted discussion between Roemer and Young in which they tell the story of their experience in researching and making the film, and their feelings about it 40 years later.
This is a rare peek into the chaotic craft of film-making.Abbey Lincoln is better known as a jazz vocalist than an actress.
Abbey Lincoln's tears in the interview, like Josie's in the film, are no act.
And when the script calls for Duff to push Josie to the floor in a frustrated rage, concerned director Roemer offers to cheat: "I can fake the fall," Roemer says he told Lincoln.
He recalls her response: "I'm going to take that fall for all the black women." The fall is one of those classic moments, like so many others in the film, that emotionally freezes the viewer, and remains etched in our memory..
It's one of the defining films about race relations in the South as the civil rights movement was in high gear, bringing about the end of centuries of abuse by Whites of African-Americans.This movie takes place in a very rural region in the deep South.
Although people--both Black and White--are aware of the civil rights movement, it really hasn't taken hold here.
It will surely be a great improvement over the old school, but it will still be segregated--for Blacks only.Ivan Dixon plays Duff Anderson, an intelligent, capable, and hard-working railroad worker.
You grew old with an ever-shifting group of friends, moving from town to town and from bar to bar in the evenings.Duff meets Josie, played wonderfully by Abbey Lincoln.
His lack of work leads to anger and aggression, directed as much to Josie as to the people who are causing the basic problem.This isn't always an easy movie to watch, but it's well-crafted and important for everyone to see.
A rootless young track worker (Ivan Dixon) finds what he didn't know he needed when he meets a young teacher (Abbey Lincoln).
Life does not play easy with the young couple, especially life in the American south at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.A lovingly crafted film by Michael Roemer and Robert Young with a naturalistic and documentary feel.
Forgotten Gem Gives an Honest Appraisal of One Black Man's Experience in the Deep South.
In the midst of Sidney Poitier's breakthrough as a mainstream leading man of the big studios, director Michael Roemer made a groundbreaking independent film that fully captured the black experience at the dawn of the civil rights movement without exploiting the controversial subject or introducing a non-threatening component that would have made the story more palatable for white audiences.
The latter was especially the case in Poitier's biggest movies at the time like "Lilies of the Field" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" where he played variations on the over-idealized black man, a point made ironic by the fact that the legendary actor turned down the lead role in this film.
In fact, the film is so truthfully matter-of-fact in Roemer's documentary-like approach that when Duff has an explosive moment late in the story it feels shocking but utterly real.The performances completely surprised me.
He doesn't take any short cuts in presenting Duff as a man who makes his own decisions no matter how harsh the consequences.
As Josie, jazz great Abbey Lincoln ("For Love of Ivy"), with her infectious smile, is genuinely affecting as a woman who becomes attracted to Duff because she thought the two of them "might have something to say to each other." One wonders in hindsight how powerfully she might have portrayed Billie Holiday if given the chance she was supposed to have before Diana Ross got cast in "Lady Sings the Blues".
Julius Harris makes his few scenes count as Duff's belligerent father, while Gloria Foster (later the Oracle in "The Matrix") etches a vivid impression as a beaten-down woman who remains inexplicably faithful to him.
Before Blaxploitation and the kind of African-American cinema we are used to seeing today there were film-makers like Michael Roemer making films like "Nothing But a Man".
Roemer may have been born in pre-war Germany but you would never know it judging from this ground-breaking film about what it was like to be black in sixties America and what, for many, it's still like to be black in America today.It's a very simple film, almost documentary-like in its approach to its subject and at times almost crude in the way Roemer, who had no real experience in film-making, presents his material.
Fundamentally it's a love story between Duff, (and excellent Ivan Dixon), and his school-teacher wife Josie, (the singer Abbey Lincoln), and this is handled without a touch of sentimentality.
It's also superbly shot in black and white by Robert Young, who with Roemer also wrote the film, but it wasn't really a success, even in terms of small budget independent art movies and is consequently seldom seen these days.
It recounts the story of a Black man in the 1960s American South (outside Birmingham, AL), his problems with relationships, with white men who mistreat him, etc.
Because of that, and because of the very fine acting, the characters in this movie come off as very real, not at all Hollywood caricatures.
But that doesn't always make the movie easy to watch.It's more than worth the occasional discomfort, however, because it's really a very fine movie, one that presents very real people going though all too real life situations and dealing with them in very human ways.
Beautifully acted with great naturalism and heart, and highly atmospheric thanks to top-notch black and white cinematography.Don't hesitate to rent this one or, better yet, see it in a revival house on a larger screen..
Nothing But A Man is one of the great hidden gems of American independent cinema.
It tells the simple story of a man and woman in love, trying to endure the hardships of life as a "coloured" in Mississippi in the early '60s.
Under all of this, is lovely and very human relationship which acts as the heart and soul of the film.Ivan Dixon manages to balance all of this impeccably in the lead role, making it impossible not to identify with him, even when we don't like him.
As with many movies from the 1960's that address racism in the south, there is always a key character that dares to challenge the status quo.
Nothing But a Man is an excellent showcase for Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln.
Continuing to review movies featuring African-Americans in chronological order for Black History Month, we're now at 1964 when an independent film about the struggles during the segregated South gets released to critical acclaim.
Ivan Dixon, previously Joseph Asagai in both play and filmed versions of A Raisin in the Sun, is Duff Anderson, a railroad worker who one day falls for schoolteacher Josie played by Abbey Lincoln.
There's more but I'll just say that this was a very realistic drama about what it was like living in such humiliating times for a black man.
Dixon is at turns both smartly observant and righteously angry during the film and you can't help feeling sorry at times for him even when he does do things that get him in trouble.
Ms. Lincoln herself has such a quiet intensity about herself here that you hope she doesn't regret her love for Ivan's character.
Strong movie about being black in the South in the early 1960s.
An strong independent black man named Duff (Ivan Dixon) meets sweet, sensible Josie (Abbey Lincoln).
He becomes and disillusioned and begins to take it out on Josie.Powerful film about the disgusting racism that existed in the South.
There was something about the black and white documentary in your face style of independent film-making that made it seem like a home movie about our friends and family in their most unguarded moments.The characters were like people we both knew from our own immediate experience.
Whether it was Duff or Josie or Duff father's Will or Lee or Jocko, there was an undeniable reality to these characters, albeit they came across a little more subdued and restrained than the people on my block.
Excellent premise depicting the black man as a shiftless, worthless person and how this myth carries on through the various generations of black men.The problem with the film that it shows very well what goes on but the acting seems to be very much stilted and lacks depth and emotion.
We're getting a new school so let's keep quiet about persistent segregation is the thought here.The black minister and his wife look down upon a young Ivan Dixon who is courting their 26 year old schoolteacher daughter.Illegitimacy seems to be like nothing here and only at the end is there some breakthrough.