Nothing But a Man
(Nothing But a Man)

Work, love, marriage and paternity are some of the themes in this powerful portrait of a railway worker from a small town in Alabama in the 1960s. Nothing But a Man was made by Michael Roemer, white, Jewish and born in Berlin in 1928, ten years before Killer of Sheep and twenty years before Bless Their Little Hearts, two emblematic films of LA Rebellion. Together, they form an astonishing triptych on masculinity (and living conditions) in black American communities over the years covered by the films. Malcolm X’s favourite film, it won the San Giorgio prize at the Venice Film Festival, an award given to films that are particularly salient to the progress of civilisation. So it seems to us that its rediscovery is all the more crucial. Aisha Rahim