Soylent Green

[snousle]

The latest classic film I've found time to watch was Soylent Green. Not knowing much about it beyond its famous punch line, I had assumed it was a campy B-movie. So I was a little surprised to discover that it was actually a serious and fairly thoughtful film.

Interesting that in '72, the film could identify global warming as the cause of the end of the world with only minimal exposition; I was not aware that this idea was so broadly recognized at the time. Everything about the world of this film is entirely plausible, except for the date. Considering the ages of the characters and what they said about their youth, having it set in 2022 makes no sense at all. A hundred years later would have been a more logical choice.

An interesting philosophical point for me was the idea that, in a world without nature, images of the long-gone natural world would evoke a strong response in someone who had never seen it themselves. The suicide scene was one of the strongest statements about the "spiritual" role of nature I've ever seen in film. Ty could have just shrugged his shoulders and said "Hm, that's pretty weird", and in so doing, demonstrated his complete adaptation to the post-apocalyptic world. What the film is telling us is that, no, it doesn't work that way; that the destruction of nature leaves a gap in the human spirit that can never be filled.

[I cannot help but contrast this to George Carlin's vicious, unbelievably stupid take on the value of endangered species. I used to think he was kind of witty, but this clip convinced me that no, he's just another loud-mouthed douchebag.]

I won't give away any spoilers about the ending (LOL) but it's not exactly a cheerful message. Bill saw it when it was first released, and said that at the time it was considered shocking. It's hard for me to imagine a time when depictions of the apocalypse weren't already overdone.

Comments

[budmassey.livejournal.com]

Do you not wish you hadn't known the punchline?

[snousle.livejournal.com]

It might have made it more interesting. But then again, I saw The Crying Game with innocent eyes, and thought the "surprise" was so bloody obvious that I spent most of the film wondering why it wasn't being mentioned.

[budmassey.livejournal.com]

Movie spoilers suck. Someone told me the day before I saw "The Sixth Sense" to "believe what you see." Well, as soon as I saw Bruce Willis fall on the bed with dark blood coming from his backside, I knew he was dead.

DAMMIT! Spoiled the whole experience.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Re: Carlin. No, definitely not "just another loud-mouthed douchebag." Keep in mind that while he didn't say "sacred cows make the best hamburger" it's something that definitely applies to his work.

That said, and as big a fan as I am of his work, not everything that fell out of his mouth was golden, either. But looking at the entirety of his work and how hard he fought for free expression - right up there with Lenny Bruce and Larry Flynt - I cannot possibly let that broad dismissal because of one item (frankly, out of context to boot) go by.

I'm glad you actually watched Soylent Green - the iconic tag line has indeed led a lot of people to assume weird things about the movie. One of the parallels I drew in my mind was to the City culture in certain Isaac Asimov's novels - The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, etc. around the issue of food. In Soylent Green we see strawberry jam treated as an exotic, expensive rarity... and in The Robots of Dawn, Elijah Baley is shocked by the flavor and texture of natural foods - in the Cities, "fruit" (for example) is always as jams or sauces or in some other form where the suggestion is that the actual fruit content is quite low, and most of it is some kind of extender. Most people in SG have to make do with Soylent's red, yellow and green rations, while in City culture faux foods like "zymoveal" are frequently referred to.

Of course, in both cases a huge population is part of the backdrop of the story, making the kind of food we're used to impossible to sustain.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I linked to the wrong clip - the corrected link is much longer, and more damning.

I stick by the vicious-and-stupid judgment. It is equivalent to saying that genocide doesn't matter because "people die all the time" and "most cultures that ever lived are long gone". He would never get away with that. Why should he be excused for this?

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

If this was the only video I had seen of him, I would think he's just another conservative hack. What is more disturbing than his off base comments, is the audience reaction. They cheer him on.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Of course they do! You're Smarter Than A Thousand Scientists (TM) is always a popular message.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

I've seen that entire show several times; I believe I've seen ALL his HBO specials at least once. I have all his comedy albums, and have listened to them repeatedly. As he once said in one of his routines about how we use language - "Context, Context, CONTEXT!" So he has ONE routine/rant you dislike; I do have to wonder, how much of his work are you actually familiar with? I'm reminded of people who say they hate a musical artist because they dislike the ONE song of that artist that they've ever heard. (Hence the reason I now describe that situation as "I've not heard anything from [whoever] that I've liked.")

I don't agree with the "we shouldn't worry about the planet" bit, but I think he's frankly working completely over your head - the whole "don't worry about the planet" thing is misdirection; his point is about humanity. "The planet's not going anywhere.... WE ARE!" -- where he neatly summarizes the point that in his opinion, as a species we're too vicious, stupid -- and short-sighted -- to avoid exterminating ourselves.

And frankly, he's right - unless we manage to blow the planet into another asteroid belt, it'll be here until the sun turns into a red giant - and by that stage, even if we'd never existed, I doubt it would have the same ecosystem billions of years from now as it did 5000 years ago. And from what I've seen, a lot of people who claim to be interested in the environment DO just want a nice place to live for themselves, and don't give a fuck if the people who make their sneakers in China are choking on pollution.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I really don't give a rats ass about the rest of his work. Edit: OK, I would say that if this was uncharacteristic of him and his routines were generally respectful towards issues that actually mattered, and generally got people engaged in them rather than merely throwing stones, then I would forgive him one supremely idiotic video clip. But I've had at least some exposure to his work and have not, so far, found anything that redeems this. Feel free to prove me wrong!

It's not like I didn't get his point in the longer clip - I know his "point about humanity" all too well. And I know that this sort of casual nihilism is merely a cover for intellectual sloth and cheap shots against anyone who actually cares about the subject at hand. It's not like the world needs more cynicism.

I'm a fatalist, too, but unlike him, I actually give enough of a damn to think its worth understanding what's at stake when it comes to environmental degradation. The intellectual dishonesty of this piece is so thick it's hard to disentangle all the fallacies and prevarications. It's practically a case study in weasel words and the conflation of incommensurate facts. And in that sense, it is actively destructive. Can one act be so egregiously awful as to cast doubt on his entire life's work? Sure as hell it can. The best that could be said about this piece is that he's willfully ignorant. But he seems a little much too eager to tear down the work of others in order to strike a superior pose and gratify his own ego. That's pretty much the definition of "douchebag".

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

You quit using my lover's name in a negative manner, mister!

[flamedryad.livejournal.com]

i just saw this movie like a month ago yet i have always known the punchline. also for some reason it had no punch no force behind the messege.

[flamedryad.livejournal.com]

and i don't agree with you on carlin. i just watched the clip you
submitted and all he is saying is
things i have heard about for
years. or maybe it just because i
agree with him. people need to
learn to take care of their own
shit i think charities in general
are a waste of time, money, and
resources. most of the time they
seem like nothing more then a way
for people to feel self important.
look at me i saved a whale. bull
shit you gave 10 bucks to go to
saving whales. most of which were
not in danger till we showed up.
so no i refuse to worry about the
planet till i have taken care of my
hemisphere, my quadrant, my
section, my country , my region, my
state, my county, my city, my
neighborhood, my house, my self.
why because starving your self to
feel the people of ugundi is
counter productive. if you die
feeding them then who will take up
that mantle. sorry i am whining or
ranting i not sure which.

the TLDR version is i agree we need
to take care of ourselves before we
take care of another. it is like in
an airplane while yes it is noble
to help someone with their air mask
make sure yours is secure first
so that you can help that other person.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you will find plankton wafers to be absolutely delicious.

[flamedryad.livejournal.com]

NOM the plankton

[jstregyr.livejournal.com]

A great SF film for its time. One of Edgar G Robinson's finest performances (although his sarcastic "nyah, where's your G-d now, Moses" line from The Ten Commandments is precious). Soylent Green is his last movie: he died 9 days after filming wrapped; when Heston cries in the euthanasia scene, he's not acting as he was the only one on the set who knew EGR had terminal cancer.

Leela: "... there's already a soda like that - Soylent Cola."
Fry: "Oh. How is it?"
Leela: "It varies from person to person."
-- Fry and the Slurm Factory (Futurama)

[darkphuque.livejournal.com]

I saw it when it first came out, but had to wait ten years to see it a second time to fully understand it.

There was a book back that I read back in the 70's called No Blade of Grass. A British movie was made of it, but it was never very popular here. The premise is that a virus develops that attacks only members of the grass family, and its consequences on the world. The book scared the hell out of me. I think I was in Grad School when I read it.

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

Duke and I watched No Blade of Grass late one night. I thought it was a good. Duke had seen it before.

[darkphuque.livejournal.com]

I thought it was good... for a British film. It just never played any of the big theatres, and if you see it on TV; its always a post midnight showing.
The book was superb.

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

Funny, I think I have the same negative feelings for British media ... in one word: Stuffy. Except, of course, for James Bond.

When I wuz a kid, my high school force-fed me British crap.

My crowning glory was when I stood up in class with a book called 'Great Expectations' and yelled out: "I refuse to read a book where the main character is named PIP!"

[darkphuque.livejournal.com]

I think perhaps you misunderstood me. I don't dislike British entertainment as a whole... for that matter I am a profound lover of the BBC. Their News programs are much better than USA's formats. Their historical series Like Sherlock Holmes, The 6 Wives of Henry the 8th, etc; along with almost all British humour programs are, in many ways, superior to much of what is produced here. After all, Ab Fab is legendary.

Sadly British cinema during the 70's & 80's was trashy... but today British Cinema is quite good.

There are things in British TV that I don't like, but then there is a lot in American/Canadian TV.

[bbearseviltwin.livejournal.com]

Soylent Green was also made from a book as well, I believe it was called "Make Room, Make Room"

[urso.livejournal.com]

Wow. Soylent Green.

I saw Soylent Green on a small black-and-white television when I was about 10 years old. I only saw parts of it, but it frightened the hell out of me. I honestly thought this was really going to be what my future was like.

For many, MANY months, I had trouble going to sleep because I kept having horrible nightmares about a dystopian future. I remember in one dream I was somehow responsible for sucking all of the oxygen out of a large indoor mall crowded with people living there. I saw so afraid to go to sleep... and I didn't want to tell my parents because I was afraid they'd yell at me.

It was a very scary time.

I have the book, but I've never read it... and I have the movie on our hard drive, but I haven't watched it yet.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Seems like the 70s were a traumatizing time for young people. I was terrified by the concept of ritual suicide - I'm pretty sure I saw Logan's Run when I was quite young, and of course that was also the time of the Jonestown incident. Not quite understanding it all, and hearing things like "nobody can resist the power of cults", I figured I would somehow get sucked into it myself!

[urso.livejournal.com]

I remember the whole cult thing being big, too.

I was really worried about somehow getting "tricked" into being a cult.

At the time, my divorced parents were having me going to a Unitarian Universalist church on alternate weekends and a Southern Baptist church on alternate weekends. The Baptists were always telling me that Unitarianism was a cult. Over and over. Unitarians are a cult.

Years later, I'd move to Boston and see Unitarian churches from the 17th Century... next to upstart Baptist churches.

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

I'm like Bill: I saw it when it was new.

Being young, I didn't have much of a concept of the world. But about a decade ago, I began conjuring up memories of it, and realized that ... for a Sci-fi movie ... man, it's right on!

All of those futuristic movies where millions are living on the streets, crime is rampant, and there's a few millionaires that control the world ... hey, we ain't very far from that right now!

Would love to see Soylent Green again.

[jstregyr.livejournal.com]

broduke2000 wrote: "Would love to see Soylent Green again"

You'll get your chance: they're remaking Soylent Green for a 2012 release.