The Man Who Saw Tomorrow
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| The Man Who Saw Tomorrow | |
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 The Man Who Saw Tomorrow VHS cover |
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| Directed by | Robert Guenette |
| Starring | Orson Welles (Presenter/Narrator) |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | January 1981 (U.S. release) |
| Running time | 90 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
The Man Who Saw Tomorrow is a 1981 documentary-style movie about the predictions of French astrologer and physician Michel de Nostradamé Nostradamus.
The Man Who Saw Tomorrow is narrated (one might say "hosted") by Orson Welles. The film depicts many of Nostradamus' predictions for the modern world, as interpreted by the many linguistic scholars who have translated his works. In addition, some biographical information is provided about Nostradamus, including his work as a physician during the plagues which swept Europe in the 1500s.
The film gives some apparent historical evidence of Nostradamus' predicting ability, though as with other works, nothing is offered which conclusively proves his accuracy. The last quarter of the film discusses his (relatively dark) translated predictions for the next millennium. In particular, as may be expected with Western films, the subject matter seems rather slanted to the projections that affect the United States and it's allies directly at the time of the film's inception. As with most Nostradamus publications, there are no scientifically testable predictions directly included in this film, only suggestions and allusions.
The film does not discuss important topics that trouble scholars to this day about Nostradamus: Were his writings predictions of the distant future or descriptions of then current events? Was he intentionally predicting the future, or simply extrapolating? The film presents Nostradamus as a scholar and acknowledged "seer", which is certainly not accepted to have been the case in his own time, much less now. Several historical examples of his apparent predicting ability are cited, all of which (necessarily) take the form of hearsay owing to the era from which they are drawn.
An example of this is the treatise, familiar to Nostradamus readers, surrounding the prediction at the feast of a wealthy farmer: Nostradamus is asked which of two pigs the dinner guests will eat that night. He is alleged to have replied "the black pig". The farmer then sent word that the white pig was to be butchered and cooked for the evenings' feast. During the feast, the farmer is reported to have summoned his butcher/cook again and demanded to know which pig they had eaten. The cook replied that he had killed the white pig, as ordered, but that in a moment of inattention, he had allowed the farm dogs to drag off the carcass. Thus, as Nostradamus had allegedly predicted, he had been forced to kill the black pig as well and serve it in place of the white.
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[edit] Welles view
Welles, though he agreed to host the film, was not a believer in the subject matter presented. Welles main objection to the generally accepted translations of Nostradamus' quatrains (so called because Nostradamus organized all his works into a series of four lined prose, which were then collected into "centuries", or groups of 100 such works) relates in part to the translation efforts. While many skilled linguists have worked on the problem of translating the works of Nostradamus, all have struggled with the format the author used.
Nostradamus lived and wrote during a period of heavy censorship and aggressive retribution from the Catholic Church. Because of this, he disguised his writings not only with somewhat cryptic language, but in four different languages (Latin, French, Italian and Greek). Not content with such deception, Nostradamus is also thought to have used Anagrams to further obfuscate potential inquisitors (particularly with respect to names and places).
Welles himself completely rejected the central theme of the film after having made it. It is not known if Welles was contractually obligated to narrate the film, or if he simply grew disenchanted with its subject matter and presentation after completing it. Perhaps Welles' most public detraction from the subject matter of the film occurred during a guest appearance on an early 1980s episode of the Merv Griffin show; "One might as well make predictions based on random passages from the phone book", he offered when asked about the film, before moving on to discuss other projects more interesting to him personally.
It is worth noting that Welles has previously been known, despite his grand and well deserved reputation as a performer, to take the equivalent of film "grunt work" in order to self-finance his personal projects. In and around the time of this film's creation, Welles was attempting to finance a restored release (what we would now refer to as a "director's cut") of his film "The Magnificent Ambersons", which he had always claimed the studio ruined during editing.
[edit] Alleged Nostradumus' Predictions
- The accidental death of King Henry II of France (1559).
- The French Revolution (1789-1799).
- The rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte.
- The American Revolution (1775-1783).
- The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (1865).
- The rise and fall of Adolf Hitler.
- World War II.
- The Holocaust.
- The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945).
- The assassination and conspiracy of President John F. Kennedy (1963).
- Inventions and technological advances.
- World War III.
- A King of Terror, wearing a blue turban, will rise from Persia (Iran), and, with the assistance of Russia and China, will wage nuclear war against the western countries, including the U.S., France, and Great Britain.
[edit] See also
[edit] Interpretations of future prophecies that became real
[edit] United States and Russia
- Near the end of the film, Orson Welles mentioned that Nostradamus predicted that the two Northern Hemisphere rivals (believed to be the Soviet Union and the United States) will end their conflicts and become friends uniting their great powers.
"The two great enemies will be friends. Their great powers will be increased. The eastern ruler will be vanquished."
The prediction came true, for the most part, after the fall of Communism in Russia, specifically when the new nation led by then president Boris Yeltsin and then U.S. president Bill Clinton forged a major agreement that brought their two countries together as allies in the early 1990s.
[edit] Close interpretations
- The World War III scenario is also another example of an interpretation of Nostradamus quatrains almost coming true. While a world war did not materialize (it was predicted to start July 1999), the two nuclear missiles that struck New York City in the movie are similar to the two airplanes that struck the World Trade Center Twin Towers in September 11, 2001.
- However, in the movie, it is clear and specific that an Iranian leader, wearing a blue turban, will wage a nuclear war with the U.S. and its western allies. According to the movie, the United States will scramble its forces and fight the war against the Persian King of Terror only after Iran's successful destruction of New York City. Paris and other Western cities are depicted as being destroyed by a nuclear bomb in this film. In reality, the United States (under President George W. Bush) waged a war against terror by scrambling its forces to the Middle East targeting Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda immediately after the tragic events of 9/11. A look at today's situation in the Middle East, with Iran now believed to be enriching uranium in order to build nuclear weapons, the fact that the United States and Iran do not have formal diplomatic relations, the fact that Iran's leader, Aminejad, has called for the destruction of Israel and the fact that the Iran is defiantly at odds with the UN, along with the UN's voting on sanctions against Iran, makes it seem like Nostradamus' predictions depicted in the part of the movie about our future not only can come true, but are in the process of becoming true, right before our eyes.
- The analysis of the footage of President John F. Kennedy's assassination brought to light the theory that more than one shooter actually fired at him. In the footage, the fatal shot that hit the president clearly came from the front. Later part of the footage focused on the set of bushes where the a man with the rifle hid.
