The Brother from Another Planet

Last updated
The Brother from Another Planet
Brofromotherplanet.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by John Sayles
Written byJohn Sayles
Produced by Peggy Rajski
Maggie Renzi
Starring Joe Morton
Darryl Edwards
Steve James
Bill Cobbs
David Strathairn
Cinematography Ernest R. Dickerson
Edited byJohn Sayles
Music by Mason Daring
John Sayles
Denzil Botus
Distributed by Cinecom Pictures
Release date
  • September 7, 1984 (1984-09-07)(United States)
Running time
108 minutes [1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$350,000 [2]
Box officeover $4 million [2]

The Brother from Another Planet is a 1984 low-budget American science fiction film, written and directed by John Sayles.

Contents

The film stars Joe Morton as an escaped extraterrestrial slave trying to find a new life on Earth. [3] Due to an error in proper copyright protocols, the film became part of the public domain during its original release. [4]

The film was a moderate financial success, and critical reviews were largely positive. Morton's performance as The Brother was acclaimed, as he had no lines of dialogue and had to communicate entirely through facial expressions and body language.

Plot

A mute space alien crash-lands his ship on Ellis Island. Other than his three-toed feet, which he keeps covered, he resembles a black human man. Because of his torn clothing, he is also viewed as a homeless man.

His extraterrestrial powers are shown in many encounters: When he lays his hand on a wall, he can hear the voices of those who once filled a building - he cannot speak, but he can listen with great sympathy. Misunderstanding the transactions in a mom-and-pop shop, he begins eating a head of lettuce and a tomato (he is a vegetarian); when the shopkeeper begins screaming at him in Korean, he magically opens the cash register and hands her money from it, but this leads her to call for the police outdoors. When pursued by a police officer down the street, he leaps to a high perch on the wall, and the officer cannot find him.

He manages to blend in with the people he encounters and engages in one-sided conversations with various denizens of New York City. In a memorable scene, he meets a card trickster on a train who accepts his silence and hesitance to select a card; the trickster narrates a fast funny story involving the face cards, then departs, showing the Brother that some New Yorkers are simply amicable and amusing without wanting anything in return.

He makes friends at Odell's friendly local bar in Harlem. Odell secures him housing with single mom Randy Sue Carter and her little son. Able to heal wounds and fix machines by hovering his hand over them, he repairs an arcade cabinet there and speeds up the workings of its video game, to the delight of patrons. This leads to local man Sam getting him a job as a handyman and technician at a video arcade.

When he observes drug use and its negative effects in Harlem, he reveals another power: He temporarily removes one of his eyes and uses it like a video camera. In this way, he is able to find the man supplying the drug dealers in Harlem, and thereafter to investigate them.

Two men in black, keen on the mute alien's whereabouts, begin to track him and interrogate the people he has encountered. They seek to return him to the planet from which he escaped. However, in a showdown at Odell's bar, the locals protect him from being taken away.

Cast

Production

Writing

The premise for the film came about from a series of dreams Sayles had while making the film Lianna : the first involving alien car salesmen called Assholes from Outer Space, the second a film noir take on Bigfoot, and the third about an extraterrestrial who looks like a black man in Harlem, an idea which Sayles loved. Cherry-picking elements from the other two dreams, he wrote the first draft of the screenplay in a little under a week. [5]

According to a Daily Variety (July 10, 1984) article, Sayles wrote it while waiting to secure funding for Matewan (1987), and decided to go ahead first with The Brother. [6]

Financing

Sayles spent part of his MacArthur Fellows "genius" grant on the film, which cost $350,000 to produce. [7]

Sayles also invested his own money acquired from cable sales of Return of the Secaucus 7 , as well as writing fees for his work adapting The Clan of the Cave Bear and its sequel, The Valley of Horses . [5]

Filming

The film was shot on location chiefly in Harlem, chiefly at night, with a predominantly black cast and crew, during four weeks in March 1984. [5] [6]

Locations include:

Director of photography Ernest R. Dickerson told an interviewer in American Cinematographer that he shot with "high contrasts, keeping the color bright and saturated, yet still using natural colors." In order to emphasize the humanity of the characters, Dickerson said he strove for subtlety over the "razzle-dazzle" typical of science fiction movies. [6] Jessica Ritchey of the website RogerEbert.com wrote of the result, "The film is beautiful to look at too, shot in the warm golds and purples of twilight in New York City. Sayles and cinematographer Ernest R. Dickerson take advantage of that certain slant of light that can turn a city space from inviting to sinister in a moment. And the scrappiness of the film's few fantastical props and effects are a nod to Sayles' B-movie roots for New World Pictures, something current sci-fi films could do well to remember." [9]

Anjuli M. Singh of the American Film Institute reports, "In order to emphasize the humanity of the characters, Dickerson said he strove for subtlety over the 'razzle-dazzle' typically seen in science fiction films. Given the film's low budget and Sayles's focus on characters over science fiction elements, few special effects were attempted. For a scene at the Baby Grand nightclub in which the filmmakers needed a smoky atmosphere but could not afford a smoke machine, gaffers smoked cigarettes and blew smoke behind actress Dee Dee Bridgewater (Malverne ). As filming permits for the subway were difficult to attain, the card trick scene that takes place in a moving subway car was filmed in an out-of-service car on display in a subway museum. The second-to-last scene of the film, in which “The Brother” looks out the window of a moving subway car, was shot illicitly with a hidden camera inside a working subway car, since the crew had not obtained permission to shoot there." [6]

Themes

Director John Sayles has described The Brother from Another Planet as being about the immigrant experience of cultural assimilation. [10] Extras from the film described it as "The Black E.T. movie." [11]

Two aliens who resemble white men hunt for the Brother to return him to their planet. They consider the Brother an inferior race not because of his skin color, but because he has three toes.

Reception and legacy

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 89% based on 28 critical reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Featuring director John Sayles trademark humanity and an expressive performance from Joe Morton, The Brother from Another Planet is an observant, dryly comic sci-fi gem." [12]

Variety called The Brother from Another Planet a "vastly amusing but progressively erratic" film structured as a "series of behavioral vignettes, [many of which] are genuinely delightful and inventive"; as it continues, the film "takes a rather unpleasant and, ultimately, confusing turn." [1] Vincent Canby called it a "nice, unsurprising shaggy-dog story that goes on far too long" but singled out "Joe Morton's sweet, wise, unaggressive performance." [13] Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, saying "the movie finds countless opportunities for humorous scenes, most of them with a quiet little bite, a way of causing us to look at our society", noting that "by using a central character who cannot talk, [Sayles] is sometimes able to explore the kinds of scenes that haven't been possible since the death of silent film." [14]

The A.V. Club, in a 2003 review of the film's DVD release, said the film's superhero scenes are "often unintentionally silly, but again, Sayles shapes a catchy premise into a subtler piece, using Morton's 'alien' status as a way of asking who deserves to be called an outsider in a country born of outsiders"; commenting on the DVD, they noted its "marvelous" audio commentary track by Sayles, "who moves fluidly from behind-the-scenes anecdotes to useful technical tips to unpretentious dissections of his own themes." [15]

Paul Attanasio wrote: "Sayles is no storyteller; despite the verve of its language, The Brother From Another Planet eventually sags of its own weight. And all his movies are hampered by an almost shocking ignorance of filmmaking fundamentals -- he just doesn't know where to put his camera. The movie would have benefited from more attention to the bounty hunters, whose difficulties with Harlem culture would have balanced the Brother's strange ease of assimilation. Instead, the plot takes a centrifugal turn as the Brother roots out a scag baron whose drugs are poisoning the community." [16]

The film has become a cult classic. [17] [18]

Accolades

Sundance Film Festival - Special Jury Recognition (1985) [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Sayles</span> American film director

John Thomas Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He is known for writing and directing the films The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), Eight Men Out (1988), Passion Fish (1992), The Secret of Roan Inish (1994), Lone Star (1996), and Men with Guns (1997).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Men in black</span> Government agents who supposedly intimidate UFO witnesses

In popular culture and UFO conspiracy theories, men in black (MIB) are government agents dressed in black suits, who question, interrogate, harass, threaten, allegedly memory-wipe or sometimes even assassinate unidentified flying object (UFO) witnesses to keep them silent about what they have seen. The term is also frequently used to describe mysterious men working for unknown organizations, as well as various branches of government allegedly tasked with protecting secrets or performing other strange activities.

<i>Repo Man</i> (film) 1984 film by Alex Cox

Repo Man is a 1984 American science fiction black comedy film written and directed by Alex Cox in his directorial debut. It stars Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez, with Tracey Walter, Olivia Barash, Sy Richardson, Vonetta McGee, Fox Harris, and Dick Rude among the supporting cast. Set in Los Angeles, the plot concerns a young punk rocker (Estevez) who is recruited by a car repossession agency and gets caught up in the pursuit of a mysterious Chevrolet Malibu that might be connected to extraterrestrials.

<i>Signs</i> (film) 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan

Signs is a 2002 American science fiction horror film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan and produced by Shyamalan, Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy and Sam Mercer. The film was produced by Blinding Edge Pictures and The Kennedy/Marshall Company. It was distributed by Touchstone Pictures theatrically, and by Touchstone Home Entertainment in home media format. Starring Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix, the story focuses on a former Episcopal priest named Graham Hess who discovers a series of crop circles in his cornfield and that the phenomenon is a result of extraterrestrial life. Signs explores the themes of faith, kinship and extraterrestrials.

<i>Alien 3</i> 1992 film by David Fincher

Alien 3 (stylized as ALIEN3) is a 1992 American science fiction horror film directed by David Fincher and written by David Giler, Walter Hill, and Larry Ferguson, from a story by Vincent Ward. Starring Sigourney Weaver reprising her role as Ellen Ripley, it is the third installment of the Alien franchise.

<i>Species</i> (film) 1995 film by Roger Donaldson

Species is a 1995 American science fiction horror film directed by Roger Donaldson and written by Dennis Feldman. It stars Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Alfred Molina, Forest Whitaker, Marg Helgenberger, and Natasha Henstridge in her film debut role. The film's plot concerns a motley crew of scientists and government agents who try to track down Sil (Henstridge), a seductive extraterrestrial-human hybrid, before she successfully mates with a human male.

<i>My Stepmother Is an Alien</i> 1988 film by Richard Benjamin

My Stepmother Is an Alien is a 1988 American science fiction comedy film directed by Richard Benjamin. It stars Dan Aykroyd, Kim Basinger, Jon Lovitz, and Alyson Hannigan. The film follows the story of Celeste, an extraterrestrial woman who is sent on a secret mission to Earth, after her home planet's gravity is mistakenly disrupted by Steven Mills, a widowed scientist raising his daughter Jessie as a single father. The film was the film debut of Juliette Lewis.

<i>The X-Files</i> (film) 1998 film by Rob Bowman

The X-Files is a 1998 American science fiction thriller film based on Chris Carter's television series of the same name, which revolves around fictional unsolved cases called the X-Files and the characters solving them. It was directed by Rob Bowman, written by Carter and Frank Spotnitz and featured five main characters from the television series: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Mitch Pileggi, John Neville, and William B. Davis reprise their respective roles as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner, Well-Manicured Man, and the Cigarette-Smoking Man. The film was promoted with the tagline Fight the Future.

Ernest Roscoe Dickerson is an American director, cinematographer, and screenwriter of film, television, and music videos.

Reggie Rock Bythewood is an American filmmaker and actor. He is known for directing the film Dancing in September (2000) and creating the television series Shots Fired and Swagger.

<i>Slither</i> (2006 film) 2006 American science-fiction comedy horror film by James Gunn

Slither is a 2006 science fiction comedy horror film written and directed by James Gunn in his directorial debut. Produced by Paul Brooks and Eric Newman, the film stars Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Tania Saulnier, Gregg Henry, and Michael Rooker. The film is set in a small town in South Carolina that becomes invaded by a malevolent alien parasite.

<i>Coonskin</i> (film) 1975 live action/animated satirical crime film for adults by Ralph Bakshi

Coonskin is a 1975 American live-action/animated satirical crime film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film references the Uncle Remus folk tales, and satirizes the blaxploitation film genre as well as Disney's film Song of the South, adapted from the Uncle Remus folk tales. The film's narrative concerns three anthropomorphic Uncle Remus characters, Br'er Rabbit, referred to as Brother Rabbit, Br'er Fox, referred to as Preacher Fox, and Br'er Bear, referred to as Brother Bear. They rise to the top of the organized crime racket in Harlem, encountering corrupt law enforcement, con artists, and the Mafia, in a satire of both racism within the Hollywood film system, and America itself. The film stars Philip Thomas, Charles Gordone, Barry White, and Scatman Crothers, all of whom appear in both live-action and animated sequences.

<i>Juice</i> (1992 film) 1992 American crime drama film directed by Ernest Dickerson

Juice is a 1992 American crime drama thriller film directed by Ernest R. Dickerson, and written by Dickerson and Gerard Brown. It stars Omar Epps, Tupac Shakur, Jermaine Hopkins and Khalil Kain. The film touches on the lives of four black youths growing up in Harlem, following their day-to-day activities, their struggles with police harassment, rival neighborhood gangs and their families.

Harold Thomas Wright is an American television and film actor. He has appeared in The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), Creepshow 2 (1987), City of Hope (1991), Passion Fish (1992), Seinfeld (1994), Extreme (1995), Star Trek: Voyager (1996), Martial Law (1998–1999), Sunshine State (2002), Barbershop (2002), Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004), Honeydripper (2007), Granite Flats (2014), Medical Police (2020), and Daisy Jones & the Six (2023).

<i>City of Hope</i> (1991 film) 1991 film by John Sayles

City of Hope is a 1991 American drama film written, directed, and edited by John Sayles. The film features Vincent Spano, Stephen Mendillo, and Chris Cooper.

<i>Planet 51</i> 2009 film by Jorge Blanco

Planet 51 is a 2009 animated science fiction comedy film directed by Jorge Blanco and co-directed by Javier Abad and Marcos Martínez, from a script by Joe Stillman, based on an original idea by Abad, Blanco, Martínez, and Ignacio Pérez Dolset. The film stars Justin Long, Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel, Gary Oldman, Seann William Scott and John Cleese, the film follows an astronaut who lands on an alien planet, as one of the aliens helps him return to his ship while evading the military.

<i>Alien</i> (film) 1979 film by Ridley Scott

Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and written by Dan O'Bannon, based on a story by O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett. It follows a spaceship crew who investigate a derelict spaceship and are hunted by a deadly extraterrestrial creature. The film stars Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Yaphet Kotto. It was produced by Gordon Carroll, David Giler, and Walter Hill through their company Brandywine Productions and was distributed by 20th Century-Fox. Giler and Hill revised and made additions to the script; Shusett was the executive producer. The alien creatures and environments were designed by the Swiss artist H. R. Giger, while the concept artists Ron Cobb and Chris Foss designed the other sets.

<i>Voyage of the Rock Aliens</i> 1984 American film

Voyage of the Rock Aliens is a 1984 film directed by James Fargo and starring Pia Zadora and Craig Sheffer.

<i>Eraserhead</i> 1977 film by David Lynch

Eraserhead is a 1977 American independent surrealist body horror film written, directed, produced, and edited by David Lynch. Lynch also created its score and sound design, which included pieces by a variety of other musicians. Shot in black and white, it was Lynch's first feature-length effort following several short films. Starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Jeanne Bates, Judith Anna Roberts, Laurel Near, and Jack Fisk, it tells the story of a man (Nance) who is left to care for his grossly deformed child in a desolate industrial landscape.

<i>Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League – Attack of the Legion of Doom</i> 2015 American film

Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League – Attack of the Legion of Doom is a 2015 American animated superhero comedy film based on the Lego and DC Comics brands, which was released on August 25, 2015, on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD. This is the fourth Lego DC Comics film following Lego Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite, Lego DC Comics: Batman Be-Leaguered and Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League vs. Bizarro League.

References

  1. 1 2 Variety Staff (December 31, 1983). "The Brother From Another Planet". Variety . Retrieved 2010-08-13.
  2. 1 2 Gerry Molyneaux, John Sayles, Renaissance Books, 2000, p. 135.
  3. ↑ Brother From Another Planet: The Movie That Brought Historic Black Experiences to Sci-Fi - MovieWeb
  4. ↑ Critics At Large : Digging into the Past: Watching Public Domain Films Online
  5. 1 2 3 Jones, Alan (September 1984). "The Brother from Another Planet". Cinefantastique . p. 15. Retrieved August 9, 2023.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Singh, Anjuli M. "The Brother from Another Planet (1984)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
  7. ↑ Nayman, Adam (February 24, 2023). "The Brother From Another Planet Reimagined What It Meant To Be Lost In America". Downtime. Jambys. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
  8. ↑ "The Brother from Another Planet (1984)". On the Set of New York. May 2015. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
  9. ↑ Ritchey, Jessica (February 13, 2017). "How to Live in This World: On The Brother from Another Planet". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
  10. ↑ Jawetz, Gil (June 6, 2002). "The Return of The Brother from Another Planet: The John Sayles Interview". DVDtalk.com. Retrieved 2012-09-09.
  11. ↑ Harmetz, Aljean (25 October 1983). "John Sayles is Secure at Last". The New York Times.
  12. ↑ "The Brother from Another Planet". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango . Retrieved January 29, 2024.
  13. ↑ Vincent Canby (September 14, 1984). "Sayles's Brother". The New York Times . Retrieved 2010-08-13.
  14. ↑ Roger Ebert (January 1, 1984). "The Brother From Another Planet". Chicago Sun-Times . Retrieved 2010-08-13.
  15. ↑ Noel Murray (October 14, 2003). "Return Of The Secaucus 7 (DVD) / Men With Guns (DVD) / The Brother From Another Planet (DVD) / Lianna (DVD)". The A.V. Club . Retrieved 2010-08-13.
  16. ↑ Attanasio, Paul (1984-11-16). "Listen to 'Brother'". Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  17. ↑ Roeper, Richard (April 20, 2020). "'Time Warp' sheds light on cult movies and the diehards who love them". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
  18. ↑ Fiedler, Martynne (25 Jan 2024). "48 Facts About The Movie The Brother From Another Planet". Facts.net. Retrieved January 29, 2024.
  19. ↑ 1985 Sundance Film Festival Archived 2012-01-31 at the Wayback Machine sundance.org
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.