The Man Who Saw Tomorrow

The Man Who Saw Tomorrow is a 1981 documentary-style movie about the predictions of French astrologer and physician Michel de Notredame (Nostradamus).

The Man Who Saw Tomorrow is narrated (one might say "hosted") by Orson Welles. The film depicts many of Nostradamus' prediction 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 (at the time) the next millennium. In particular, as may be expected with Hollywood films, the subject matter seems rather slanted to the projections that affect the United States and its 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.